| This empirical study compared the personal values of hospitality service employees in The People's Republic of China (China) to the national culture dimensions first published by Hofstede in 1980.This study builds on Hofstede's seminal work on national cultures' influence in global service organizations and adds to the GLOBE findings on national cultures. Deng Xiaoping began to build a market economy in China after the death of Mao in 1978. By 2000, China had joined the World Trade Organization, tourist expenditures exceeded {dollar}162 million, and China ranked as one of the world's top ten destinations. The results of this study suggest that today's Chinese worker is very different from the Chinese people measured by Hofstede to calculate his 2001 China dimension scores. The purpose of this study was to determine whether the length of an employee's tenure with a hospitality company influenced their personal values, over time, on the Hofstede dimensions. A sample of 203 Chinese employees of two international, luxury hotels, (located in Shanghai, China), completed Hofstede's Values Survey Module 1994 (VSM94) survey instrument for measuring personal values. The participants self-selected to complete the survey in either English or Mandarin Chinese, with over 70% choosing the Mandarin Chinese version. The tenure of the employees in this sample did not show a significant influence on their personal values over time. The personal values scores on Hofstede's dimensions found in this study, however, were significantly different from the scores reported by Hofstede in 2001, which were based on data collected between 1984 and 1996. The masculinity index, particularly, was changed from an "above average" masculine score (found by Hofstede) to the current study's findings of an above average, strongly feminine culture. The individualism scores swung from Hofstede's strongly collectivist to this study's findings of strongly individualistic. This study's power distance score was almost half of Hofstede's high power distance score and is now very close to the U.S. power distance score. The Eastern-focused dimension score, long-term orientation, was strongly short-term oriented in the current study, as compared to Hofstede's findings. |
