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Abstract
Most large Chinese corporations publish e-magazines to which employees are encouraged to contribute on various topics, ranging from management and work issues to creative writing and other creative “cultural” work such as poetry, calligraphy and photography. These e-magazines provide a central venue where employees can learn about what is important to the firm's management. They are one of the major vehicles through which large Chinese corporations promote their organisational cultures to employees and inculcate their corporate values. Yet at the same time, they give employees the opportunity to showcase their own talents to a wide audience within the corporation. A close reading of contributions to the e-magazines of several corporations reveals a combination of sometimes contradictory values, including Western management ideas, socialist-style collectivism and lyrical poetic escapism. This mixture reflects the complexity of “subcultures” within Chinese corporations in a rapidly transforming society. It also demonstrates that corporate magazines can be both a management tool for improving firm performance and a vehicle for promoting ideals such as the cultural betterment and self-realisation of employees.
Notes
1. For example, China Mobile, one of the largest wireless service providers in China, does not have a magazine on its website, but in my interview with one of the firm's Beijing subsidiaries in June 2008 the manager told me that each of the firm's 31 provincial subsidiaries publishes at least one in-house magazine, and some publish two or three.
2. The first People's Republic of China [PRC] Company Law was promulgated in 1993, but prototypes of the corporate form – i.e. firms that gave limited liability to their investors – had existed in Communist China since the late 1970s, and corporate legal structures had been adopted much earlier during the Republican period (1911–49) and even as early as the late Qing. See Liu (Citation1998, pp. 7–11), and for more detail, Kirby (Citation1995, pp. 43–63).
3. For example, the Shougang Group, a major iron and steel conglomerate based in Beijing, has published its Shougang Daily since 1953. The publication currently has a circulation of 35,000, plus an online edition. See Shougang Group Citation(n.d.(a)).
4. Some websites have an email address for submissions to the magazine, as with the Sinopec Group's Sinopec News (Sinopec Group, Citationn.d.), or the Tongwei Group's Tongwei Lifestyle magazine (Tongwei Group, Citationn.d.). Others post Calls for Submission of Manuscripts, with the contact details of the editorial committee, as with China Datang's ‘Stories of Dedication’, discussed below.
5. See, for example, the difference between the Zhengtai Group's Zhengtai News and Zhengtai Magazine (Zhengtai Group, Citationn.d.).
6. For a discussion of shareholder primacy theory and other theories of the corporation, see Tomasic et al. (Citation2002, section 2.8).
7. According to its website profile, the firm is now seeking to diversify into internet products and the mining industry, which seems an unusual combination. In 2005, Cosun was ranked 23rd in terms of asset size among Chinese privately-managed enterprises. See Minying jingji xinxiwang (Citation2005).
8. The Group also manufactures biological, chemical and packaging products, and is engaged in real estate and finance.
9. Huawei is famous for promoting a “wolf culture” among its employees – in other words, giving financial incentives for them to work in a pack to sniff out the competition and destroy it. See Wang (Citation2007) and further discussion in the section below on exemplary employees.
10. Tang here refers to the corporation's name Datang, literally Great Tang, but inevitably also conjures up associations with the cultural achievements of the Tang dynasty (ce618–907).
11. Song Yu (c. 3rd century bc) was an ancient poet. The poem ‘Nine Changes’[jiu bian], a long melancholy meditation on the sorrow of autumn found in the Chu ci (Songs of Chu), is normally attributed to him.
12. This couplet appears to be a slight variation on the famous lines of the Tang dynasty poet Liu Yuxi: “Since ancient times, Autumn has been a season of tragedy and loneliness,/But I say that Autumn days are much better than Spring mornings”. The quatrain, entitled ‘Qiu ci’ (Autumn Lyric), continues: “In the clear sky a crane soars up, wings beating the clouds,/It draws my poetic inspiration right up to the azure heavens” (Xiao et al., Citation1983, p. 836).
13. These two images were viewed by the author on Haier's website in July 2006, but have since been removed. Some other examples of painting, calligraphy and traditional paper cuts by employees are still on the website (Haier Group, Citationn.d.).
14. See more examples at Shougang Group (Citationn.d.(c)).
15. For Huawei's “wolf culture”, see note 13 above.
16. For further analysis of this important policy document, see Hawes (Citation2008, pp. 40–42).
17. China Datang has another forum entitled ‘Datang wangtan’ (Datang Network Talk) that seems to fulfil this function: employees post their opinions on various aspects of company operations, many suggesting improvements based on the experiences of the group's subsidiaries (China Datang, Citationn.d.(a)).
18. The most famous example in China is the Haier Group's Haier University, which offers programs in management, corporate culture, strategy, internationalisation, and so on (Haier University, Citationn.d.).