Contested Ideological Imprinting: State, Family Reading, and Entrepreneurship in Post-Mao China

Abstract

We theorize the contested process of ideological imprinting. We argue that ideological imprinting tends to be both hierarchical and sequential, and whether organizational imprinters can effectively buffer against the penetration of societal imprinters depends on the temporal order of the latter. Empirically, we study how family books reading at adolescence buffers the pre-Mao cohort and Mao cohort against the communist ideological imprinting during the Mao China (1949-1978), and subsequently shapes their entry into private entrepreneurship in the post-1978 reform era. We find that family reading atmosphere at adolescence was more effective in mitigating the negative effect of the communist state ideology on the pre-Mao cohort’s than the Mao cohort’s post-1978 entrepreneurial entry. Our study shows that incongruent alternative values of individuals—once successfully imprinted—mitigate the effect of a dominant societal ideology, generating heterogeneous effects on organizational behavior. Implications for research on imprinting analysis, values and entrepreneurship, and entrepreneurship in post-communist societies are outlined.