Chinese Enterprise Reforms: Convergence with the Japanese Model?

This paper explores Chinese efforts to join the ranks of the East Asian developing economies of South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore. It describes Chinese efforts to emulate the Japanese model of industrial management rather than American management schemes, and it notes the compatibilities between certain legacies of Maoist socialism in China's state enterprises and the Japanese model. In particular, the paper traces the development of the Chinese employment system in the state sector. Compatibilities include indications that the Chinese workers could become company men, that they prefer paternalistic managers, that their work responds to appreciation, and that they do not regard management and worker interests as necessarily conflictual. Granted the evolution of greater autonomy for Chinese state enterprises, the paper concludes that an organization-oriented system can develop within Chinese state enterprises and that a shift to a market economy need not be accompanied by a market-oriented employment system. Copyright 1995 by Oxford University Press.