Representing Corporate Culture in China: Official, Academic and Corporate Perspectives

Abstract

Over the past two decades, and particularly since China entered the World Trade Organization in 2001, there has been an explosion of interest in the concept of (qiye wenhua ^k^kjC?k) among large Chinese corporations. As Table 1 demonstrates, an examination of the websites of the top one hundred Chinese corporations or corporate groups reveals that 75 per cent include corporate culture links on their websites, as do 83 per cent of the top twenty-five privately managed corporations {siying qiye fAlf^ik). These statistics reveal a strong desire among larger Chinese corporations, whatever their ownership structure happens to be, to publicly represent their interest in culture. Whether or not these corporations have actually transformed their cultures? namely, their management style, corporate values, work environment and employee behavior?it is striking to find such wide-ranging consensus on the need to publicize or represent their corporate culture to the outside world. In this paper, I will examine the reasons for this widespread interest in representing corporate culture among large Chinese corporations. The paper is divided into four main sections followed by a conclusion. First, I survey some non-Chinese definitions of corporate culture to show how the concept has been used outside China. Next, I introduce the Chinese representation of corporate culture: how the Chinese government has co-opted this foreign concept, promoted it among Chinese corporations, and in the process re-defined corporate culture to make it a vehicle for the government's own policy priorities. I then compare this representation of corporate culture with representations, in other words Chinese academic texts. I show that in some cases academics explain and justify the official view of corporate culture and in other cases they strongly reject it. Finally, I demonstrate how five large Chinese corporations publicly represent their cultures, and how they comply with the official requirements for corporate culture?at least on the surface?even when there is no direct legal obligation on them to do so.