A study of societal cultural impact on HRM practices in business organizations: The case of China

For last two decades, Chinese economy has been developed rapidly. Its business organizations have learned to manage people in an efficient way. Comparing with their western counterparts, local Chinese business organizations manage people in a different way. Why the differences exist? One perspective of analyzing the systematic differences of HRM practices in Chinese companies and the western industrialized companies is through societal cultural orientations.; This is a case study research. Investigating six cases in Chinese business context, the Chinese private companies and U.S.A.-based companies in China, there have found HRM practice differences. This research tries to identify the factors explaining the differences. Identifying the distinct features of Chinese culture by using Hofstede's five dimensions, it is found that there exist associations between two factors. The deep-rooted cultural values such as respect for power, group preferences remain stable to a large degree and can explain the HRM practices such as recruiting, training and performance appraisal. In the meantime, it is found that the other cultural dimensions such as masculinity/femininity, uncertainty avoidance have been gradually changed due to the process of industrialization and introduction of technology, which has been reflected in the changes in HRM practices such as HR planning and compensation practices. Hofstede's cultural dimensions are used as an explanatory unit of analysis; five basic functional HRM activities are used as an observatory unit of analysis.; The empirical evidence shows that HRM practices are largely hybrid instead of to be monolithic. 'What works in the U.S. will apply equally well in other cultures' is not the case in this investigation. The research verifies that the U.S.A.-based concept HRM is only partly true in Chinese situation. On the other hand, the dominating Chinese societal cultures have been changed due to its rapid economic development and open to the outside world in these decades. The empirical findings support the clear-cut cultural effect influencing managerial practices in Chinese business contexts at present stage. The findings are beneficial to both the foreign expatriates as well as the Chinese managers when managing their people.