Abstract
Foreign staff in Chinese companies report that they very often find themselves marginalized and see very few opportunities for professional advancement. The exclusion a foreign employee working in a Chinese company experiences takes many forms: Linguistic, Organizational, Racial, etc. This chapter focuses on some of the most critical challenges foreigners face when working in a Chinese organization and introduces some of the more effective techniques and approaches they have taken to overcome those challenges. In taking steps to make the working environment in a Chinese company more conducive to foreign staff, the foreign employee will benefit from ongoing efforts Chinese firms are making to refine and improve the ways they approach, support, and integrate the increasing number of foreign professionals they hire.
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Notes
- 1.
The term ‘bamboo ceiling’ was coined by author June Hyun in her book: Breaking the Bamboo Ceiling: Career Strategies for Asians, HarperCollins, 2005 to characterize the obstacles to professional development Asian Americans face.
- 2.
Seishan is translated as “permanent employee”, but as Kopp notes this is not a meaningful or satisfactory (or adequate) translation in Kopp, Rochelle, The Rice Paper Ceiling: Breaking Through the Japanese Corporate Culture, Stone Bridge Press, 1994, page 192.
- 3.
This table is adapted directly from Shen and Edwards page.
- 4.
Shen, Jie and Edwards, Vincent, International Journal of Human Resource Management, Vol. 15, No. 4, August 2004, page 826.
- 5.
Andrea Ghizzono and Srinath Ramanujan, Tencent’s GM for Europe and Head of India respectively are examples.
- 6.
Just as it does for Chinese who are being considered for expat roles in overseas locations.
- 7.
Being ‘invited’ to lunch has significant implications. As Li Ma notes in “Employee Characteristics and Management”: “One of the standards by which co-workers judge each other’s trust is: ‘do they ask me to have lunch” (Ma 2014, section 8.5.2).
- 8.
Zhan, Qianhui, “Chinese Language Fever Grips US Students”, The Telegraph, July 18, 2017, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/world/china-watch/culture/chinese-language-studies-usa/.
- 9.
In reality, his dismissal wasn’t a complete ‘surprise’ as there was some prior indication although not official notice.
- 10.
Towson, Jeffrey, “The Alibaba Global Leadership Academy Is Awesome. You Should Apply. Like Right Now” (Pt 2 of 3), LinkedIn blog, July 23, 2018, https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/alibaba-global-leadership-academy-awesome-you-should-apply-towson/.
- 11.
Half a dozen members of the second AGLA cohort rented a suite of rooms in a large apartment complex.
- 12.
The use of the term and its reception by those it designates is the source of much debate. At one of the spectrum are those who regard the term as neutral and point out that “lao” when used in conjunction with a name connotes familiarity or even endearment. At the other end are those who regard the term as offensive and even racist because it shows a lack of sensitivity to those not ethnically or racially Chinese (cf. Mullin, Kyle, “Is It Offensive to Be Called ‘Lao Wai?’”, The Beijinger, June 22, 2017, https://www.thebeijinger.com/blog/2017/06/22/mandarin-month-it-offensive-be-called-laowai).
- 13.
I use the plural form, “genders”, here in recognition of LGBT representation among foreign staff in Chinese companies. However, I was unable during the course of my research to obtain data on this aspect of the foreign experience that was sufficient to give it the attention it deserves. To my knowledge, a number of foreign employees in Chinese companies who are gay and lesbian have plans to describe their experiences and the accounts that result from these efforts will provide the insight needed to fill the current gap in understanding.
- 14.
Dikötter, Frank, “Race As Culture: Historical Background” in The Discourse of Race in Modern China.
- 15.
Iyembi Nakanza a native of Zimbabwe who is a business development manager at Alibaba states in an online interview that he was the only African in the AGLA program (cf. Iyembi Nakanza public LinkedIn profile https://www.linkedin.com/in/iyembi-nkanza-25801326).
- 16.
Kopp, Rochelle, The Rice Paper Ceiling: Breaking Through the Japanese Corporate Culture, Stone Bridge Press, Berkeley, CA, 1994, page 18.
- 17.
Joseph, Divya Anne, “Working in a Chinese Company—A Foreigner’s Viewpoint,” LinkedIn blog, June 16, 2018, https://www.linkedin.com/in/divya-anne-joseph-b112a44/detail/recent-activity/posts/.
- 18.
He made a point of distinguishing between “exclusion” and “discrimination” that in his definition implied malice which he certainly did not sense in the exclusion.
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Ross, P. (2020). Bamboo Ceiling. In: Barriers to Entry. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-32-9566-7_6
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