A comparative study of organizational context factors for managerial career progress: focusing on Chinese state-owned, Sino-foreign joint venture and Japanese corporations

Abstract

This study investigated to what extent the organizational context for managerial career progress perceived by managers, consisting of (1) the quality of the environment for career progress, (2) performance-based promotion practices and (3) in-house training opportunities, is different in Chinese and Japanese corporations. Also, the effects of corporate size, managers' age, management level and educational level on the perceived career progress environment were examined. MANCOVA results indicated that Japanese managers working for Japanese corporations in Japan enjoy more favourable career progress environment in all three aspects (Wilks' ) than Chinese managers in Chinese state-owned corporations (CSOCs) and Sino-foreign joint venture corporations (SFJVCs) in China. However, no meaningful differences were found between CSOCs and SFJVCs with respect to the organizational context for managerial career progress. Regarding the influence of environmental factors, corporate size had a positive effect on all three aspects of the context for career progress. Management level and performance-based promotion practices were found to have positive effects on the perceived quality of career progress environment, particularly in SFJVCs. However, educational level and age had negative effects on the quality of context factors of career progress in SFJVCs. These results are discussed with reference to differences in corporate culture and HRM practices among the three types of organizations, especially SFJVCs, involving the treatment of employees' age and educational level; in other words, seniority-based HRM practices.