Images of the virtuous employee in China's transitional economy

Document Type

Journal article

Source Publication

Asia Pacific Journal of Management

Publication Date

1-1-2003

Volume

20

Issue

3

First Page

307

Last Page

331

Keywords

China, Ethics, Morality, Propaganda, Tradition

Abstract

We examine contemporary images of employee virtue and managers' perceptions of actual employee conduct in Wuhan, Beijing and Xi'an, drawing on document analysis and structured interviews with 112 respondents in ten case study companies. The image promulgation strategies of the one joint venture enterprise and the two private enterprises in our sample entailed active avowal of tradition linked employee virtue, drawing on a mixture of Communist and Confucian moral imagery. In contrast, most of the seven state-owned or predominantly state invested enterprises had abandoned or marginalized traditional Communist imagery, none promoted Confucian imagery, and two emphasized alternative images of one-sided servility toward the customer. We infer, from managers' accounts, that the abandonment of tradition linked images by the state-owned sector was a tacit acknowledgment of prior covenant violation, and that outside the state-owned sector, tradition linked moral propaganda contributed to moral atmosphere only when part of a consistent high-commitment HRM strategy. In drawing out implications for theory and further research, we note the different socio-political contexts of organizations in China and the West, discuss the relationship between bonds or covenants and psychological contracts, and compare tradition linked employee virtues with dimensions of organizational citizenship.

DOI

10.1023/A:1024045415888

Print ISSN

02174561

E-ISSN

15729958

Publisher Statement

Copyright © 2003 Kluwer Academic Publishers

Access to external full text or publisher's version may require subscription.

Full-text Version

Publisher’s Version

Language

English

Recommended Citation

Snell, R. S., & Tseng, C. S. (2003). Images of the virtuous employee in China's transitional economy. Asia Pacific Journal of Management, 20(3), 307-331. doi: 10.1023/A:1024045415888

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