The other Chinese: identity work and self-orientalization of Chinese host country nationals in multinational corporations

ABSTRACT

This paper draws on an in-depth case study of narrative identity work to explore heuristically the role of host country nationals in the reproduction of orientalist discourses in multinational corporations (MNCs). Based on this analysis, it presents an identity strategy termed the other Chinese. The other Chinese claims to be in-between the West, that is constructed as superior modern and rational, and China, that is constructed as backwards and chaotic. This in-betweenness allows the other Chinese to take the role of a mediator between locals and expatriates, and at the same time claim superiority towards normal Chinese. Thus, this identity construction is a creative act of hybridization and localization, but it is not subversive to existing power structures in the MNCs. However, as we show, the construction of the other Chinese is not inextricably bound to the field of the MNCs, but is based on a hybrid and creative entanglement of various sources such as class positions and public discourse in China, in which the MNCs only occupy an insignificant role. It is, therefore, to be understood as an aspect of identity construction in China relevant for MNC identity, rather than an aspect of the transnational field of the MNCs.

KEYWORDS:

• Identity work
• compliance and complicity
• Chinese host country national
• multinational corporation
• orientalism
• postcolonialism
• hybridity

Acknowledgements

We would like to acknowledge the insightful comments of the guest editors and anonymous reviewers and their extremely helpful suggestions. We would like to thank the members of the expatriate manager research project. The research team consisted of Ursula Mense-Petermann (principal investigator), Anna Spiegel (postdoctoral researcher), Junchen Yan and Bastian Bredenkötter (doctoral researchers), and Gert Schmidt, Ruth Ayass, Kathleen M. Park, and Dellvin Williams as cooperation partners. Furthermore, we thank the Bielefeld Graduate School in History and Sociology for their support in conducting our research project.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This article builds in parts on research carried out in the project ‘Expatriate Manager: A New Cosmopolitan Elite? Habitus, Everyday Practices and Networks’ that was funded by the DFG (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft/German Research Foundation, project number: ME 2008/5-1) and hosted by the Institute for World Society Studies at the Faculty of Sociology, Bielefeld University for the duration of May 2011 to April 2015. In addition, support in conducting our research was provided by the Bielefeld Graduate School in History and Sociology.