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Abstract
This introductory essay provides an overview, as well as a reassessment, of current theory, practice and ongoing research in human resource management ‘with Chinese characteristics’. As the People's Republic of China (PRC) has become inexorably linked to the international economy and increasingly faces the challenges of globalization, its enterprises and people-management have had to adapt to this new, fast-changing environment. The contributions summarized and commented upon here attempt to explain how this has been achieved. They are all based on empirical on-site investigations by specialists in the field and deal with such HRM-related topics as: cross-national comparisons, devolution of HR practices, HRM regional modelling, human capital, globalization, organizational commitment, psychological capital, psychological contracts, supervisors and co-workers, work behaviour, work-family conflicts and the like. The contributors are drawn from a variety of backgrounds and university affiliations in Australia, Canada, Finland, Hong Kong, Japan, PRC, UK and the US.
Acknowledgement
I am grateful to the many anonymous referees who reviewed the contributions set out above and also to the many others who have generously helped with their present advice and/or past collaboration, including John Child, Daniel Z. Ding, Wei Huang, Keith Goodall, Grace O.M. Lee, Jane Nolan, Peter Nolan, Riccardo Peccei, Michael Poole, Zhongming Wang, Shuming Zhao and many others. I also draw on recent work on Asia with John Benson, Chris Rowley and Ying Zhu and a symposium generously organized by the University of Melbourne. At the University of Cambridge, the Judge Business School, as well as Wolfson College, have been, as ever, highly supportive, as has been the Cass Business School, City University, London. The following universities must be thanked for hosting me in recent years, City University of Hong Kong and the University of Hong Kong, as well as Nanjing University, Tsinghua University and Zhejiang University. As usual, Penny Smith provided the expected admirably efficient administrative back-up at the journal. I must also acknowledge, on the publisher's side, the backing of Alan Jarvis and Peter Sowden, at Routledge as well as Gail Carter for her invaluable help.
Notes
1. This phrase is attributed to Deng Xiaoping, but long before that Mao Zedong had observed that socialism had to be adapted to Chinese circumstances. He formally called for the ‘sinification’ of Marxism in October 1938 at the Sixth Plenum of the Sixth Central Committee (Schram Citation1989, p. 84).
2. Gerd Hofstede has measured values in over 40 countries – see his ‘Confucian dynamic’ vis à vis Chinese culture (Hofstede Citation2001).
3. Deng Xiaoping, who launched his reform programme in the late 1970s, observed that, ‘Some people are afraid that China will take the capitalist road if it tries to achieve the Four Modernizations with the help of foreign investment. No, we will not take the capitalist road. The bourgeoisie no longer exist in China. There are still former capitalists, but their class status has changed. Although foreign investment, which belongs to the capitalist economy, occupies a place in our economy, it accounts for only a small portion of it and thus will not change China's social system. Achievement of common prosperity characterizes socialism, which cannot produce an exploiting class’ (Deng Citation1979, p. 1).
4. Wang (Citation2007, p. 118) describes how China needed ‘to adopt the prevailing international norms of rational management, meritocracy, rule of law and adaptation to replace the old system of irrational management, virtuocracy and seniority, rule of man and rigidity’ (2007, p. 18). With regard to globalization, she continues, most Chinese policymakers recognize it as ‘inevitable and potentially beneficial to China’ (2007, p. 18). This strategy led to joining international bodies such as the World Trade Organization (WTO), as well as the International Labour Organization (ILO). Citing the contemporary Chinese philosopher Li Zehou, whose message was mixing ‘Western essence with Chinese function’ (xiti zhongyong), she argues that modernization has even been identified with Westernization as an intrinsic element. However, conservatives may want to limit its influence to the economic sphere; they do not want to see Chinese ‘values’ compromised (2007, p. 19).
5. See Luthans et al. in this collection on looking beyond such negative aspects to the positive ones, such as what they call ‘psychological capital’.
6. The lower figure was due mainly to the underestimate built into the official figures, as they formerly did not count the first three years of those laid-off (xiagang) (see Lee and Warner Citation2007).
7. Some observers think cosmetic reforms are not enough, ‘Social injustice in China has structural roots. Without substantial changes to China's economic structure, any policy aimed at improving income disparities and increasing social justice can hardly be effective. Despite the establishment of the policy discourse of building a “harmonious society,” it is still unclear what effective measures the Chinese leadership will take to realise this ambitious goal’ (Zheng and Chen Citation2007, p. 1).There are many critics of the Chinese labour laws who see them as inadequately protecting the workers' interests and anticipating a ‘melt-down’ of worker-management relations (see for example, Chan Citation2001; Cai Citation2006; Lee Citation2007). Regular accounts of labour rights abuses appear on the China Labour Bulletin website: http.//www.clb.org.hk/public/main
8. According to the ACFTU, a total of 862,000 collective contracts were signed nationally in 2006, involving 112.5 million workers. The figures were putatively up 14.3% and 8.3%, respectively, on the previous year (China Daily Citation2007a, 25 May).
9. But there are many critics of the system who see it as not adequately protecting the workers' interests (see for example, Chan Citation2001; Cai Citation2006; Lee Citation2007).
10. A recent report ‘A Resolution on the Major Issues Concerning the Building of a Socialist Harmonious Society’ adopted at the Sixth Plenum of the Sixteenth CCP Central Committee 11 October 2006, sets this out as follows, ‘Social harmony is the intrinsic nature of socialism with Chinese characteristics and an important guarantee of the country's prosperity, the nation's rejuvenation, and the people's happiness. The building of a socialist harmonious society is an important strategic task, which was put forward partly under the guidance of Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought, Deng Xiaoping Theory, and the important thinking on the “Three Represents”’, … It continues further, ‘No society can have no contradictions. Human society has been developing and progressing amid movements of all kinds of contradiction. The building of a socialist harmonious society is a sustained process during which social contradictions are resolved’. After dealing with ideological and institutional considerations, the text goes on to propose the ways of ensuring social equality and improving the income distribution system, for example, ‘We should strengthen regulation and control over enterprise wages, increase guidance in this regard and bring the guiding role of information about the wage guiding line, labour-market price, and industrial labour cost into play in the wage level’. It goes on to specify how the Party can act out a greater role in the building of a socialist harmonious society. It continues, ‘They should step up the improvement of the party's leadership over trade unions, the Communist Youth League (CYL), women's federations, and other mass organizations and support them in playing their role in maintaining close ties with the masses, serving and educating, and protecting their legitimate rights and interests.’ (See Quarterly Chronicle and Documentation Citation2007, pp. 261ff).
11. See Shuming Zhao on ‘Human Capital’ in the PRC in this collection.
12. Replication ‘occurs via people observing one another, through training and education, learning appropriate rules of behaviour and interacting with machines and documents’ (Aldrich and Reuf Citation2006, p. 24). There may, on the other hand, be limitations to ‘inter-organizational learning’, where there are ‘impermeable organizational boundaries’ (2006, p. 25).
13. On the relationship between the ‘globalness’ of MNCs and HRM, see the paper by Ji et al. in this collection.
14. For example, see contributions in this collection by respectively: Choi; Rotondo and Xie; Gamble and Huang; Wang; Si et al.
15. See Cherrie Zhu et al.'s study on the devolution of HRM practices, in this collection, for example.
16. We can also see in the research by Wang and Wang, in this collection, that the regional factor is an important one to consider.
17. Xu et al. (Citation2006) found that both domestic non-state-owned firms and foreign-invested enterprises performed better than SOEs. However, three categories of Chinese firms – privately owned, collectively owned, and shareholding – enjoyed higher performance levels than the foreign-invested enterprises.
18. Like many academic and other visitors to China in the early days of the economic reforms, the present writer was taken to see the vast steel-works like Shougang and to interview managers, workers and trade union officials there. It was a ‘show-case SOE’, together with joint ventures like Beijing Jeep and various Ministries and Institutes (see Warner Citation1995). Interviews conducted over many years witnessed the transformation from personnel management to HRM in its people-management.
19. See Ji Li et al. on ‘globalness’ in this collection.
20. The present writer interviewed the General Motors HR Director in the early days of the JV's existence in Pudong. It was far ahead of its time in its selection and recruitment procedures, being the only encountered at that date in the late 1990s that used psychometric tests.
21. Again, See Ji Li et al. on ‘globalness’ in this collection.
22. Also see Björkman et al. comparing HRM in China and India in this collection.
23. The present writer has also previously referred to this a ‘soft convergence’.
24. On China's ‘path-dependence’, see Guthrie (Citation1999) and Liew (Citation2005) for further details.