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2020 | OriginalPaper | Chapter

5. Living to Work

Author : Paul Ross

Published in: Barriers to Entry

Publisher: Springer Singapore

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Abstract

This chapter complements the previous chapter that described the roles foreign employees play in realizing a Chinese company’s international aspirations by supplementing an experiential dimension to the elements already introduced. In this context, ‘experience’ refers to the working conditions and unique challenges foreign employees face once they have joined a Chinese company, but is defined broadly enough to encompass the very first encounter that a foreign employee, or potential employee, may have with a Chinese company and the initial impressions formed from that encounter.

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previous chapter Roles and Responsibilities

next chapter Bamboo Ceiling

The company has recently developed and begun distributing an updated version of the brochure (see Philip Candice LinkedIn blog https://www.linkedin.com/in/philip-candice-40026a5/).

Gorfinkel (2011, page 288). Gorfinkel, L., Performing the Chinese Nation: The Politics of Identity in China Central Television’s Music-Entertainment Programs (PhD), University of Technology, Sydney, 2011.

Stanley’s terminology for this is “using an ‘Other’ in the construction of the ‘Self’”.

“An American at Alibaba” video dated August 2016 appears on the AGLA website.

Described on AGLA program website https://agla.alibaba.com/.

To this point, a number of participants in the AGLA program expressed their displeasure at being taken to quintessential tourist sites (Great Wall, Tiananmen Square, Terra-cotta soldiers, etc.) on trips organized by the company to “acquaint” them with China’s history and culture. These were places with which they were already quite familiar and that provided very little entrée into Chinese society, the aspect of China they were most interested in and curious about. Seen in the context of activities organized by other Chinese companies for foreign staff this appears to be another example of a standard fixture of corporate protocol that is not meant as an educational program.

Compensation as a motivator is taken for granted and not called out. However, it was not mentioned directly in the discussions conducted.

By way of comparison, the top four motivations cited by foreigners (Americans) working for Japanese firms were Professional Opportunity, Chance to join a start-up team, Growth potential, Interest. In Kopp, Rochelle, The Rice Paper Ceiling, Stone Bridge Press, 1994, page 73.

According to the TaiwaneseAmerica.org there were 358,000 Taiwanese immigrants in the U.S. in 2010.

227,000 students in the U.S. have enrolled in Chinese language classes “Popularity of Chinese Language Learning Soaring Within U.S. Education System: Survey”, New China (Xinhua), May 5, 2017.

The school offered the opportunity to spend an academic year in China or in Russia and he chose China because of its commercial potential.

There were more than 360,000 students from Mainland China studying at U.S. schools in the 2017–2018 school year (Source: International Institute of Education [IIE] Open Doors 2018 Report, “Places of Origin”, https://www.iie.org/Research-and-Insights/Open-Doors/Data/International-Students/Places-of-Origin).

More than 500 Confucius Institutes in 142 countries worldwide in: “Over 500 Confucius Institutes Founded in 142 Countries, Regions”, China Daily.com.cn, October 7, 2017.

Joseph, Divya Ann, Working in a Chinese Company—A Foreigner’s View Point, blog post, June 16, 2018, https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/working-chinese-company-foreigners-view-point-divya-anne-joseph/.

The assumption is that speculations on motivations for working long hours related to full-time employees who would not receive any additional compensation for extending their time in the office.

In my experience, Chinese colleagues in general have a higher tolerance and threshold for ambient noise and tend to find these sounds less of a distraction.

A number of Chinese interviewed suggested that the motivation for some employees who worked longer hours might be avoidance of a stressful home environment.

Reference to Sooraj Bajartya, a Bollywood director whose films he himself positions as “family-orented”.

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Miller, Nicole, “Your Company Is Not Your Family,” Fast Company, March 15, 2019.

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Title: Living to Work
Author: Paul Ross
Publisher: Springer Singapore
Book: Barriers to Entry
Print ISBN: 978-981-329-565-0

Electronic ISBN: 978-981-329-566-7

Copyright Year: 2020
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-32-9566-7_5