Conflict and Innovation in International Joint Ventures: Toward a New Sinified Corporate Culture or ‘Alternative Globalization’ in China

Abstract

Deng Xiaoping's open-door economic policy provides an opportunity for international economic cooperation and development. Our study attempts to investigate how conflicts between Chinese workers and foreign investors as manifested in human resources management arise, evolve and get resolved in Sino–foreign joint ventures. It hypothesizes that conflicts as such can be functional or dysfunctional and that both partners believe that it is in their best interest to resolve the conflicts. The conflict resolution process witnesses all parties engaging in a process of purposeful learning and unlearning and creating a new sinified corporate culture that best suits the evolving business culture and social milieu in China today – as China experiments with the idea of developing socialism with Chinese characteristics. The guiding conceptual framework of our study is that of convergence theory. We argue that the socio-economic and cultural convergence between China and the West has produced a common hybrid of cross-cultural innovations in China or, in a global perspective, ‘alternative cultural globalization’. This hybridizing convergence is best exemplified by the gradual localization and sinification of the Western corporate culture in Sino–foreign enterprises in China today.

Keywords:

• conflict
• international joint ventures
• China
• hybridization
• convergence

Acknowledgement

This paper reports research supported by Hong Kong Baptist University through a Faculty Research Grant. The authors wish to acknowledge the contribution of Bertrand Wong to their research.

Notes

¹ Interview in Sino–foreign joint venture No. 1, transcript p. 32.

² Interview in Sino–foreign joint venture No. 2, transcript p. 5.

³ Interview in Sino–foreign joint venture No. 4, transcript p. 10.

⁴ Interview in Sino–foreign joint venture No. 7, transcript p. 3.

⁵ Interview in Sino–foreign joint venture No. 1, transcript p.2.

⁶ Interview in Sino–foreign joint venture No. 6, transcript p. 2.

⁷ Interview in Sino–foreign joint venture No. 6, transcript p. 3.