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UM E-Theses Collection (澳門大學電子學位論文庫)

Title

Understanding Chinese organizations through stories they recount

English Abstract

Organizational stories have received more and more attention by researchers in studying organizational life. They can be used to explore organizational culture. Chinese organizations have their stories too, which reflect Chinese organizational members' assumptions, concerns and values, displaying Chinese organizations' specific characteristics. This research intends to understand Chinese organizations, through analyzing stories, told by organizational members, which reflect their assumptions, their concerns and their values, including managers and non-managers. A qualitative method was used in this research, involving four Chinese organizations-two companies and two government bureaus-and conducting interviews to collect data. Through interviews with 39 members, 109 stories were extracted and analyzed to identify their main themes. By grouping these stories in themes, seven key themes have been generated. The finding of this research yields the followings. The seven themes of concern to the Chinese organizations are the humanist concern, promoting personal development, staffing system, organizational change, crisis awareness, difficulties in human relationships, and education in organizational members' ideology. Also, the origins of these stories were discussed. Chinese traditional culture, the Chinese social environment, and western management thoughts play major roles in influencing Chinese organizations. In addition, Chinese organizational members' underlying assumptions were disclosed, which helped to explain why such stories were told in Chinese organizations. The implication of this research suggests that managers act as the head of the organizational family. On the one hand, they care about their employees' work and lives, providing training for employees and caring about their mental and physical health. On the other hand, they are concerned about the development of organizations, taking measures to improve the quality of employees, and adopting reform measures to change the organizations' status quo. For employees, some of them, particularly, the younger and the more highly educated ones, respond actively to what managers advocate and implement, such as training, change, etc., whereas some others, especially the older, the less educated, and the conservative, show their resistance to the change and learning.

Issue date

2005.

Author

馬麗焆

Faculty

Faculty of Business Administration

Department

Department of Management and Marketing

Degree

M.B.A.

Subject

Corporate culture -- China

Industrial management -- China

Corporations, Chinese

Administrative agencies -- China

Supervisor

Kong, Siew Huat

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Location
1/F Zone C
Library URL
991000160039706306