| The setting for this dissertation is Chengdu, the capital of the western Chinese province of Sichuan and the home of the Changing Faces Sichuan Opera. As the first major multi-national corporation (MNC) came to Chengdu, the face of the city changed. Thousands of young, highly skilled Chinese workers had an opportunity to work for this MNC with a strong American culture. The research question asked the following: How would these highly skilled Chinese be able to make the change, change their face, to work in an American environment?; Little research has been done on the integration of highly skilled Chinese workers into the value systems and cultures of foreign MNCs as China moves up the value chain. This dissertation addresses that lack of research by utilizing the Schwartz Value Survey and 35 in-depth interviews to understand the personal value systems of highly skilled Chinese workers as well as how both Chinese and expatriate workers see the MNC's value system.; Seeing young Chinese wearing blue jeans, listening to rap music, drinking Starbucks coffee, it is often lamented that they are losing their Chinese values. However, the highly skilled Chinese workers in this study were found to be traditional in their personal values while experimenting with new Western values in the workplace. They are often looking for a "third way" to eliminate the dichotomy in their lives.; This dissertation offers a new model of values which is consistent with Chinese culture in that it is balanced and oscillates among the values. The interviews showed that while values of these Chinese workers may cluster in similar ways as in the West, often the meanings of the values are different from the Western concepts. Generational differences were found within age group time frames as short as 5 years.; Key Words: China; Highly Skilled Workers; Chinese Culture; Value Systems; Multi-national Corporations; Trust; Employee Adaptation; Employee Engagement... |
