Why are Chinese business leaders and politicians so interested in corporate culture?
– Dr Colin Hawes There has been growing emphasis on corporate culture (qiye wenhua) among Chinese government and corporate leaders. Approximately 80% of large Chinese corporations have initiated corporate culture change programs in the last ten years. However, this phenomenon has not yet been studied by non-Chinese scholars. I will explain the political, social and economic factors behind the enormous current interest in corporate culture in China and provide several case studies of how large Chinese corporations are attempting to transform their cultures, and how they often represent themselves as complying with the Chinese government’s definition of positive corporate culture. The research is based on analysis of documents and multimedia files on corporate websites, Chinese secondary materials on Chinese corporate culture, and my own recent fieldwork in China. I will demonstrate that the concept of corporate culture has been re-defined in China to reflect a uniquely Chinese conceptio
