Exploring cross-cultural management-labour relations: a case study of Chinese-invested garment enterprise in Myanmar

Thesis

As Chinese enterprises expand into other Asian countries, a relatively new form of cross-cultural management-labour relations is emerging in the context of Chinese expatriate managers and Asian employees. Because China and its neighbouring Asian countries are tentatively believed to be similar in terms of cultural orientations developed by scholars such as Hofstede, research on this form of management-labour relations remains underdeveloped. Examining such, this research adds a significant perspective by using legal culture as an approach to investigate the pre-learnt social constructs, culturally influenced forces, and mismatches in expectations which may contribute to tensions, while refraining from seeing culture as a monolith. This study is based on extensive ethnographic fieldwork conducted at a Chinese-invested garment factory in Myanmar, which includes participant observation of factory operations, semi-structured interviews with factory members, and document analysis. Using ethnographic methods, this study identifies important contextual variables and concepts that are explored and linked to relevant scholarship.

This study challenges the belief that Chinese and Burmese people share many ‘similarities’ in terms of cultural orientation. Examining the interaction between Chinese expatriate managers and Burmese workers, it argues there are subtle yet important differences in their contextually contingent perceptions, visions, and expectations — how good leadership and governance should work, how hierarchical distinctions and leader-follower distance should be maintained, and what principles of reciprocity, fairness, and work ethic should be upheld. The cross-cultural workplace is analysed through the intersection of multi-layered individual perceptions and broader sociocultural aspects associated with traditions and historical influences. This study further examines the functions of Burmese supervisors and Chinese-Burmese interpreters, revealing their role in bridging cultural barriers, their internal tensions of engaging in established local interaction with role-based identities, and their decisions to place organisational objectives and collective interest of the factory before cohesion of relationships. It suggests their roles are constrained by the dynamics of organisational power and the social controls set by management.

Authors: Hung, HC

• DOI: 10.5287/ora-44169dj5e
• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Keywords: middle managers; legal culture; foreign direct investment; industrial relations; interpreters; factory; cross-cultural; ethnography; Myanmar; Chinese investment; China
• Subjects: Cross-cultural studies; Investments, Chinese; Industrial relations; Factory management; Conformity in the workplace