East vis‐à‐vis West: The evolution of work values within China regions

• Author: Yongjuan Li,Jun Yang,Xuejiao Dutton,Yim‐Yu Wong,Carlos W. H. Lo,David A. Ralston,Carolyn P. Egri
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/tie.21926
• Published date: 01 July 2018
• Date: 01 July 2018

EMERGING MARKET PERSPECTIVES: CHINA

East vis-à-vis West: The evolution of work values within

China regions

David A. Ralston

1

| Yim-Yu Wong

2

| Carolyn P. Egri

3

| Carlos W. H. Lo

4

| Yongjuan Li

5

|

Xuejiao Dutton

6

| Jun Yang

7

1

University Fellows International Research

Consortium, Ft. Myers, Florida

2

San Francisco State University, San

Francisco, California

3

Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British

Columbia, Canada

4

Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong

Kong, SAR China

5

Chinese Academy of Science, Beijing, China

6

San Francisco, California

7

Fort Hays State University, Hays, Kansas

Correspondence

David A. Ralston, University Fellows

International Research Consortium, 15854

Gleneagle Court, Ft Myers, FL 33908

Email: dralston@ou.edu

Numerous studies have investigated between-country cultural differences. However, the sub-

national cultural differences, particularly in emerging markets, have remained an underexplored

research topic despite its importance. Likewise, multiperiod studies in the cross-cultural man-

agement area have also remained an underexplored topic. This study concurrently addresses

both of these voids in the literature. Specifically, we examine changes in work values of busi-

nesspeople in the economically developed East region and the less developed West region of

China over the first decade of the 21st century (2000–2010). Our findings show that, across

the eight work values dimensions analyzed in this study, three exhibited static crossvergence,

while the other five value dimensions exhibited conforming crossvergence. An implication of

these findings is that the dissimilar work values, which had been found across the regions of

China of the past century, are moving toward a more countrywide set of homogeneous values

among the workforce professionals of China.

KEYWORDS

China, conforming-crossvergence, static-crossvergence, deviating-crossvergence, multiple

time-periods, regional differences, trichotomy of values crossvergence theory, work values

1|INTRODUCTION

“Do changes in societal values require years, decades, or centuries?”

(Ralston et al., 2006, p. 67). The traditional notion has been that values

remain constant for a generation or more (Hofstede, Hofstede, & Min-

kov, 2010). However, a slowly growing body of literature based on multi-

period studies (Ralston et al., 2006) challenges this traditional view with

the response: it depends. More current research is showing that institu-

tions (i.e., business ideology influences), especially in developing coun-

tries, are bringing about changes in some societal values over a span of

years rather than generations (Inglehart & Welzel, 2005; Richards et al.,

2012). For example, in their three-society study, Ralston et al. (2006)

found that values more closely related to business ideology influences

were more malleable than those more closely related to sociocultural

influences. Thus, values, which are more impacted by business ideology

influences, are the ones more likely to change over the span of a decade.

A primary goal of this study was to empirically investigate this

expectation that different values follow different patterns of change

and that the external influences (business ideology, sociocultural)

played an important role in this determination. Further, we take the

analysis to a deeper level. Instead of comparing countries, we com-

pared regions—East vis-à-vis West—within one developing/transition-

ing country, China, which has been going through substantial change

(Guthrie, 2012; Zeng & Greenfield, 2015). Whereas previous research

has found values differences between regions of a country

(e.g., Dheer, Lenartowicz, & Peterson, 2015; Ralston et al., 1996),

there is a lack of research examining changes in values from one time

period to another. Consequently, this multiperiod, regional-level

design permitted a more laboratory-like atmosphere in that many

confounding exogenous influences, which one would encounter with

a societal-level study, were controlled for in this regional level study

by China’s imposingly Communist Party (Kojima, Choe, Ohtomo, &

Tsujinaka, 2012; Lin, 2011). Also, the multiple-time-period aspect of

the design brings a greater understanding to the meaning of differ-

ences in work values, since their trajectory can be viewed and

assessed over time.

DOI: 10.1002/tie.21926

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