An Interview Study On Information Seeking Of Entry-level Chinese Employees In Multi-national Corporations

21st century is an information era, in which people who possess the right information will survive and thrive. It is of great importance for members of organizations to obtain information in such a society where new information constantly replaces the old. It is even more important for the newcomers to gain information and achieve successful organizational socialization while facing a new environment and experiencing a high degree of uncertainty. Meanwhile, with the rapid development of Chinese market, many Multi-national Corporations (MNCs) emerge in China and an increasing number of Chinese set out to work as the employees of MNCs. This study is aiming at adding a cultural perspective to the research of information seeking behavior of new employees in MNCs.Information seeking is an important theme of organizational socialization and many scholars have conducted numerous researches in this area. Nevertheless, the majority studies on information seeking are analyzed through uncertainty reduction theory, social cognitive theory, as well as cognitive and sense making theory. Few researches analyze this phenomenon from cultural perspective. For the entry-level Chinese employees in MNCs, they encounter different organizational and national cultures and how these cultures affect their information seeking is of great interest. Therefore, the present study, based on studies on organizational culture, the theory of high-low context cultures (Hall,1976), cultural dimensions theory (Hofstede,2001) and typical Chinese cultural values, aims to investigate the information seeking of the entry-level Chinese employees in MNCs from cultural perspective. Additionally, while quantitative research method is used by most of the previous researches, in this study, the qualitative research method——the interview study was adopted to collect data from11entry-level Chinese employees in MNCs of Chengdu, with the purpose of providing a more in-depth description of their information seeking behaviors, helping both the Chinese employees and management group to have a better understanding of their information seeking behaviors and providing advice for new employees on socializing into the organization, and for the MNCs on improving their entry-level trainings.In this research, five specific research questions are proposed, which address the information seeking content, sources and tactics, the mutual influence among the information seeking content, sources and the tactics, as well as the influence from organizational cultures and national cultures. The main findings are that:1. the most frequently sought information content, source and tactic are separately work-related information experienced peers, mentors and direct supervisors, and "overt" by the entry-level Chinese employees in MNCs. In terms of the interaction of information content, sources and tactics, they seek different information content from different sources, use different tactics to seek different information content and adopt different tactics to seek information from different information sources. The organizational structures, values, communications affect their choices of information seeking sources and tactics and open climate provides them more sources or channels to seek information and encourage them to be more involved in seeking information of their organizational cultures. In the combination of high-context and low-context as well as high and low power distance cultures, their information seeking greatly depends on particular situations and they strive to use proper tactics to seek information from particular sources. The typical Chinese cultural values such as face and guanxi will affect their information seeking content, sources and efficiency.