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Organization Chart
Filtration Inc.
Controls Inc.
Importance of Human Resources Management in Organizations in China The labor environment in China is influenced by six major factors.They are National Economic Plans, the Four Modernization Programs, Political Leadership, Chinese Cultural Values, Labor Unions, and the Special Economic Zonesthat is, SEZs. The SEZs were created specially for the conduct of the joint ventures with overseas countries.The main characteristics of the SEZs that are found in a joint venture are their dominating influence on matters pertaining to the employment wage system, organizational structure, management roles, and decision making. One of the most interesting aspects of Chinese HRM is the unmistakable influence of some of the traditional cultural values such as guanxi (relationship), renqing (favor), mianzi (face), and bao (reciprocation) in recruitment and selection, training and development, and placement and promotion. There is a definite political element involved in the behavior of Chinese Personnel managers; those who are more partyoriented base their decisions on party policies rather than for the good of the company. Maintaining Personnel Files and Their Implications Chinese-style personnel management generally does not forgive or forget any real or imagined past transgressions by employees under their jurisdiction. Any past mistakes or offenses committed by the employee are duly recorded in the employee's file and are often used against that person. To hire someone from another company, the other company must release the prospective employee's file. This contains the employee's work record and entitles him or her to benefits accorded to workers in the state sector. If the employer is not willing to release the file and the employee leaves, he or she loses the benefits, a risk few Chinese are willing to take. Many foreign companies have been able to complete transfers only after compensating the other company. The average payoff has been about 1,000 yuan (in 1992), a very modest amount in $US but one-half of one month's salary for a translator. The Chinese can be said to be ethnocentric, that is, the belief that one's own national or regional management practices are superior. This can carry over into the review and acceptance of an employee's file from other provinces. The employee's previous place of employment can impact his future job prospects. In this case, the Shanghainese would look with disfavor on an employee file (and therefore the individual) from the poorer, less sophisticated Chongming Dao area. A related culture difference is that a foreign manager would examine an employee's file from the perspective of performance, whereas a Chinese manager would review the file to learn of an individual's seniority and to see if there is a history of causing dissention. Rank There are no official class distinctions in China, but rank among businesspeople and government bureaucrats is very important. It is very important that you know the rank of the individual you are likely to deal with and your response should be consistent with the rank. Connections and rank gain one access to the tequari or special privileges. If the top official is accompanied by the second in rank, all the discussion should be directed toward the top official and the second in rank might as well not be present. Manufacturing and Quality Control in China In general, the Chinese have only a rudimentary understanding of quality concepts. They almost always carry out 100% inspections to "control" quality. Because the Chinese have become accustomed to inferior quality goods, producing goods of high quality is often not perceived by workers to be important. Those items that do not pass quality control are offered to the employees free of charge. There is great variety in the quality of technology used in China. For the most part the technological level resembles that of the United States in the 1950s. There is scant computerization. Materials handling is done manually. Machinery is bulky and frequently needs repair. Scheduling of work is almost nonexistent, though work itself is assigned to groups. A typical manufacturing operation is very laborintensive, and in most cases there is an excessively large workforce. Production planning is usually based on the number of hours to be worked rather than on the number of units to be manufactured. Infrastructure China's economy suffers from weak infrastructure. Electricity is unavailable at times (especially if the firm has exceeded its quota). Roads need repairs, train shipments are more often than not late, factory allocations of raw materials are (occasionally) routed to other units, and the communication systems can be considered a nightmare.
Additional Note
Neither Geert Hofstede's original study (Hofstede, 1980) nor his later work (Hofstede and Bond, 1988) included China as a country of analysis. However, Hong Kong and Taiwan were included in both instances. The results were similar for Power Distance (Large), Individualism (Low), Uncertainty Avoidance (Low), and Confucianism (High), differing only in Masculinity (Hong Kong, high, and Taiwan, low).We would therefore expect top-down decision making, centralized authority, little participative management, tolerance of uncertainty, and authority vested only in the most senior employees.This confirms the events described in the case.