Analysis
A CHINESE VERSION OF CORPORATE CULTURE
by Colin Hawes, Senior Lecturer,
Faculty of Law, University of Technology Sydney
In recent years, there has been an explosion of interest
in ‘corporate culture’ (qiye wenhua) among large state-controlled
and privately-managed Chinese corporations. This is partly because the Chinese
government has strongly promoted the concept through the Communist Party committees
established within most Chinese corporations. A recent policy document describes
the government’s vision of corporate culture. First, it will be a ‘progressive
corporate culture’ that ‘strengthens the [Communist] Party’s
hold on power … and brings about a harmonious socialist society’.
Second, it will help firms to ‘build a high quality workforce and encourage
people to develop to their full potential … will enable corporations
to improve the quality of their management, strengthen their internal cohesion,
and build their core competitiveness’. And third, corporate culture
will cultivate employees, especially educating them in the ‘outstanding
legacy’ of traditional Chinese culture: ‘[Firms] must provide
healthy and beneficial cultural products to raise the cultural level of employees
and expand the effectiveness of corporate culture promotion. They must guide
and strengthen group cultural activities such as photography, calligraphy,
art, literature and sports, … in order to satisfy employees’ spiritual
and cultural thirst for knowledge, beauty and pleasure.’
Yet despite this clear government encouragement, it would
be misleading to view the widespread implementation of corporate culture change
programs in China as merely a top-down exercise of political control. This
is because, first, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has itself undergone
a massive transformation in the past decade. It has become much more responsive
to the needs of businesses and willing to adapt its role within corporations
to assist the activities of corporate executives and to improve company profits.
In fact, the current CCP Party Constitution states categorically that ‘the
Communist Party of China must persist in taking economic development as the
central task, making all other work subordinated to and serving this central
task’. Secondly, many corporate executives – even in privately-managed
corporations – have found that incorporating Communist-style indoctrination
methods into their corporate culture change programs helps to create a disciplined
and productive workforce, and thereby increases their firm’s profits.
And finally, rank and file employees are themselves unwilling to relinquish
certain aspects of the former socialist enterprise system, such as the provision
of a range of cultural and educational activities for employees, along with
various other employee benefits such as subsidised meals and housing. Hence,
even CEOs of privately-managed firms find themselves obliged to provide such
benefits (and to promote these as part of their firm’s ‘culture’)
simply in order to avoid losing staff to other firms.
So the corporate culture phenomenon in China is part of a
pragmatic and complex interaction between the CCP, corporate managers, and
employees, in which each group must try to accommodate the interests of the
others. And through this interaction, the imported Anglo-American idea of
the corporation as a profit-maximising, shareholder-centred business entity
has been transformed into a uniquely Chinese corporate identity that combines
economic, political and social/cultural functions, and claims to be dedicated
to the individual improvement of its employees as well as to the management
and the strengthening of the Chinese nation.
Links:
A REVIEW OF ROH MOO-HYUN'S LEADERSHIP: IN LIGHT OF KOREA'S
STATE OF DEMOCRATIC CONSOLIDATION
by Kim Hyung-a, Department of Political
& Social Change, Australian National University hyunga.kim@anu.edu.au
On his presidential victory in December 2002, Roh Moo-hyun
was seen as a symbol of grass-roots democracy, born of a ‘revolution’
led by progressive democratisation forces, and supported especially by the
younger generation. Some claimed that Roh’s rise to the presidency
signalled Korean democracy entering its ‘second generation’,
marking the end of the politics of the ‘Three Kims Era’, which
focused on bossism and regional favouritism, and commencing a new era of
open competition between the younger and older generations, and the progressive
‘reformists’ and anti-Communist conservatives. Ironically, however,
ordinary Koreans quickly deserted Roh’s ‘Participatory Government’,
asking ‘Does democracy feed us?’
Why are the Korean people so disillusioned with their democracy
under the Roh Government? One key reason is Roh’s leadership style,
which is seen by many as politically divisive, ideologically ambiguous and
economically incompetent. His government has performed poorly in introducing
policies which could enhance ordinary people’s livelihoods.
Politically, Roh relied on a binary populist tactic - known
as the ‘Roh Moo-hyun code’ - akin to the ‘us versus them’
approach. This was especially evident in his appointment of presidential
staff. But faced with a critical shortage of experienced people around him,
Roh also had to recruit many professional bureaucrats, creating a two-layered
grouping within his office which, in effect, also divided Korea’s
powerful state bureaucracy. To his credit, however, Roh made a significant
contribution in restoring the autonomy of the judiciary, while also putting
an end to illegal money politics, risking even his own impeachment. He also
expanded mass participation at both public and state-governance levels which,
ironically, added to Roh’s political constraints.
Ideologically, Roh’s leadership-style showed ambiguity.
This was evident in his pursuing a conciliatory ‘Sunshine Policy’
toward North Korea, which focused on peace and prosperity, while also seeking
a revision of Korea-US relations aimed at restoring Korea’s defence
autonomy. From the beginning, however, Roh and his government were ignored
by the Bush Administration’s decision-making radar, especially in
the course of the Six-Party Talks on North Korea’s nuclear program
involving the two Koreas, the US, China, Japan, and Russia. Despite the
Six-Party Talks Agreement, signed on 13 February 2007, and the signing of
the Korea-US Free Trade Agreement, among others, Roh’s relations with
the Bush Administration improved very little.
Roh’s leadership failure is most widely criticised
for his government’s incompetent economic management and for failing
to meet expectations that it narrow income disparity. Social polarisation
in Korea was recently ranked the third largest among 20 of the 30 OECD member
countries, while there is an overall erosion of the middle class. According
to the National Statistical Office, the top twenty per cent of urban households
earned 4.98 times more than the bottom 20 per cent in the second quarter
of this year, and increase on the previous year. Another critical problem
is the rapid increase of casual workers, who now number 8.4 million. Systematic
discrimination against female casual workers has also become a major social
problem. So, despite notable improvement in political openness and transparency,
many Koreans claim Roh’s failed leadership to be the cause of the
‘hijacking’ of Korean democracy.
Links:
Profile
This month we profile Anton Lucas, Associate
Professor in the School of Political and International Studies Faculty of
Social Sciences at Flinders University and Director of the Flinders Asia Centre
http://www.socsci.flinders.edu.au/spis/staff/lucas.php
Q: How did you become interested in studying Asia
and why?
A: In mid-1969 I got a scholarship to the East West Centre
(EWC) in the University of Hawaii to do a Masters (in Agricultural Economics,
my undergraduate degree at the University of New England). On arriving there
I discovered Australian students were not required to do an Asian language
because the EWC thought Australia was part of Asia. Instead we had to take
a TOEFL test to make sure our English was up to scratch!
Nevertheless, inspired by the Asian language skills of many
ex-Peace Corp students in the EWC social sciences and humanities program,
I started Indonesian, then convinced the EWC to let me change my major to
Asian Studies. I took Asian history, including a spellbinding course on early
Southeast Asia with J.J. de Casparis and Robert van Niel on the modern period,
as well as Indian and Chinese history.
By mid-1970 I was off to Yogyakarta for ‘language fieldwork’
to complete my second major. The otherness of the place got me in first –
particularly the performing arts, the temples and the food. Then there was
the reformism of Yogya students, who impressed me with their idealism and
their practical attempts to help the poor, for instance by building a water
supply for remote villages on the slopes of Mt Merapi or doing community development
work in remote coastal villages. Professor Sartono Kartodirjo let me sit in
on his subject themes in modern Indonesian history at Gadjah Mada Univeristy,
and suggested I do a local study of the Indonesian revolution based on interviews,
which I did.
A milestone for me was meeting Herb Feith at the 1970 World
Orientalist Conference at the Australian National University. He was an inspiration
to my generation. Later I studied at the ANU’s Research School of Pacific
Studies with Tony Reid (who supervised my PhD thesis on the Three Regions
Affair in 1945 in north central Java).
Q: What are your current preoccupations?
A: Teaching Asian environment and development in
a Flinders University offshore Masters program in China last July confronted
me with China’s environmental problems at first hand. Agrarian reform
is again on the national political agenda in Indonesia, the question is land
for whom? With my colleagues at Flinders Sulistyanto, Jim Schiller, Liz Morrell
and Firdaus, I co-supervise a great group of post-graduate students working
on radical and liberal Islam, agrarian reform, Indonesian street traders,
and local ethnic identities. Now that the former Department of Asian Studies
and Languages is embedded in the School of Political and International Studies,
we share honours and postgraduate supervisory roles, and contribute to each
other’s majors in what has been a positive move.
Q: What are your hopes for Asian Studies in Australia?
A: Our Indonesian language program has survived the downturn in student
numbers because we teach the Indonesian major at Adelaide University, which
helps boost our student numbers. But secondary school enrolments are declining.
Teachers complain that the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade travel
advisories prevent state and private schools in South Australia from taking
students on language trips to Indonesia, which used to bolster continuing
enrolments after Year 10. The Australian Labor Party has said it will review
the travel advisory warnings in their present form. The ASAA council should
take up this issue if Labor wins the federal election. Rudd has committed
$60 million to promote Asian languages, presumably in a revised form of National
Asian Languages and Studies in Australian Schools (NALSAS) which he initiated
while in Queensland. We shall have to wait and see.
Links:
Student of the month
Priya Chacko (priya.chacko@adelaide.edu.au)
began her Arts degree at the University of Adelaide thinking she would focus
on studying China or Japan. However, a desire to understand the labyrinthine
politics of India, where she was born, led her to take a development politics
course which was wonderfully taught by a South Asia specialist, Peter Mayer.
Ever since then, she’s been hooked.
Priya went on to do an intern at Parliament House in Canberra
where she wrote a report on the Indian economy and then did an honours thesis
on religious nationalism in South Asia at the University of Queensland. She
is currently completing a doctoral thesis that analyses India’s foreign
policy. Her thesis suggests that there are many aspects of India’s foreign
policy behaviour that can’t be adequately explained by conventional
theories of international relations and argues that taking into account the
historical and cultural context, including questions of gender and race, of
the construction of state identity, offers a fuller understanding.
In 2006, Priya’s doctoral research took her to India
for three months where she engaged with policy makers and academics and attended
several lively conferences and seminars – the ‘argumentative Indian’
is no cliché! She also got a taste of life as a postgraduate student
in India as a visiting scholar at the Centre for the Study of Geopolitics
at Punjab University. Apart from the frequent tea breaks with friends at Punjab,
as opposed to frequent coffee breaks with friends at Adelaide, she found surprisingly
little difference between postgraduate life in India and Australia!
Her doctoral research has inspired an interest in the international
political thought of Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, in the Naxalite
movement and in Indian conceptions and discourses of ‘security’.
It is in these directions that she plans to take her future research and welcomes
anyone with similar interests to make contact. Priya is currently an associate
lecturer in the School of History and Politics, University of Adelaide.
Website of the month
http://www.onlinenewspapers.com/pakistan.htm
Given the volatile situation in Pakistan, readers may wish
to see what the Pakistani press is saying. http://www.onlinenewspapers.com/pakistan.htm
See also the International Crisis Group’s report, Winding
Back Martial Law in Pakistan, http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=5156&l=1
Recent article of interest
Indonesia and climate change: current status and policies by PT Pelangi Energi
Abadi Citra Enviro (PEACE), World Bank and DFID (UK Development Agency). This
report discusses emissions, impacts, and policy constraints faced by Indonesia
to cope with climate change. It highlights several key gaps in policies and
mechanisms in sectors related to climate change. The report provides the most
up-to-date information on Indonesia and climate change that can serve as a
starting point for further discussions on the issue. http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTINDONESIA/Resources/Environment/ClimateChange_Full_EN.pdf
http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/our-ignorance-of-asia-is-off-like-old-sushi/2007/07/04/1183351290532.html
Did you know?
‘A blinkered approach to languages’ by Luke Slattery
in the 7 November edition of the Higher Education Supplement of The Australian
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22713684-11952,00.html
argued that Kevin Rudd’s desire to see mass Asia literacy in the next
generation is a flawed plan: ‘To the extent that it promotes a small
number of Asian languages for mercantile reasons, it is unnecessarily blinkered
and possibly counterproductive.’ Slattery argued that ‘the really
urgent national question concerns Australia's failure to develop bilingualism
of any depth. The Asian literacy push, with its heavy loading of instrumentalist
rhetoric, diverts attention from this aim.’
Slattery’s article prompted Hal Colebatch to respond
by pointing out that Kevin Rudd is the first politician since Malcolm Fraser
to have raised foreign languages as a policy issue, something for which he
should be thanked not criticised. http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22756201-21682,00.html
Asian Currents welcomes the debate.
Diary dates
Education in Vietnam Today: Changes and Challenges,
2007 Vietnam Update, 29-30 November, Canberra. Information on the
2007 Vietnam Update, to be held at the Australian National University on 29-30
November, is available on the conference website:
http://rspas.anu.edu.au/polsoc/Vietnam/2007_conf.php
Gerhard Will, German Institute of International and Security Affairs, Berlin,
will give an update on political developments and Raymond Mallon, Consultant
Economist, will talk on economic and human resource developments.
SISA: RE-USE, COLLABORATIONS AND CULTURAL ACTIVISM
FROM INDONESIA, 6 November – 7 December 2007. Artist talks
on 30 November, Sydney. An exhibition of art focusing on contemporary Indonesian
environmental activism and featuring the following collectives and artists:
Tanam Untuk Kehidupan (Salatiga) Taring Padi (Yogyakarta), Anakseribupulau
(Randublatung), Belanak Art Community (Padang), Irennius Pungky, Duto Hardono,
Indra Yanti, Arya Jalu, Aris Prabawa, Ade Darmawan and Rebecca Conroy, Bob
Sick, Acongonyen, Toni Volunteero, Dodi Irwandi, Agus Budi Cahyono, S. Teddy
D. Friday 30 November from 3.30pm – Artist talks and film screening.
Free, UTS Gallery: Level 4, 702 Harris St, Mon-Fri 12-6pm 02- 9514 1652. Further
Information: Anneke Jaspers, Assistant Curator, utsgallery@uts.edu.au
See also www.utsgallery.uts.edu.au
KRISHNA - LOVE AND DEVOTION EXHIBITION, 6 October
- 16 March, Melbourne. Krishna is one of the most popular of the
Hindu gods worshipped throughout Asia and in particular India. The exhibition
will explore Krishna iconography, through approximately 70 works including
paintings, sculpture, textiles, photography, and jewellery. Asian Tempore
Exhibition Space, Level 1, National Gallery Victoria International, 180 St
Kilda Road www.ngv.vic.gov.au/krishna/index.html
RADICAL ELEGANCE EXHIBITION, 1 November - 17 February,
Perth. This is an exhibition of women's clothing by the renowned
Japanese couturier Yohji Yamamoto, whose garments have been a significant
influence on contemporary haute couture and prêt à porter clothes
since his Paris debut in 1982. Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth Cultural
Centre, Perth. www.artgallery.wa.gov.au/exhibitions/Yamamoto.asp
'OCCUPYING 'THE OTHER': AUSTRALIA AND MILITARY OCCUPATIONS
FROM JAPAN TO IRAQ'. 29-30 November 2007, Wollongong. This symposium
sponsored by the Japan Foundation, the Centre for Asia Pacific Social Transformation
Studies (CAPSTRANS) at the University of Wollongong and Monash University
aims to bring together journalists, public commentators and scholars investigating
Australian involvement in foreign military occupations. Contact Dr Christine
de Matos cdm@uow.edu.au
NORTH EAST ASIA - DRIVING WA'S EXPORT BOOM, 3 December,
Perth. Austrade’s Northeast Asia Regional Director, Laurie
Smith, and his team will provide up-to-date insights connected with business
and trade opportunities in North East Asian markets, including an analysis
of their impact on current prosperous conditions and a forecast of their ongoing
performances. WA Chamber of Commerce and Industry Function Centre Level 4,
180 Hay Street, East Perth, 3.30pm to 6.30 pm, Cost $70. Call Austrade Direct
on 132878 or email info@austrade.gov.au
ASIA PACIFIC WEEK 2008: Building Australia’s
Asia Pacific Expertise, 29 January - 1 February 2008, Canberra. During
one week of activities graduate students from Australia and the region will
have a chance to present their research interests, meet with other students
and academics, participate in a wide range of training activities, be introduced
to the rich holdings on Asia and the Pacific at the ANU Library and at the
National Library and participate in a stimulating program of events including
cross-area workshops, keynote speeches, seminars and master classes, film
screenings, cultural performances and social events. See http://rspas.anu.edu.au/asiapacificweek
THE COLD WAR IN ASIA: THE CULTURAL DIMENSION, 24-25
March 2008, Singapore. This conference will investigate how Asian
actors in the Cold War adhered to certain Cold War doctrines or ideologies
and how their cultural perceptions predisposed them towards certain policies
or to the political engagement between states and social forces on the cultural
front. Venue: Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore. http://www.ari.nus.edu.sg/events_categorydetails.
asp?categoryid=6&eventid=732
Those interested in participating should submit a 300-word abstract and 100-word
autobiographical note by 31 October 2007 to Ms Valerie Yeo at ariyeov@nus.edu.sg
CRITICAL HAN STUDIES SYMPOSIUM & WORKSHOP, 24-27
April 2008, Stanford University. Call for Papers. Han is a colossal
category of identity that encompasses ninety-four percent of the population
of mainland China, making it the largest ethnic group on earth. Participants
in the first-ever Critical Han Studies Symposium & Workshop will help
develop materials to be published in two path-breaking volumes: Critical Han
Studies, an edited volume, and the Critical Han Studies Reader, a collection
of primary source materials in translation. The deadline for paper and panel
proposals is 3 December 2007. For more information contact Professor Thomas
S. Mullaney at tsmullaney@stanford.edu
or James Leibold at Latrobe University:
http://www.latrobe.edu.au/socsci/staff/leibold/ leibold.html
IS THIS THE ASIAN CENTURY? 17th Asian Studies Association of Australia
Conference, 1-3 July 2008, Melbourne. The biennial Asian Studies
Association of Australia conference is the largest gathering of expertise
on Asia in the southern hemisphere. The theme for 2008 invites you to assess
how the regions and issues on which you are interested are faring. The ASAA
conference is multi-disciplinary and covers Central, South, South-East and
North East Asia and the relationship of all of these with the rest of the
world. See http://www.conferenceworks.net.au/asaa
TRANSITION AND INTERCHANGE Ninth Women in Asia Conference,
29 September-1 October 2008, Brisbane. The University of Queensland
is hosting the ninth Women in Asia (WIA) Conference, to be held from 29 September-1
October, 2008. Call for Papers: Contributions are invited from various disciplines
on a large number of themes concerning the lives of women in Asia. Participants
are encouraged to submit proposals for panels (with 3-4 papers per panel).
Individual proposals are also welcome. Enquiries can be addressed to wia@uq.edu.au
You are welcome to advertise Asia-related events in this
space. Send details to: fbeddie@infinite.net.au
Feedback
What would be useful for you? Human interest stories, profiles
of successful graduates of Asian studies, more news about what's on, moderated
discussions on topical issues? Send your ideas to fbeddie@ozemail.com.au.
About the ASAA
The Asian Studies Association of Australia (ASAA) promotes
the study of Asian languages, societies, cultures, and politics in Australia,
supports teaching and research in Asian studies and works towards an understanding
of Asia in the community at large. It publishes the Asian Studies Review
journal and holds a biennial conference. ASAA and the Centre for Language
Studies at National University of Singapore also co-publish an annual supplementary
issue of the Centre's fully peer-reviewed electronic Foreign Language Teaching
Journal (e-FLT). See http://e-flt.nus.edu.sg
The ASAA believes there is an urgent need to develop a strategy to preserve,
renew and extend Australian expertise about Asia. It has called on the government
to show national leadership in the promotion of Australia’s Asia knowledge
and skills. See Maximizing Australia's Asia Knowledge Repositioning and
Renewal of a National Asset http://coombs.anu.edu.au/SpecialProj/ASAA/asia-knowledge-book-v70.pdf
Asian Currents is published by the
Asian Studies Association of Australia (ASAA) http://coombs.anu.edu.au/ASAA/
thanks to a grant from the International Centre of Excellence for Asia Pacific
Studies (ICEAPS) http://iceaps.anu.edu.au.
It is edited by Francesca Beddie. The editorial board consists of Robert Cribb,
ASAA President; Michele Ford, ASAA Secretary; Mina Roces, ASAA Publications
officer; Lenore Lyons, ASAA Council member; and Ann Kumar, Director, ICEAPS.
