Confucian HRM in Greater China

Theory and Practice

Malcolm Warner

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9780415609784
• eBook ISBN: 9781317982722
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

This volume sets out in search of what we call 'Confucian HRM' in Greater China and beyond. It covers theory and practice not only in the People's Republic of China but also in the Overseas Chinese (Nanyang) Diaspora, namely in Hong Kong and Taiwan, among others. It will seek to understand how far traditional Chinese culture and values continue to influence the degree to which the human resource management (HRM) as adopted in those cultural contexts has been implemented.

Confucian HRM in Greater China includes a wide range of concepts such as Confucian HRM, employee participation, family firms, 'guanxi', learning and job satisfaction, local labour markets, performance-based pay, training policies, and women's roles in employment. A wide range of international contributors provide the reader with diverse theories, methodologies and perspectives, arguing that the continuity of traditional Chinese values is indeed still empirically observable in the contemporary practice of people-management in Greater China. The contributors are all experts in their fields who teach and research on HRM in many faculties throughout the world.

This book was originally published as a special issue of The International Journal of Human Resource Management.

In search of Confucian HRM: theory and practice in Greater China and beyond

Malcolm Warner

University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

This contribution is part of a wider Symposium on people management in the heartland of Asia. It sets out in search of what might be conceptualized as ‘Confucian human resource management (HRM)’, in Greater China and beyond. It will cover not only the People’s Republic of China (PRC) but also the Overseas Chinese (Nanyang) Diaspora, namely in Hong Kong and Taiwan, among other places. It will seek to understand how far traditional Chinese values still continue to influence the degree to which HRM has been adopted. The main conclusion we come to is that the continuity of traditional Chinese values is empirically still observable in the contemporary practice of people management but with varying degrees of emphasis.

Introduction

This contribution is part of a wider Symposium on people management in the heartland of Asia. It sets out in search of what might indeed be conceptualized as ‘Confucian HRM’, in Greater China and beyond. It covers not only the People’s Republic of China (PRC) but also the Overseas Chinese (Nanyang) Diaspora, in Hong Kong and Taiwan, amongst other places.¹ It will seek to understand how far traditional Chinese values still continue to be influential in Asian cultural contexts in which HRM has been implemented, all said to have been influenced by what Hofstede and Bond (1988) conceptualized as ‘Confucian dynamism’. This dimension is interesting in that it focuses on what the researchers call ‘time orientation’ and ‘Confucian values’. It is based on their work in their Chinese Value Survey which was originally developed in ‘Middle Kingdom’ by the Chinese Culture Connection (1987). The essential purpose of their concept is to identify what they call the ‘time orientation of cultures’. A high score on this dimension suggests a culture’s tendency to a ‘future-minded’ mentality. They base it, in part at least, on the work of that nation’s most important thinker, namely, Confucius, or Kungzi in pinyin (551–479BC),² a significant influence too on cultural values in other parts of East Asia, such as Japan and South Korea, amongst others.

‘Deconstructing’ Chinese culture and history is, however, not necessarily straightforward – as a recent scholarly contribution contends:

While the culture may be dominated by a certain ideological perspective at a certain historical stage, for a certain domain of life, and in a certain situation, the Chinese are no strangers to alternative divergent ideologies including those taking the individualist, the relationalist, and the collectivist perspectives. The individualist perspective views people as primarily independent individuals rather than members of communities, places priority on individual rights and interests, and promotes social exchanges with other individuals and communities for the fulfillment and satisfaction of individuals’ rights and interests. The relationalist perspective views people as social and relational beings, that is, as members of social communities rather than independent individuals, places priority on duties and obligations to other individuals and communities to which an individual is affiliated, and engages in maintaining and enhancing the common welfare of the community. The collectivist perspective views people as either individuals or as members of communities or both, but it places priority on the interest and welfare of superordinate communities over either individual or subordinate communities and engages in activities that promote the common welfare of superordinate communities. The classic Confucianism is probably the most typical form of relationalism. In theory, Confucianists seemed to advocate collectivism rather than relationalism. However, Confucian philosophy saw more commonality and complementarity between small communities and their more encompassing communities. (Chen and Lee 2008, p. 7).

The Chinese belief-system is seemingly able to synthesize what often appear to be competing, paradoxical or even contradictory notions (see Warner 2009).

Hierarchy, perseverance and thrift, arguably among the central facets of Confucianism, are furthermore held to be common values associated with economic performance in Asian contexts, although there are robust critiques of this view (see Kwon 2007, for example). Confucian notions are specifically pinpointed as highly influential in the Greater China (Nanyang) Diaspora, in locations such as Hong Kong and Taiwan, although opinions differ as to how far this is the case (see Selmer and De Leon 2003; Chou 2003; Lin and Ho 2009).

However, another strong influence on Chinese thought and behaviour is Daoism, which is associated with the writings of Laozi (possibly a contemporary of Confucius, although this is not clear³); he appears not to have favoured hierarchy at all. Confucianism may indeed be seen as proactive but Daoism focuses on what is dubbed active ‘non-action’, the so-called wu wei, later said to have been taken up by eighteenth century European Enlightenment economic thinkers – anticipating the concept of laissez faire⁴ (see Gerlach 2005). A further important influence on Chinese ways of looking at the world but here more narrowly focusing on managing conflict has been Sun Tzu or Sunzi (possibly as early as the sixth century BC) who wrote the famous military handbook, The Art of War (Bingfa), now widely used as a management text not only in the East but also in the West (see Lamond and Zheng 2010).⁵

What is clear, as Rarick (2009) points out, is that:

As China continues its movement towards a capitalistic economy it will be doing so under the influence of the great thinkers from China’s past. The Chinese approach to economic change, pioneered by Deng Xiaoping has been one of long-term thinking and gradual movement towards capitalism, with attention paid to the losers of economic reform. This approach is consistent with a collectivist society and one that has been guided by concerns for harmony with authoritarian rule. Likewise, the managerial practices of present day China are influenced by the ideas of China’s early rulers, philosophers, and military strategists whose teachings are embedded in the Chinese psyche. As China becomes increasingly important to the global economy, it becomes increasingly important to understand the mindset of the Chinese. (Rarick 2009, p. 1).

The discussion we now set out returns to a number of themes adumbrated in the introduction to a previous symposium in this journal (Warner 2009). A major paradox dealt with then was related to the diffusion and take-up of HRM in China – in that it argued that the latter was originally a ‘Western’ concept that had in its turn been reinterpreted in an essentially ‘Eastern’, ‘Asian’ or even a specifically ‘Chinese’ Confucian setting. Indeed, this may also be said of a great deal of so-called Western management more generally now found in the PRC.⁶ Many cross-cultural studies (for example, Hofstede (1980) and subsequent work) as we noted, had indeed attempted to observe and calibrate the persistence of indigenous values. Other scholars have explored cultural factors that had influenced management in different Asian societies (see Warner 1994, 1997, 2003a, 2008; Collins, Zhu and Warner 2010). On specifics, some are very firm about Confucianism in Hong Kong (Selmer and De Leon 2003); other less certain about Taiwan (Chou 2003); the most recent comparative survey suggest that there is still widespread adherence to Confucian ethics in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan but that young people on the mainland now identify with it much less so (Lin and Ho 2009, p. 2414). Outside the Greater Chinese (Nanyang) Diaspora, as well, there is also still a strong influence in Japan (Jackson and Tomioka 2004) as well as in South Korea (see Dore 1987; Rowley and Paik 2009).

Moreover, it may also seem odd to some that Confucianism which was once associated with backwardness by many sociologists such as Weber (1905) and his followers, may now be seen as reconcilable with modernism (on this debate, see Habermas 1984, p. 2; Goody 1996, p. 39; Trescott 2007, pp. 25–26). The former view saw the Confucian value of ‘self-perfection’ of the individual as a bar to capitalism’s progress, as opposed to developing ‘practical’ skills (see Moulder 1977). Others disagreed (for example, Vogel 1991) as they thought that cultivating one’s self may lead to ‘constructive’ learning of work-related skills. Huan-Chang Chen (see Chen 1911), who was the first Chinese-born student to be awarded a doctorate in Economics at Columbia University, in New York, depicted Confucius as a promoter of economic growth and prosperity in his classic study on the topic but there are nonetheless many ambiguities vis-à-vis the role of political economy in the Chinese classics (see Trescott 2007, p. 65).⁷

In order to resolve the contradictions of contemporary Chinese society (see Chan 2001; Cheng 2004; Lee 2007), the ideologists of Sino-Marxism have arguably given it a Confucian face, as we recently noted (Warner 2009). By doing so, the current Chinese leadership has tried to legitimate its single-party rule as a part of a long-standing Chinese tradition of benevolent and enlightened government – and ensuring social order is maintained – under the banner of the ‘Harmonious Society’, the political catchphrase of the current President, Hu Jintao. As an observer of Chinese politics has recently claimed:

Hu’s strategy for China’s development has differed profoundly from his predecessors. Concerns about social cohesion have overcome the old model’s emphasis on economic efficiency, a more balanced regional development has replaced the previous coastal development strategy, and a people-centred rhetoric (yiren weiben) has downplayed the GDP [gross domestic product]-centred drive. (Li 2005, p. 8)⁸

‘Harmony’ has become a major theme in contemporary Chinese Marxist ideology, as we shall strongly emphasize in this contribution, particularly stemming from the redefinition of Confucianism in the twentieth century, a process said to have started in the 1920s (see Sole-Farras 2008, p. 14ff). The historical continuity of Confucianism has been a consistent theme in the Chinese narrative, even in recent times, with perhaps only Mao Zedong daring to break the mould as he was explicitly anti-Confucian, but with his successors returning to the fold soon after (2008, p. 14).

The influence of Confucius, therefore, has now again become prominent in many aspects of Chinese public life (see Bell 2008; Makeham 2008; Warner 2008) and indeed waxes as fast as that of Mao wanes. The main reason for this may well be closely related to the social and economic dilemmas now facing the People’s Republic of China (PRC) such as reconciling modernity with traditional values, as we shall soon see. The Chinese Communist Party (henceforth CCP or ‘Party’) now co-sponsors a form of Confucian capitalism (see Yao 2002; Redding and Witt 2007; Warner 2009) as it seeks a new ideological bridge ‘with Chinese characteristics’, to help cement social stability in an economy which still manages to achieve a remarkably high rate of GDP per capita, for example, 8.7% in 2009, in spite of the global down-turn (World Bank 2010).⁹ The CCP’s policy balancing-act aims to reconcile the contradictions of the vast income and wealth inequalities found in contemporary Chinese society, indeed now comparable with those in the rest of Asia, with its own proclaimed social goals of ‘equity’ and ‘justice’ but at the same time avoiding the political challenges of a Western-style ‘civil society’. China had seen over a decade of significant ‘down-sizing’ in its state-owned industries; between 1993 and 2006, 60 million jobs were lost in state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and urban collective sector firms, among other social costs of rapid industrialization and privatization (see Hurst 2009, p. 1). A new ideology, the ‘harmonious society’ was promoted to seek to ease the social tensions that had ensued, to keep the winners in check and to appease the losers. This demarche may be part of a wider geo-political strategy known as the ‘Beijing Consensus’ .¹⁰

The evolution of HRM

Even so, the form of people management China is now adopting is perhaps not as new as it looks and has its origins in the past, hence we must look deeper into how management took root in post-Imperial China.¹¹ The diffusion of forms of so-called ‘modern’ management in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s may here be seen as comparable with that of the rise of ‘scientific management’ in the 1920s and 1930s.

As Morgan (2003) points out:

Where do management ideas come from? How are ideas of management and organization transferred across borders? What is the process of their adaptation to ‘native’ traditions of management organization and practice? These questions, though focused on China during the interwar years, are relevant to the transfer of contemporary management theory and practice to China. Even the phrase ‘scientific management’ has been invoked as a means to improve the competitiveness of contemporary Chinese enterprises, by no lesser than former President Jiang ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Notes on Contributors
• 1. In search of Confucian HRM: theory and practice in Greater China and beyond
• 2. A survey of Chinese human resource management research in China
• 3. An empirical study of human resource management practices in family firms in China
• 4. Managing human resources in SMEs in a transition economy: evidence from China
• 5. A study of subordinate–supervisor guanxi in Chinese joint ventures
• 6. Effects of human resource diversity management on organizational citizen behaviour in the Chinese context
• 7. HRM lives inside and outside the firm: employers, skill shortages and the local labour market in China
• 8. Job training provision by employers – an institutional analysis of employees in Hong Kong
• 9. Employee participation in decision making, psychological ownership and knowledge sharing: mediating role of organizational commitment in Taiwanese high-tech organizations
• 10. Performance-based pay, procedural justice and job performance for R&D professionals: evidence from the Taiwanese high-tech sector
• 11. Women’s participation in employment in Asia: a comparative analysis of China, India, Japan and South Korea
• 12. Learning and work satisfaction in Asia: a comparative study of Japanese, Chinese and Malaysian managers
• Index