Abstract
Although women comprise an important part of the labor force in Hong Kong and the People's Republic of China (PRC), they remain underrepresented and underutilized in managerial positions. This study investigates the applicability of role motivation theory in the Chinese culture and examines if lack of motivation to manage is a potential explanation for this underrepresentation. Data were collected from 127 Hong Kong (68 men and 59 women) and 175 mainland Chinese (128 men and 47 women) managers. As expected, Hong Kong managers possess significantly higher levels of motivation to manage than do their PRC counterparts. There are, however, no significant gender-based differences in levels of motivation to manage in either Hong Kong or the PRC. Lack of motivation to manage does not appear to contribute to the underutilization of Chinese women in management in Hong Kong and mainland China.
Similar content being viewed by others
REFERENCES
Adler, N. J., & Izraeli, D. N. (Eds.). (1994). Competitive frontiers: Women managers in global economy. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.
Bass, B. M., Avolio, B. J., & Atwater, L. (1996). The transformational leadership of Men and Women. Applied Psychology: An International Review, 45(1), 5-34.
Bond, M. H. (Ed.). (1986). The psychology of the Chinese people. HongKong: Oxford University Press.
Cartier, C., & Rothenberg-Aalami, J. (1999). Empowering the “victim”? Gender, development, and women in China under reform. Journal of Geography, 98(6), 283-294.
Chen, C. C., Yu, K. C., & Miner, J. B. (1997). Motivation to manage: A study of women in Chinese state-owned enterprises. Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 33(2), 160-173.
Chia, R. C., Allred, L. J., & Jerzak, P. A. (1997). Attitudes toward women in Taiwan and China: Current status, problems, and suggestions for future research. Psychology ofWomen Quarterly, 21, 137-150.
Chow, I. H.-S. (1995). Career aspirations, attitudes and experiences of female managers in Hong Kong. Women in Management Review, 10(1), 28-32.
Chow, W. S., & Luk, V.W. M. (1996). Management in the 1990s:Acomparative study of women managers in China and Hong Kong. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 11(1), 24-36.
Churchill, G. A., Jr. (1979). A paradigm for developing better measures of marketing constructs. Journal of Marketing Research, XVI, 64-73.
Coakes, S. J., & Steed, L. G. (1996). SPSS for Windows: Analysis without anguish. Brisbane, Australia: Wiley.
de Leon, C. T., & Ho, S. (1994). The third identity of modern Chinese women:Women managers in HongKong. In N. J. Adler & D.N. Izraeli (Eds.), Competitive frontiers:Women managers in a global economy (pp. 43-56). Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.
Eagly, A. H., Karau S. J., Miner, J.B., & Johnson, B. T. (1994). Gender and motivation to manage in hierarchic organizations: A meta-analysis. Leadership Quarterly, 5(2), 135-159.
Eaton, J. S. (1998). Gender issues in transitional China. Multicultural Education, 6(2), 32-35.
Ebrahimi, B. (1984). Measuring the effects of cultural and other explanatory variables on motivation to manage of potential managers from five countries: A case of theory building and theory testing in cross-cultural research. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Georgia State University, Atlanta, Georgia.
Ebrahimi, B. P. (1997). Motivation to manage in Hong Kong: Modification and test of Miner Sentence Completion Scale-H. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 12(6), 401-414.
Ebrahimi, B. P. (1999a). Managerial motivation and gender roles:Astudy of males and females in Hong Kong. Women in Management Review, 14(2), 44-53.
Ebrahimi, B. P. (1999b). Motivation to manage in China: Implications for strategic human resource management. Asia Pacific Business Review, 5(314), 204-222.
Ebrahimi, B., & Miner, J. B. (1991). The cultural dynamics of managerial motivation among students from pan-pacific basin countries. Journal of Global Business, 2(1), 87-98.
Ebrahimi, B., & Young, S. (1996). Managerial motivation: A cross-cultural validity study of Miner Sentence Completion Scale (MSCS). Research in International Business Disciplines, 2, 15-30.
Green, S. B., & Akey, T. M. (1997). Using SPSS for Windows: Analyzing and understanding data. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Hair, J. F., Jr., Anderson, R. E., Tatham, R. L., & Black, W. C. (1998). Multivariate data analysis (5th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Hall-Taylor, B. (1997). “Writing women into management or writing ourselves out: A dilemma for women as authors.” Women in Management Review, 12(8), 309-319.
Hare, D. (1999). Women's economic status in rural China: Household contributions to male-female disparities in the wage-labor market. World Development, 27(6), 1011-1029.
Harzing, A.-W. (1997). Response rates in international mail surveys: Results of a 22-country study. International Business Review, 6(6), 641-665.
Hofstede, G. (1980). Culture's consequences: International differences in work-related values. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
Hofstede, G. (1991). Cultures and organizations: Software of the mind. London: McGraw-Hill.
Hofstede, G. (1995). Gender stereotypes and partner preferences of Asian women in masculine and feminine cultures. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 27(5), 533-546.
Hofstede, G. (1998). Masculinity and femininity: The taboo dimension of national cultures. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
HongKong Government. (1999, March). Half-yearly report of wage statistics. Census and Statistics Department, Hong Kong.
Khan, A. R., Griffin, K., Riskin, C., & Zhao, R. (1992). Household income and its distribution in China. China Quarterly, 131/132, 1029-1061.
Korabik, K. (1992). Women hold up half the sky: The status of managerial women in China. In W. Wedley (ed.), Advances in Chinese industrial studies (pp. 197-211). Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.
Korabik, K. (1993a). Managerial women in the People's Republic of China: The long march continues. International Studies of Management and Organization, 23(4), 47-56.
Korabik, K. (1993b). Women managers in the People's Republic of China: Changing roles in changing times. Applied Psychology: An International Review, 42, 353-363.
Korabik, K. (1994). Managerial women in the People's Republic of China: The long march continues. In N. J. Adler & D. N. Israeli (Eds.), Competitive frontiers: Women managers in global economy (pp. 114-126). Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.
Leung, A. S. M. (1998). Metamorphosis, stasis and retro-metamorphosis: Professional women's struggle for transformation in Post-Mao China. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Lancaster University, United Kingdom.
Macartney, J. (1995, September 5). Equality as defined by the state. Eastern Express (Hong Kong), 7.
Meng, X., & Miller, P. (1995). Occupational segregation and its impact on gender wage discrimination in China's rural industrial sector. Oxford Economic Papers, 47(1), 136-155.
Miner, J. B. (1964). Scoring guide for the Miner Sentence Completion Scale. Eugene, OR: Organizational Measurement Systems Press. (originally published by Springer Publishing Company)
Miner, J. B. (1978). Twenty years of research on role motivation theory of managerial effectiveness. Personnel Psychology, 31, 739-760.
Miner, J. B. (1980). A rationale for the limited domain approach to the study of motivation. In C. C. Pinder & L. F. Moore (Eds.), Middle range theory and the study of organizations (pp. 334-336). Boston: Martinus Nijhoff.
Miner, J. B. (1993). Role motivation theories. London: Routledge.
Miner, J.B., Chen, C.C., & Yu, K.C. (1991).Theory testing under adverse conditions: Motivation to manage in the People's Republic of China. Journal of Applied Psychology, 76, 343-349.
Miner, J. B., Ebrahimi, B., & Wachtel, J. M. (1995). How deficiencies in motivation to manage contribute to America's competitiveness problem (and what can be done about it). Human Resource Management, 34(3), 363-387.
Miner, J. B., Smith, N. R., & Ebrahimi, B. (1985). Further considerations in the decline and stabilization of managerial motivation: A rejoinder to Bartol, Anderson, and Schneier (1980). Journal of Vocational Behavior, 26, 290-298.
Miner, J. B., Wachtel, J. M., & Ebrahimi, B. (1989). The managerial motivation of potential managers in the United States and other countries of the world: Implications for national competitiveness and the productivity problem. Advances in International Comparative Management, 4, 147-170.
Nasif, E. G., Al-Daeaj, H. S., Ebrahimi, B., & Thibodeaux, M. S. (1991). Methodological problems in cross-cultural research: An updated review. Management International Review, 31(1), 79-91.
Nelson, J. A., & Reader, J.A. (1985). Labor relations in China. California Management Review, 27(4), 13-32.
Pearson, V. (1990). Women in Hong Kong. In Benjamin K. P. Leung (Ed.), Social issues in Hong Kong. Hong Kong: Oxford University Press.
Plan to fight discrimination. (1995, August 9). South China Morning Post, p. 9.
Powell, G. N. (1988). Women and men in management. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Powell, G. N., & Butterfield, D. A. (1994). Investigating the ‘glass ceiling’ phenomenon: An empirical study of actual promotions to top management. Academy of Management Journal, 37, 68-86.
Redding, S. G. (1990). The spirit of Chinese capitalism. Berlin: de Gruyter.
Schein, V. E. (1978). Sex role stereotyping, ability and performance: Prior research and new directions. Personnel Psychology, 31, 259-268.
Schein, V. E., Mueller, R., Lituchy, T., & Liu, J. (1996). Think manager-think male: A global phenomenon? Journal of Organizational Behavior, 17, 33-41.
Walder, A. G. (1990). Economic reform and income distribution in Tianjin, 1976–1986. In D. Davis & E. F. Vogel (Eds.), Chinese society on the eve of Tiannenman (pp. 135-156). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Weber, M. (1968). Economy and society. New York: Bedminister Press.
Westwood, R. I., & Leung, S. M. (1994). The female expatriate manager experience: Coping with gender and culture. International Studies of Management and Organization, 24(3), 64-85.
Westwood, R., & Leung, A. S. M. (1999). Women in management in Hong Kong and Beijing: Between pragmatism and patriarchy. In P. Fosh, A. W. Chan, W. W. S. Chow, E. Snape, & R. Westwood, (Eds.), Hong Kong Management and Labour (pp. 199-219). London: Routledge.
Westwood, R. I., Mehrain, T., & Cheung, F. (1995). Gender and society in Hong Kong: A statistical profile. Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies, The Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Xie, K. R., & Pearce, J. L. (1996). Guanxi: Connections and substitutes for formal institutional support. Academy of Management Journal, 39(6), 1641-1658.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Ebrahimi, B.P., Young, S.A. & Luk, V.W.M. Motivation to Manage in China and Hong Kong: A Gender Comparison of Managers. Sex Roles 45, 433–453 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1014369817131
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1014369817131