Ingrained interests and path-dependency

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.13169/workorgalaboglob.16.2.0082
• Published date: 17 October 2022
• Date: 17 October 2022
• Pages: 82-98
• Author: Guang Yang,Lixin Yang
• Subject Matter: China,employment relations,employee resistance,lean production,SOE

82 Work organisation, labour & globalisation Volume 16, Number 2, 2022

Ingrained interests and

path-dependency

Employees’ acceptance of new management

systems in a Chinese state-owned enterprise

Guang Yang and Lixin Yang

Guang Yang is a Chief Research Specialist at Abu Dhabi

Department of Community Development, UAE.

Lixin Yang is an Associate Professor at Anhui Open

University, China.

ABSTRACT

This study is a sociological exploration of changes and interrelationships

between production systems, management systems and employment

relations through a case study of a Chinese state-owned enterprise (SOE)

which has undergone substantial restructuring and reforms in an agriculture-

dominated region that has witnessed rapid industrialisation. It draws on

data collected through qualitative interviews, focus group discussions and

workplace observation and participation. The ndings suggest that while

market, efciency and performance have become the dominant discourse in

China’s SOEs, various organisational actors have reconstructed their identities,

engaged in constant negotiations and continued formal and informal rules that

supported their interests.

KEY WORDS

China, employment relations, employee resistance, lean production, SOE

Introduction

In recent decades, China has seen the adoption of neoliberal economic policies, systems

and practices at both economic and enterprise levels (Wu & Ma, 2016). The expansion

of market forces and the associated socioeconomic changes have far-reaching

implications for employment relations. The legitimacy of employment relations in the

SOE sector, in particular, where various economic, social and political ties connecting

DOI:10.13169/workorgalaboglob.16.2.0082

Work organisation, labour & globalisation Volume 16, Number 2, 2022 83

workers with SOEs remain strong (Zhu et al., 2012), has increasingly relied on the

neoliberal discourse which emphasises efficiency and supports a unitarist relationship

between workers and employer (Ding et al., 2000).

Employment relations comprise multi-dimensional relationships representing

social, economic, cultural, psychological and political links between workers, employers

and the state (Budd & Bhave, 2010). However, the economic and psychological links

have increasingly moved to the centre of the employment relationship. The scholarship

on China’s employment relations also shows the phenomenon of the dominance of the

economic over the social (Friedman & Lee, 2010; Liang et al., 2010). As interpreting

employment relations solely from an economic dimension can at best bring a partial

picture, it is necessary to go beyond the interpretation of exchange relations to explore

the social, political, institutional and cultural forces that have together influenced the

actions and interactions of workers (Budd & Bhave, 2010).

Following the sociological and institutional tradition in the study of China’s

employment relations, this study aims to explore employee resistance to new

management systems by presenting evidence from a case study of a coal-mining SOE

that has undergone extensive organisational changes, including the implementation of

lean production. A sociological perspective highlighting the socially embedded nature

of employment relations is particularly relevant to the Chinese context, where the

persistence of strong and coherent cultural and social norms is resilient to the

institutional changes brought by economic reforms (Coase & Wang, 2012). In so doing,

this study responds to recent calls to adopt a more accommodating framework of

employment relations and to incorporate social and organisational contexts into the

research design (Cooke, 2014; Gollan & Xu, 2014).

Employees’ acceptance of new management systems

The issue of employee resistance to change is well reflected in the debates on lean

production that focus on its implications for work intensification and workplace power

relations (Conti et al., 2006; Mackenzie et al., 2020; Neirotti, 2018). Built on the ideas of

‘continuous improvement’, the core of lean production is to standardise and optimise work

procedures and processes to enhance efficiency, quality, flexibility and reducing operational

cost (Womack et al., 1980). While advocates of lean production argue that lean production

promotes the participation and involvement of workers, various studies show that

employees respond to the newly implemented management systems with negative or mixed

feelings, as they suffer from insecurity, coercion and loss of autonomy (Neirotti, 2018; Vidal,

2007a), which in turn affects how they perceive the psychological contract between

employees and employer (Fuchs & Edwards, 2011; van den Heuvel & Schalk, 2009). Critical

theorists contend that work standardisation and constant peer monitoring are the

reflections of intense managerial domination (Carter et al., 2014; Graham, 1995; Lewchuk &

Robertson, 1997) and that lean production usually leads to work intensification and job

stress (Bouville & Alis, 2014; Conti et al., 2006; Mackenzie et al., 2020).

The resistance of the working class to the imposition ofmodern management

strategies such as lean production has also been approached through the lens of labour

process theory (Braverman, 1974; Thompson & Smith, 2017). Researchers following