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Cultural values and human resource management preferences in the People's Republic of China.

Cai, Ziming. 2008. Cultural values and human resource management preferences in the People's Republic of China. PhD Thesis, Cardiff University.

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Abstract

Managing human resources successfully requires a comprehensive understanding of the influences of both internal (for example, size of the organization, nature of industry and organizational life stage) and external (for example, legal, economic and cultural systems) environments of the organization. Of these factors, culture is perhaps the most intangible one, but it has a powerful impact on the management and organization behaviours (Joynt and Warner, 1996). Budhwar and Sparrow (2002) proposed a number of mechanisms that can be used to study the influence of national culture on HRM. One of them is to study the influence of cultural values on HRM preferences. However, in the literature, many studies on culture and HRM are qualitative-based, which further lead to a tendency to either over-exaggerate or over simplify the influences of cultural values on HRM. Some scholars have used quantitative-based methods to analyze the relationships between cultural values and HRM preferences (Sparrow and Wu, 1998; Nyambegera et al., 2000; Chandrakumara and Sparrow, 2004) but little has been done in China. Based on 2852 questionnaires from 102 Chinese companies, this research has explored three research questions: 1. What are the cultural values of Chinese employees? 2. What are the HRM preferences of Chinese employees? 3. What are the relationships between cultural values and HRM preferences? According to the research findings, first, China has a distinct pattern of cultural value orientations, for example, a 'hierarchical collectivism', which is significantly different from most Western cultures. Second, the HRM preferences of Chinese employees are different from that of Western employees, for example, there is a strong 'group orientation' and a strong emphasis on 'soft' factors. Third, based on the data above, the relationships between cultural values and HRM preferences have been analyzed. Some cultural values such as 'collectivism' and 'human nature' have greater predictive power on HRM preferences than other cultural values.

Item Type: Thesis (PhD)
Status: Unpublished
Schools: Business (Including Economics)
Subjects: H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor > HD28 Management. Industrial Management
ISBN: 9781303197024
Date of First Compliant Deposit: 30 March 2016
Last Modified: 09 Jan 2018 22:35
URI: https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/54513

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