The Chinese at work : collectivism or individualism?

One of the significant features of the national culture of the Chinese in China and other Chinese-majority societies is “collectivism” or “low individualism” (Hofstede, 1984; Hofstede and Bond, 1988; Hofstede, 1993). Does it imply that the Chinese at work are collective subjects, with “group orientation”? Different people may have different views on this question. This paper challenges such popular assumptions about Chinese work behavior of “collectivism”. Drawing on studies from P.R.C., Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore, it questions whether the logic of Chinese Confucian collectivism, prevailing in traditional Chinese family, still applies in today’s work organization. Based on the studies of collectivism and individualism in Chinese-majority societies, the controversial issue of collectivism is discussed, and implications for future studies of collectivism and individualism are also derived

Factors affecting joint venture performance in China

The study of joint venture performance in China is important due to the increasing number of establishments and value of foreign investment. However, prior studies have mainly focused their analysis on the joint ventures in developed countries, and their findings cannot be generalized directly to the Chinese setting. This article fills the gap by reviewing the recent studies of the factors affecting joint venture performance in PRC. Basing on the studies of joint venture performance in China, it can be seen that Chinese and U.S. managers prefer to use different criteria to evaluate the performance of IJV. For instance, due to the state objective and socialist ideology, Chinese side mainly evaluate the performance of IJVs on the basic of economic development dimensions, while U.S. managers prefer to use enterprise output measures to evaluate IJV performance. In addition, most recent studies of factors affecting joint venture performance in China emphasize on partner-related factors and joint venture-related factors, instead of the environment factors of joint venture. Basing on the analysis of the recent studies, some implications for future study of factors affecting joint venture performance in PRC are derived