Chinese Employees' Perceptions Of Managerial Authority In American Multinationals In China

With the intensification of globalization and the integration of the Chinese economy into the world economy, more and more multinational companies are entering China and they now play an important role in the development of the Chinese economy. American multinationals lead other foreign multinationals in terms of investment volume. The Chinese employees working for these American multinationals are invaluable assets for them. However, due to the vast differences between Chinese and American cultures, these Chinese employees' values sometimes disagree with the management culture of American multinationals. In order to remove these cultural conflicts and guarantee a successful communication between employees and managers, identifying and understanding employees' values and attitudes become indispensable for these multinationals. The thesis attempts to identify the key characteristics of Chinese employees' perceptions of managerial authority. Since these employees are influenced by the contact between Chinese and American cultures, in order to get a more precise picture of these characteristics through comparison, the author also surveys some Chinese employees working for Chinese state-owned enterprises and some American employees staying in the USA. After reviewing relevant studies and theories on Chinese and American cultures as well as on cross-cultural communication, the author puts forward four analytic dimensions: masculine versus feminine, achievement-oriented versus ascription-oriented, specific versus diffuse and independence-oriented versus dependence-oriented. Based on these four dimensions, the author analyzes employees' perceptions of managerial authority and proposes four hypotheses. According to the data collected from questionnaires handed out to employees, the author tests the four hypotheses and analyzes culture's impact on their perceptions of managerial authority. The thesis finally points out the limitations of the study and proposes some recommendations for future relevant studies.