Downsizing, Ideology and Contracts: A Chinese Perspective

Research output: Journal contributionsJournal articlesResearch

Authors

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to explore the effects of three managerial ideologies on the degree of employment contract breach perceived in connection with a downsizing.
Design/methodology/approach

Surveys were used to collect data from southwest China. Multiple regression analyses were conducted to explore the impact of three managerial ideologies on the perceived employment contract breach in connection with downsizing.
Findings

Results suggest that a strong belief in the ideology of market competition reduces an individual's perception that downsizing constitutes a breach of the employment contract between employer and employee. By contrast, a belief in employee worth has the opposite effect, strengthening the believer's perception that downsizing constitutes an employment contract breach. Belief in the third ideology, the ideology of shareholder interest, appears to have no influence on whether respondents perceived downsizing as an employment contract breach.
Practical implications

The results are important for understanding the way employees interpret common business practices like downsizing. Given the accumulation of enough confirmatory results, findings from studies like this paper might be used to inform the practice of management, which might result in a more satisfied and better performing workforce.
Originality/value

This paper contributes to the literatures on organizational downsizing and business ideologies. Specifically, it investigates ideological beliefs and their effects on perceptions of downsizing in a new arena – a country that is not used to the concepts of market competition and shareholder interest, and one that has only experienced large‐scale layoffs in very recent times. The view of the western business concepts such as psychological contract within the context of traditional Chinese philosophies and value systems provides in‐depth understanding of the challenges facing today's transitional economies such as China.
Original languageEnglish
JournalChinese Management Studies
Volume4
Issue number2
Pages (from-to)119-140
Number of pages22
ISSN1750-614X
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2010
Externally publishedYes

    Research areas

  • Entrepreneurship - Downsizing, China, Newly industrialized economies, Breach of contract, Employment contracts

Recently viewed

Publications

  1. Quality Assurance of Specification - The Users Point of View
  2. A community of shared values? Dimensions and dynamics of cultural integration in the European Union
  3. Rotational complexity in mental rotation tests
  4. Methane yield of biomass from extensive grassland is affected by compositional changes induced by order of arrival
  5. Simulation and optimization of material and energy flow systems
  6. Machine vision system for UAV navigation
  7. Performance Saga: Interview 07
  8. The Meaning of Higher-Order Factors in Reflective-Measurement Models
  9. "The (real) world is not enough:" Motivational drivers and user behavior in virtual worlds
  10. Comparison of different machine control modes during friction extrusion of AA2024
  11. Towards a Deconstruction of the Screen
  12. How to Explain Major Policy Change Towards Sustainability? Bringing Together the Multiple Streams Framework and the Multilevel Perspective on Socio-Technical Transitions to Explore the German “Energiewende”
  13. Political embedding of climate assemblies. How effective strategies for policy impact depend on context
  14. Using the Rapid Impact Assessment Matrix to synthesize biofuel and bioenergy impact assessment results
  15. Temporal variations of perfluoroalkyl substances and polybrominated diphenyl ethers in alpine snow
  16. Conventional teaching vs. e-learning
  17. Contextualising urban experimentation
  18. Wasted compliance strategies? The policy-making styles of Hungary and Poland in the implementation of European environmental directives
  19. Elektroaltgeräte
  20. Ubiquitous Memory
  21. A mixed-methods study of the impact of sociocultural adaptation on the development of pragmatic production
  22. The rhetorical structure of marketisation in selected emails of tertiary institutions
  23. Reintegration strategies in a gender perspective
  24. ChatGPT and Its Genre Competence
  25. Costs of Inaction and Costs of Action in Climate Protection
  26. Academic discipline and risk perception of technologies
  27. Krise oder goldenes Zeitalter?
  28. Effect of calcium addition on the hot working behavior of as-cast AZ31 magnesium alloy
  29. Cross-National Complementarity of Technology Push, Demand Pull, and Manufacturing Push Policies
  30. Everyone’s Going to be an Architect
  31. Assessing quality in cross-country comparisons of health systems and policies
  32. Fabian Nitschkowski & Paul Geisler
  33. Creep and hot working behavior of a new magnesium alloy Mg-3Sn-2Ca
  34. Network measures of mixing