Career Development International

Gender differences in career perceptions in the People's Republic of China

Cherlyn Skromme Granrose,
Article information:
To cite this document:
Cherlyn Skromme Granrose, (2007) "Gender differences in career perceptions in the People's
Republic of China", Career Development International, Vol. 12 Issue: 1, pp.9-27, https://
doi.org/10.1108/13620430710724802
Permanent link to this document:
https://doi.org/10.1108/13620430710724802
Downloaded on: 04 January 2018, At: 10:52 (PT)
Downloaded by ECU Libraries At 10:52 04 January 2018 (PT)

References: this document contains references to 40 other documents.

To copy this document: permissions@emeraldinsight.com
The fulltext of this document has been downloaded 2783 times since 2007*
Users who downloaded this article also downloaded:
(2001),"Equal opportunity? The role of legislation and public policies in women’s employment in
China", Women in Management Review, Vol. 16 Iss 7 pp. 334-348 <a href="https://doi.org/10.1108/
EUM0000000006115">https://doi.org/10.1108/EUM0000000006115</a>
(2002),"Gender and career experience in mainland Chinese state-owned enterprises", Personnel
Review, Vol. 31 Iss 5 pp. 602-619 <a href="https://doi.org/10.1108/00483480210438780">https://
doi.org/10.1108/00483480210438780</a>

Access to this document was granted through an Emerald subscription provided by emerald-srm:161304 []
For Authors
If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for
Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines
are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information.
About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.com
Emerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company
manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as
providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.
Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee
on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive
preservation.

*Related content and download information correct at time of download.

 The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/1362-0436.htm

Career
Gender differences in career perceptions in
perceptions in the People’s the PRC
Republic of China
9
Cherlyn Skromme Granrose
Campbell School of Business, Rome, Georgia, USA

Abstract
Purpose – This paper seeks to review gender differences in career goals and career tactics of men
and women in the People’s Republic of China (PRC).
Design/methodology/approach – Survey results were used to identify empirical differences in
career beliefs of 233 managers employed in 16 organizations in the PRC.
Downloaded by ECU Libraries At 10:52 04 January 2018 (PT)

Findings – Women and men were equally likely to value achievement, contributing to the family,
and collectivism as career goals and to use loyalty to superiors, and networking as career tactics.
Women were more likely than men to try to learn more and to want to get more education as career
tactics.
Research limitations/implications – The non-random sample that does not include every
province in the PRC and the low scale internal consistency limit these findings.
Practical implications – Gender discrimination based on beliefs that women will be less loyal or
ambitious are not justified by these results.
Originality/value – These results challenge stereotypes about Chinese women and provide
information rarely examined.
Keywords Careers, China, Women, Gender
Paper type Research paper

Introduction
The role of women in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has changed greatly in the
twentieth century. At the beginning of the 1900s, traditional views of women placed
women in a subordinate position to men and confined most proper feminine activities
to the home (Jiang, 2000). In the middle of the century, the leader of the Chinese
Communist Party, Mao Ze Dong, declared that women should be treated as equal to
men and the Constitution of the PRC officially institutionalized this position. During
the final 20 years of the century, new career alternatives as private entrepreneurs or
employees in market-oriented organizations opened for many Chinese men and
women. Each of these cultural experiences has left their mark on contemporary
Chinese careers.
The shift in the Chinese economy from state owned collective enterprises to a more
market economy; China’s entrance into the WTO and the subsequent globalization in
Chinese trade; and development of technological connections to the rest of the world
through growing use of the internet, television, mobile phones and fax machines; have
resulted in great changes within China as well as in the relationship between China and Career Development International
Vol. 12 No. 1, 2007
the rest of the world. These changes have had a significant effect on gender role beliefs pp. 9-27
and activities. This paper reviews patterns of gender role differences that lead to q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
1362-0436
differences in career beliefs between men and women in a variety of work settings. DOI 10.1108/13620430710724802
 CDI Findings from this research can help to change stereotypic images of Chinese
12,1 women and men into more accurate pictures of their career actions and beliefs. This
research also provides an important first step to stimulate more detailed theoretical
and empirical examinations of careers in Asia since little work has been done
previously on gender or on career beliefs. It also can help practitioners create more
accurate strategic plans based on realistic views of the career aspirations and
10 motivations of Chinese men and women. Chinese gender differences in career beliefs
arise from the Chinese cultural history of gender and work.

Theoretical background and literature review

Traditional gender roles of women and men in China
According to Confucius, society should be ordered in a hierarchical fashion with the
ruler at the top and the youngest daughter at the bottom. The doctrine of the “three
obedience’s” teaches that the duties of a women in her lifetime are to her father before
Downloaded by ECU Libraries At 10:52 04 January 2018 (PT)

marriage, to her husband after marriage, and to her son after her husband’s death. In
the I Ching, (a basic Taoist text attributed to Lao Tse and his followers, written around
500 BCE), men are the heaven and women are the earth, destined to follow the will of
heaven (Ren, 1993). Valuing a harmonious balance between yin and yang (male and
female) emphasized the interdependence of men and women but also marked their
separate spheres of influence, men over the exterior world and women over the
domestic world (Guisso, 1982). Because the family was the key social unit, women
attained power by their central role in the family, often managing domestic finances as
well as caring for the household, but eschewing achievement in the external world.
According to Confucius, as a moral person, a man also was required to be obedient
and strive for loyalty and duty toward his father, mother, and older relatives inside of
the family, and to his ruler outside of the family, reinforcing what later became known
as collectivism. However, men had a wider range of career options outside of the home
and had more power than women had inside the home. In occupational matters, sons of
the upper social classes prepared to take centralized examinations that were the only
way to political positions. Lower status men used apprenticeships to prepare for other
occupations or were taken into family businesses.

Gender roles in the post-communist revolution era

Mao Ze Dong publicly proclaimed the communist doctrine of loyalty to the collective
and equality between the sexes but he acted on this ideology in an ambivalent manner.
During the revolutionary war and again during the Cultural Revolution, women were
told that they could achieve anything men could achieve. Yet, in one of the “Kissinger
transcripts” of the Nixon visit to the PRC, Mao reportedly said that they had too many
women in the PRC military who didn’t know how to fight. “If there is a fight they
would flee very quickly and run into an underground shelter” (An AP report quoted in
the China News Daily English language electronic news, 11 January 1999). When there
was great unemployment, especially during the mid-1950s and early 1960s and again
since the change to a market economy, women have been encouraged to withdraw from
the labor force for family caretaking (Chen, 1998; Wang et al., 2004). Husbands are
more devoted to paid work than their wives and many scholars and citizens discuss
work-family roles and the caretaking obligations of women (Zuo, 2003).
 Western career theory and the Chinese experience Career
In Western academic literature, a career has been defined as the evolving sequence of a perceptions in
person’s lifelong series of work related experiences and attitudes that apply to all
workers, and all sequences of work roles (Hall, 1976). A career includes extension the PRC
across time and across more than one position or job or organization. It may include
both what one can see externally about the series of jobs or work experiences a person
has, as well as how a person feels internally (career satisfaction) and thinks (career 11
beliefs, career goals, career tactics) about the work in the past, present, and future of his
or her life (Derr and Laurent, 1989). Contemporary concepts about careers also include
boundaryless and protean careers. These careers differ from traditional careers in that
they may be defined by individual values or individual self development, regardless of
the number of organizational boundaries crossed or positions held in organizations
(Arthur et al., 2005; Hall, 2004).
If we look at gender differences in external career patterns in contemporary PRC,
gender differences abound. In the height of the State Owned Enterprise (SOE) system
Downloaded by ECU Libraries At 10:52 04 January 2018 (PT)

in the 1970s, both men and women had their career options determined by the
government Personnel Labor Board. Inside SOEs the organizational personnel function
distributed workers into specific jobs according to the needs of the organization, the
work and power of their parents if they had been raised in the SOE, their own
advanced education, and favors given to the personnel administrator or guanxi (Leung,
2002). Guanxi is a complex web of social connections and mutual obligations used to
exchange favors and conduct business in Chinese society (Park and Luo, 2001).
Even when employed, women were responsible for family caretaking as well as
communal work (Honig and Hershatter, 1988). Some large well-organized Collectives
and State Owned Enterprises had communal kitchens and school systems that relieved
women of some domestic responsibilities, but Chinese women still felt work-family
conflict (Yang et al., 2000; Wang et al., 2004; Granrose, 2005). Women were paid less
than men, and were ineligible for bonuses because they could not stay for after-work
study session or overtime. They were dismissed early but were not paid for time taken
in nursing children or preparing meals at the beginning and end of the day (Wolfe,
1985). Care of elderly relatives also placed additional family demands on Chinese
women.
Older women were retired earlier than men and often provided childcare for their
daughters-in-law. On one hand this gave them access to free time and other
alternatives, but on the other hand, they were barred from equal retirement benefits
and post-retirement paid work often given to retired men (Cooke, 2003).
Since 1978, work units have been given expanded rights to hire and fire workers, to
start private enterprises and to enter into joint ventures. During the 1990s and into the
twenty-first century, failing SOEs have been closed, governmental departments
streamlined, and army commercial organizations are under pressure to separate from
their military rule. Unemployment and underemployment is widespread, especially
among women (“Laid off Women need Training”, China Daily, 18 December 1998; Shu
and Bian, 2003). In the 1990s with so many SOE underemployed workers seeking jobs,
the temptation to select only men has been overwhelming in a society that has
traditionally provided fewer employment achievement opportunities for women
(Granrose, 2005). Bosses openly stated that women were not as strong as men, they
would marry and have children, thus, not being able to concentrate on their jobs, and
 CDI that when they had children, the employer would be forced to provide more childcare
12,1 facilities and services. Even when examinations were used for hiring purposes, women
were required to obtain higher scores and thus were excluded from many jobs (Honig
and Hershatter, 1988; Hong, 1997; Leung, 2002). Women also have been restricted into
stereotypical jobs, even though many rural and poor women occupied jobs demanding
brutal physical labor. Jobs deemed suitable for women included mostly low paying
12 institutionalized domestic service positions or factory jobs requiring the most routine
manual dexterity (Shu and Bian, 2003).
The one child policy was most strongly enforced in the urban regions and it almost
eliminated the domestic maternal role as a real alternative to individual careers in paid
employment (Wang, 1998). In spite of this, extended maternity leave and confinement
of women to the home continue to be advocated as a solution to persistent
unemployment. Breaks in employment for childbearing have had an effect on women
who do return to the labor force, since upward mobility is largely a function of
seniority. This difficulty in promotions has resulted in an excess of middle-aged
Downloaded by ECU Libraries At 10:52 04 January 2018 (PT)

women in lower and middle positions with little hope of future promotions (Leung,
2002; Cooke, 2003).
Legislation addressing state regulation of a woman’s right to employment stopped
short of dealing with barriers to the career progression of women (Cooke, 2003). In the
government, men tend to move to upper level management based on their seniority. If
women move up the government career ladder, they require at least three factors. First
– they need the influence of a father or husband in a position of power. Second, they
may obtain a promotion through government “tokenism” policies. Unfortunately,
many of these positions are in title only and hold very little responsibility. Last, women
must have talent and impressive accomplishments in their current positions (Cooke,
2003).

The status of men and women at work since 2000

Through a gradual shift from the 1980s to 2000, men and women are now responsible
for finding their own positions, with the state serving as a personnel bureau of last
resort. Since obtaining a good job still depends upon obtaining advanced education and
using guanxi to persuade a personnel manager to hire a particular individual, there are
still unequal career options for men and women (Granrose, 2005). Women remain
under-represented in upper ranks and are often paid less than men for similar work
(Cooke, 2003; Cao, 2001). For example, one comparison of wages in the PRC found a
stable gender gap in pay data with females earning about 83 percent of male wages on
average across all jobs, ages, and time periods included in the study (Shu and Bian,
2003). Another study examining promotion opportunities in Shanghai and Guangzhou
found promotion advantages for males in both cities, taking other human capital factor
differences into account (Cao, 2001).
Another factor that is influencing many in the PRC, especially the young college
educated managers, is the convergence of Eastern and Western cultural influences.
Chinese character tattoos are appearing on the bodies of many youth in the US and
Chinese food is an American staple. Likewise, the popularity in PRC of Kentucky Fried
Chicken and the “Super Girls” (an American Idol-like TV show), indicate the attraction
of some aspects of Western culture that are sure to influence gender role perceptions
and beliefs in the PRC. These influences, readily available to most urban youth and
 some rural residents, may affect the career beliefs and aspirations of contemporary Career
Chinese citizens in ways that weaken the link between career beliefs and Confucian, perceptions in
Taoist, or socialist values.
In many cultures, career beliefs are likely to vary by gender, age, position, and the PRC
occupation. In the PRC these differences occur and there may be differences due to
political background and employment in the private or public sector as well (Leung,
2002; Cooke, 2003; Cao, 2001). The current situation differs from the experience of 13
women before the introduction of market economy principles because the state no
longer sets wages at specific levels for specific jobs, a past aid to those women holding
jobs similar to men. The withdrawal of the state from allocations of specific people to
specific jobs also has created more opportunities for managers to engage in
stereotypical discrimination against women that was easier to monitor and limit in the
past when administration of personnel policy was tightly controlled by Chinese
Communist Party cadres in the position of Personnel Director in the traditional socialist
SOEs.
Downloaded by ECU Libraries At 10:52 04 January 2018 (PT)

Internal career beliefs and work related values of Chinese women and men
Although evidence about gender and external career patterns of employment in the
PRC is available, evidence about internal career beliefs is very scarce, and thus we
must make some inferences about internal careers based upon other research evidence.
One link that exists between research on internal career beliefs in the Western tradition
and research on internal career beliefs among Chinese citizens is research on Chinese
cultural values and Chinese work values. Values are general beliefs about ideal conduct
and ideal end states that guide actions and judgments across situations (Becker and
Conner, 2003). Career goals are desired ends and career strategies or tactics are ideal
conduct that extend across time and are an extension of values into the area of
employment.
A career goal is defined as a desired career-related outcome that a person intends to
attain, and it may be conceptual, (not tied to a specific position), or operational (tied to a
position) and expressive (intrinsic enjoyment) or instrumental (leading to attainment of
another goal) as well as long term or short term (Greenhaus and Callanan, 1994,
pp. 61-62). Career tactics are conscious individual choices and activities designed to
help a person meet career goals. These tactics may include activities such as
developing skills, developing future opportunities, developing contacts, networks
alliances or mentors, and developing a positive public image (summarized from
Greenhaus and Callanan, 1994, pp. 74-76). For example, Ed Schein (1978) found that,
when forced to make choices about their careers, over time the MIT men in his sample
tended to make career choices based on their self concept as clarified by a cluster
around five career anchors, and these anchors were composed of their needs, their
values, and their talents. More recently, in a protean career, the individual is self
directed by his or her own values as the person manages the various experiences in
education, training, employment, leisure and family life (Hall, 2004). Both the work by
Schein and the work by Hall demonstrate that the career choices people make are
influenced by individual values.
A logical argument can be made linking values and internal careers. Values
function to influence career behavioral choices across multiple situations. As the PRC
has experience significant cultural changes, some old values have been retained and
 CDI some values have changed. For example, career goals and tactics in a market economy
12,1 in contemporary PRC are increasingly a function of individual rather than government
choice, and collective loyalty to the firm or the society may be declining however
collective values as expressed by commitment to family relationships may remain.
Although Chinese cultural values may still be higher in collectivism than in some
Western cultures, as more and more cultural convergence occurs, it is reasonable to
14 infer that career goals and tactics to achieve those goals will be influenced by the
individual as well as societal values held by individuals. Since literature on career
beliefs in the PRC is scarce, literature on values in general and work values in
particular are a potential, reasonable source of information to use to propose
hypotheses about career goals and tactics in the PRC.
Studies of cultural values derived from the shared history of Confucianism, Taoism
and communism have found that Chinese people usually value collectivism,
masculinity, and high power distance and are moderately high on uncertainty
avoidance, when using the original Hofstede cultural values scales but some think
Downloaded by ECU Libraries At 10:52 04 January 2018 (PT)

there are additional values (Hofstede, 1984; Yeh, 1989). Scholars in the Chinese Culture
Connection (1987) identified four values prevalent in Chinese-heritage cultures.
Integration emphasizes harmony, tolerance and social stability. Confucian Work
Dynamism includes valuing preserving the social hierarchy, personal virtue,
reciprocation of favors and gifts, respect for tradition, and respect for education and
learning. Human Heartedness includes the need to be kind, and patient. Moral
Discipline includes self-control, moderation, and prudence. Societal level cultural
values are values shared by many members of a society, but there may also be
individual values that differ within the society. The few studies looking at Chinese
gender differences in societal and individual values related to careers plus historical
gender differences in career patterns are used to formulate hypotheses.

Hypotheses
External career evidence reveals that women have been less likely than men to be able
to reach high goals in organizations in all periods of Chinese history. This long
experience may have moderated their aspirations (Shu and Bian, 2003; Granrose, 2005;
Parpart and Stichter, 1990). In addition, traditional Confucian and Taoist beliefs
devalue achievement in the world of work, especially for women. These forces have
mixed support in empirical studies of gender differences in achievement values. Some
studies suggest that men and women hold different beliefs. In one study men valued
achievement more than women (Chen et al., 1995), and in several research studies
samples with significantly fewer numbers of women than men in them tended to more
highly value achievement (Ralston et al., 1999). In a study of younger individuals, men
and women had equal achievement aspirations, (Bu and McKeen, 2001). The latter
finding is in a student sample and thus may not apply to a broader sample of
employees with more work experience. Alternatively these findings might occur
because Chinese students may be more strongly influenced than older generations by
the converging Western cultural values that support equality of achievement in the
world of work between men and women. Based on the discussion of historical
differences in gender roles in the PRC, the logical connection between career goals and
tactics and values as well as previous research on gender differences in values among
 Chinese men and women in samples of employed people, the first hypothesis for this Career
study of employees is: perceptions in
H1. Chinese employed women will be less likely than Chinese employed men to the PRC
value achievement in career goals.
Collectivism is commitment to group welfare above individual welfare, usually at the
level of the firm or society. The group inspiring collectivist loyalties may differ, to the 15
society and work unit at the height of socialism, to the family in early Chinese history.
Perhaps today, among Chinese, work may be seen as an expression of loyalty to the
society and to the family (Yang et al., 2002). Women in particular are committed to
family roles. Societal gender role differences and one empirical finding that Chinese
women tended to value collectivism more highly than men (Ralston et al., 1999) are the
bases for the next hypothesis.
H2. Chinese women will be more likely than Chinese men to value collectivism in
Downloaded by ECU Libraries At 10:52 04 January 2018 (PT)

career goals.
Women often have had unequal family obligations, and thus they may be more likely
than men to seek as a goal, a career compatible with family caretaking (Cooke, 2003). In
past studies of values women are less likely than men to value family duty (Chen et al.,
1995) especially the obligation of being the family provider, but they are more likely to
value caretaking aspects of family life (Zuo, 2003; Jiang, 2000). Thus:
H3. Chinese women will be more likely than Chinese men to value career goals of
having a job compatible with family caretaking.
As reviewed by Greenhaus and Callanan (1994), possible career tactics in the Western
context include activities such as developing skills on the job and through more
education, developing future opportunities, developing contacts, networks alliances or
mentors; and developing a positive public image. If we look at the first alternative of
developing job skills from a Chinese perspective, one thing is very clear. Just as there is
gender discrimination in job opportunities, great gender differences in access to
education as well as gender differences in training opportunities exist in the PRC
(Honig and Hershatter, 1988; Hong, 1997; Leung, 2002). However, education and
learning are highly valued among Chinese people and education was the primary route
to occupational achievement in the government employment system of ancient China.
If women believe they might face discrimination in employment, they, like their
Western counterparts, (King, 2000) might be more likely to seek education and skill
development to counteract this discrimination. Thus:
H4. Chinese women will be more likely than Chinese men to use a career strategy
of developing new skills.
Translating the use of networking as a career strategy from a Western context to a
Chinese one involves the concept of guanxi. Guanxi is similar to networking in that it
involves developing social ties with others that may help one in business or career
advancement. Guanxi differs from networking in that this social tie is long term, slower
to develop and dissolve, and involves a deeper sense of obligation and reciprocal
loyalty than is usually present in a Western individual’s concept of a network tie.
Guanxi is also sometimes used as a label for bribery, that is, when the exchange is not
 CDI of mutual support obligations but an exchange of cash for favors. In the PRC, to
12,1 develop future career opportunities, both men and women have to develop a network of
guanxi contacts and obligations. One study found that in government positions, a man
could rise on the basis of seniority alone, while a woman would need guanxi as well as
seniority for promotions (Leung, 2002). Thus:
H5. Chinese women will be more likely than Chinese men to use networking
16 (guanxi) as a career strategy.
Developing a positive public image as a career strategy in the usual self-marketing
sense seems to be a Western concept that violates Confucian values of humility and
may not be a common career strategy in the PRC. There is another sense of developing
a positive impression among one’s superiors, however, in the hierarchical nature of
Confucian-dyadic loyalty relationships as well as communist comrade organizational
loyalty that may apply to the PRC situation. One study has found that women were
less likely to value filial obligations that include the duty of being seen as completely
Downloaded by ECU Libraries At 10:52 04 January 2018 (PT)

loyal to a superior (Chen et al., 1995) and another has found that women prefer
egalitarianism (Chen et al., 1997). This contradicts the common role expectation in
China that women should always hold a more subservient position to a man in familial
relationships. Because women would be unlikely to be able to meet their career goals if
they violated the cultural norms of female subservience and loyalty to superiors and
because the empirical evidence and normative evidence are not consistent in predicting
a gender difference:
H6. Both Chinese men and Chinese women will show loyalty to their superiors.
The hypotheses were tested using a sample of employed men and women representing
many regions. The participants also are employed in a variety of work settings in
contemporary PRC.

Method
Procedure
No nationally representative government data exist about career beliefs in the PRC.
This study used a convenience sample that differs from most convenience sample
research conducted in the PRC. Written questionnaires were administered directly by
the principal investigator over 18 months. The data represent all major regions of
China with variation in industry and location. Thus, it is an improvement over data
gathered in one location, over a short period of time, in one organization.
The instrument was translated into Chinese by a bilingual, social sciences major
Chinese University graduate student. It was revised and compared to a back
translation by a group of five MBA students, then pre-tested on one class of bilingual
Chinese University business students. The questionnaire used official PRC Mandarin
characters and no attempt was made to address regional variations in spoken
language, which may have reduced understanding among a few respondents who had
lower levels of formal education.
The senior human resources (HR) managers for each of the sixteen organizations
provided basic company demographic information and HR policies. In most instances
employee data then were collected from participants during a seminar given by the
author. The topic of the seminars varied by location, but they were primarily about
 Western views of motivation and leadership and did not focus on careers. In a very few Career
instances, participants were given a questionnaire to fill out at the beginning of the day perceptions in
and the answers were collected by the author at the end of the day. Participants were
assured that the information would be reported to their organizations only in the PRC
aggregated form. There is no assurance that the responses were a statistically
representative sample of an organization, however, in almost all instances, responses
were obtained from over 90 percent of all managers in the organization at the location 17
that was used for data collection.

Sample of participants and organizations

The sample included 233 managers employed in 16 organizations. Of the managers, 49
were employed in large service and manufacturing SOEs receiving significant support
to modernize in industries still protected from most competition by the government.
The SOEs had offices throughout the PRC but data were collected primarily in the
South Central region – Wuhan – and in the West – Xinjiang. The sample of non-SOE
Downloaded by ECU Libraries At 10:52 04 January 2018 (PT)

organizations includes organizations from Changchun in the North, Beijing and

Wuhan in the center, and Guangdong in Southern China. They include an appliance
manufacturer, a corn products organization that was an international joint venture
(IJV) with a Hong Kong partner, two large independently owned enterprises (IOEs)
electronics organizations that do business outside of the PRC, two IJVs with US
organizations (a discount merchandise retailer and a fast food chain), and
representatives of smaller market organizations. The number of managers from
each firm and each region differed and thus findings may be influenced by
disproportionate representation of various firms as well as disproportionate
representation of regional differences. The sample cannot be said to represent an
accurate random sample of all mangers in the PRC.
The average age of the sample was young (32.64) but the range was from 21 to 60
years old (see Table I). About 65 percent of the men and 55 percent of the women were
married. The women were significantly younger but men and women were about

Mean Women
156 77
Mean S. Dev. Mean S. Dev. t-value

Characteristic:
Age in years 34.14 9.47 30.14 7.58 3.29 * *
Married (%) 65.00 51.00
No. of total dependants 2.76 1.71 2.22 1.64 2.21 *
Education:
Polytech, Jr. College (%) 28.00 33.00
BA, BS (%) 20.00 23.00
Undergraduate Major, X 2 ¼ 17.55
Business (%) 32.00 40.00
Math, science, eng. (%) 41.00 24.00
Liberal arts (%) 2.20 5.60
Social science (%) 13.00 11.00 Table I.
Demographic
Notes: *Significantly different p , 0.05; * *Significantly different p , 0.01; * * *Significantly different characteristics of the
p , 0.001 using two-tailed t-test or chi sq. test of significant differences sample
 CDI equally likely to have a child. The average age of the youngest child was between 9 and
12,1 10-years-old for both men and women. Men were responsible for slightly more
dependents than women.
The educational level of the men and women in this sample was not significantly
different but the women were slightly more likely than the men to have majored in
business and liberal arts and less likely to have majored in math, science and
18 engineering or social sciences.

Measures
The questionnaire contained three types of questions used in this analysis, questions
about demographic characteristics, questions about external career characteristics
such as patterns of jobs held and finally, questions about internal career beliefs such as
career goals and tactics. Most demographic questions were closed questions such as
“What is your gender?” (1 ¼ Male, 2 ¼ Female) although a few asked the respondents
Downloaded by ECU Libraries At 10:52 04 January 2018 (PT)

to fill in a blank, for example “How many children do you have?”

Measures of a respondent’s external career such as organizational tenure or job
tenure were identified using a Job Table. For the Job Table, the respondents were asked
the following: “Please list in order, all the jobs you have had for six or more months.
Begin with the first job you had where you worked at least 20 hours-per-week and end
with your current job. If there were times when you were not working for more than six
months, record “unemployed” and the length of time and the reason, such as school,
child care, no job.” This statement was followed by a table with a series of blank lines
as rows for the respondent to write on. The column headings on the Job Table included
Job Title, Date Started and Date Ended. PRC University students coded the Job
Table and all open questions with inter rater reliabilities of over 90 percent for all
items. When the raters disagreed, they reviewed the items until agreement was
reached.
Two questions were used to measure internal career beliefs, one for career goals and
one for career tactics, and responses to these questions were factor analyzed to identify
scales used as measures of the constructs in the hypotheses. Both the career goal and
the career tactics questions had a response scale from 1 to 5. For career goals the
question was “People work for many different reasons which we could call long-term
career goals. Thinking about all of the jobs you will have in your working life, how
important is it that your work life contains each of the following?” This was followed
by a list of 24 goals extracted from careers literature and Asian scholars’ work
(Granrose, 1997). The response alternatives for the 24 possible career goals were
labeled 1 ¼ Of little importance, 5 ¼ Extremely important.
The question about career tactics was “In order to reach your career goals or have
the kind of work life you want, how likely are you to do each of the following things?”
This was followed with 37 stems again taken from Asian and Western careers
literature and scholars (Granrose, 1997). The response alternatives for each of the 37
possible career tactics were labeled 1 ¼ Very unlikely, 5 ¼ Very likely.
Confirmatory factor analyses of items thought to measure each construct in the
hypotheses did not support the expected construct structure. A factor analysis of the 24
goal responses and a similar factor analysis of the 37 career strategy responses were
used to identify items that fit a common conceptual construct according to the PRC
respondents. Using all items that formed the most internally consistent scales based on
 the factor analyses and coefficient alpha analyses, internal consistency was between Career
0.76 and 0.80, lower than desirable. However, eliminating items did not increase perceptions in
internal scale consistency. Scales were constructed by adding the items together and
dividing by the number of items in the scale. the PRC
These empirically-derived factors did not precisely match the theoretical constructs
identified in the previous literature and used to formulate the hypotheses. When item
clusters that did appear to measure the theoretical constructs were used to form scales 19
they had lower internal consistency than the scales derived from the factor analyses. In
addition two scales identified by the factor analysis had only two items. Scales with a
small number of items may suffer from lower validity and reliability. Because the
internal consistency of the scales composed of items that appeared to measure a
particular construct was below the generally accepted level, the decision was made to
use look at gender differences using the factor analysis-based scales and also to
examine gender differences of single items most clearly representing the meaning of
the constructs used in the hypotheses.
Downloaded by ECU Libraries At 10:52 04 January 2018 (PT)

Three scales were used to measure career goals. They were:

(1) Achievement goal, an eight-item scale (alpha ¼ 0.76), included responses to the
items – esteem or prestige, power and influence, advancement or promotion,
independence or autonomy, achievement, meaningful work, growth, and
general wellbeing.
(2) Collectivism goal, a two-item scale (alpha ¼ 0.79), included responses to the
items – contribute to your company, and contribute to the society. Note that
this measure did not contain the item contribution to family, which loaded on
the factor below.
(3) Family security goal, a six-item scale (alpha ¼ 0.76), included responses to the
items – income, living where you want to, contributing to your family, job
security, working conditions, and fringe benefits.

Three scales were used to measure career tactics. They were:

(1) Learn and do current job well tactics, an 11-item scale (alpha ¼ 0.79), included
responses to the items – work hard, do your current job well, learn more about
the business, get more education or training, gain rapport with subordinates, do
better than peers, become indispensable, gain access to important information,
conform to what is expected, seek more control over your present job, and
change the way you think about your current job. This strategy scale combined
learning more and developing career advantages in the current job setting.
(2) Network and change job tactics, a ten-item scale (alpha ¼ 0.79), included
responses to the items – assertively ask for what you want, exchange favors
with others, ask a higher up person to help you, develop an action plan to justify
your choice, seek help from friends and co-workers; build a network of contacts;
start your own company and move to a better location. This scale combined
both aspects of guanxi and some aspects of career advancement through
changing jobs.
(3) Loyalty tactics, a two-item scale (alpha ¼ 0.79), included responses to the items
– do what your boss wants and act humble and courteous to superiors, which
are both aspects of Confucian loyalty.
 CDI Analysis
12,1 Significant differences between men and women in category demographic variables
were measured using a Chi Square test of significance. For testing of gender differences
of continuous variables two-tailed students t-tests were used. The number of
significant differences between men and women as calculated by t-test and Chi Square
analyses did exceed that expected by chance with a p ¼ 0.05 level of significance.
20 Hypotheses were tested using regression with age, number of dependents and a
dichotomous variable of employment in SOE as controls. Age and number of
dependents were included because there was a gender difference in these variables and
SOE was included since career patterns and options may differ between an SOE and a
market organization. Results of analyses using scales are presented in the tables,
results for single items are described in the text and exact numbers are available from
the author.
Downloaded by ECU Libraries At 10:52 04 January 2018 (PT)

Results
Some important indicators of external careers are given in Table II. Men and women
were likely to work an equal number of hours per week and to be within 2-3 levels from
the top level in their organizations. However, men were more likely to have worked for
more than one organization and to have held a larger number of individual positions.
Women and men were not significantly different in the number of years they had held
their current job or worked for their current organization.
If we look at simple mean differences as identified by t-test in Table II, there were no
gender differences in career goals. The only gender difference in career tactics was that
women were more likely to use the career tactic of learning and doing your current job
well. However, these findings did not take into account the effects of control variables.
The means, standard deviations and correlation matrix of variables used in the
regression analyses are shown in Table III. The results of the regression analyses are
shown in Tables IV and V.

Men Women
(n143) (n73)
Characteristics Mean S. Dev. Mean S. Dev. t

Hours worked per week 44.05 11.66 43.43 10.90 0.34

No. of organizations 1.77 1.19 1.26 0.54 2.48 *
No. of jobs held 3.00 1.82 1.93 1.07 2.02 * *
Current organizational tenure 5.48 3.97 5.26 3.35 0.22
Current job tenure 3.09 2.55 5.15 3.87 2 1.82
No. of levels to top of organization 2.62 1.35 2.51 1.03 0.52
Achievement goals scale 3.85 0.63 3.90 0.57 2 0.52
Family security goals scale 3.60 0.72 3.71 0.53 2 1.27
Collectivism goals scale 3.73 0.92 3.95 0.85 2 1.74
Table II. Learn more/do job tactics scale 3.94 0.52 4.12 0.41 2 2.62 * *
Significant gender Network/change job tactics scale 2.72 0.69 2.67 0.61 0.42
differences in Loyalty tactics scale 3.41 1.02 3.39 0.80 0.18
employment
characteristics, career Notes: *Significantly different, p , 0.05; * *Significantly different p , 0.01; n may vary due to
goals and career tactics missing values
 Downloaded by ECU Libraries At 10:52 04 January 2018 (PT)

Properties Mean SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

1. Age 32.64 9.04

2. No. of dependants 2.58 1.70 0.43 * * *
3. State-owned enterprise 0.20 0.40 0.33 * * * 0.14 *
4. Gender 1.34 0.47 2 0.21 * * 2 0.15 * 0.08
5. Achievement goals scale 3.88 0.60 2 0.22 * * 2 0.10 0.06 0.04
6. Family secur. goals scale 3.63 0.67 2 0.04 0.01 0.20 * * 0.08 0.42 * * *
7. Collectivism goals scale 3.81 0.89 0.09 2 0.02 0.20 * * 0.12 * 0.34 * * * 0.17 *
8. Learn more tactics scale 4.01 0.49 2 0.17 * 2 0.03 2 0.15 * 0.17 * 0.33 * * * 0.11 0.29 * * *
9. Network tactics scale 2.71 0.69 2 0.36 * * * 2 0.22 * * 2 0.27 * * * 2 0.04 0.43 * * * 0.11 0.14 * 0.23 * *
10. Loyalty tactics scale 3.41 0.96 0.01 0.02 0.05 2 0.01 0.14 * 0.19 * * 0.23 * * * 0.29 * * * 0.01
Notes: Significantly related * p , 0.05; * * p , 0.01; * * * p , 0.001

Means, standard
Career

deviations and
the PRC

variables
correlations of study
Table III.
21
perceptions in
 CDI
Achievement goals Family security Collectivism goals
12,1 scale goals scale scale
Variable B SE B SE B SE

Stage 1:
Intercept 20.18 20.19 2 0.26
22 State-owned enterprise 0.12 20.13 0.22 * * 20.14 0.23 * * 2 0.19
Age 20.23 * * 20.10 20.14 20.01 0.08 2 0.01
No. of dependants 20.02 20.03 0.03 20.03 2 0.07 2 0.04
Adjusted R 2 0.04 0.03 0.05
F for overall model fit 3.30 3.01 3.85
Stage 2:
Intercept 20.25 20.27 2 0.36
Table IV. State-owned enterprise 0.12 20.14 0.22 * * 20.14 0.21 * * 2 0.19
Gender differences in Age 20.23 * * 20.01 20.14 20.01 0.09 0.00
career goals, using No. of dependants 20.20 20.03 0.03 20.03 2 0.07 2 0.04
Downloaded by ECU Libraries At 10:52 04 January 2018 (PT)

regression analysis, Gender 20.01 20.10 0.01 20.11 0.10 2 0.15

controlling for age, Adjusted R 2 0.03 0.03 0.05
number of dependants F for overall model fit 2.47 2.25 3.32
and employment in a
state-owned enterprise Notes: Significant *p , 0.05; * * p , 0.01; * * * p , 0.001

Learn/do job tactics Network/change jobs Loyalty tactics

scale tactics scale scale
Variable B SE B SE B SE

Stage 1:
Intercept 2 0.15 2 0.20 2 0.28
State-owned enterprise 2 0.10 2 0.11 2 0.21 * * 2 0.14 0.13 2 0.20
Age 2 0.10 2 0.01 2 0.25 * * 2 0.01 2 0.08 2 0.01
No. of dependants 0.02 2 0.03 2 0.11 2 0.03 0.05 2 0.05
Adjusted R 2 0.01 0.16 0.50
F for overall model fit 1.36 11.66 0.94
Stage 2:
Intercept 2 0.21 2 0.27 2 0.39
Table V. State-owned enterprise 2 0.14 * 2 0.12 2 0.19 * 2 0.14 0.14 2 0.20
Gender differences in Age 2 0.05 2 0.01 2 0.27 * * 2 0.01 0.01 2 0.96
career tactics using No. of dependants 0.03 2 0.02 2 0.11 2 0.03 0.05 2 0.04
regression analysis, Gender 0.20 * -0.08 2 0.08 2 0.11 0.16 2 0.05
controlling for age, Adjusted R 2 0.04 0.17 0.00
number of dependants F for overall model fit 2.56 9.08 0.81
and employment in a
state-owned enterprise Notes: Significant *p , 0.05; * * p , 0.01; * * * p , 0.001

H1, that women would be less likely to value achievement goals, was not supported
using the achievement goal scale as the dependent variable (See Table IV). Women
and men who were younger were significantly more likely to believe achievement
career goals were important than women and men who were older and the results
were similar when the single goal item of “achievement” was used as the dependent
variable.
 H2 predicting that women would be more likely than men to value collectivism Career
career goals was not supported when the two-item collectivism goal scale was used or perceptions in
with the single item of “contributing to the society” but being employed in a state
owned enterprise did predict this career goal. the PRC
H3 predicted that women would be more likely to have career goals compatible with
family. The scale that resulted from the factor analysis combined family-employment
compatibility with family security goals, and thus was not a specific test of this 23
hypothesis. There was no gender difference when the family security goals scale was
used as the dependent variable. The only predictor of this career goal was employment
in an SOE. When the single item of “have convenient working hours” was used as the
dependent variable, there were no significant predictors.
H4 predicted that women would be more likely to use learning new skills as a career
strategy. This hypothesis was supported when using the scale learn and do the current
job well; women were more likely than men to use this career strategy (See Table V).
When getting more education was used as a single item, being female and working for
Downloaded by ECU Libraries At 10:52 04 January 2018 (PT)

an organization that was not an SOE were significant predictors; when learning more
about the business (which might be possible without needing access to formal
education) was used as a single item dependent variable, being female was a
significant predictor.
H5, predicting that women would be more likely than men to use networking as a
career strategy, was not supported when using the networking and change jobs tactics
scale; the significant predictors of these tactics were working for an organization that
was not an SOE and being younger. When using the single item of “exchange favors
with others” as the dependent variable, nothing in the equation was a significant
predictor; when using the single item “build a network of contacts” as the dependent
variable, those who did not working for an SOE were significantly more likely to use
this tactic than those who worked for an SOE.
H6 that men and women would be equally likely to use the career tactic of loyalty
toward superiors was supported. Gender was not a significant predictor either when
the two item loyalty to superiors tactics scale was used or when a single item of “doing
what the boss wants” was used as the dependent variable.

Discussion
There were not extensive gender differences in external careers. The lack of difference
in the number of levels from the top of the organization may be an artifact of the
sample, since the sample contained the personnel director in every organization and
this is often one of the few high managerial positions held by a woman. The difference
in number of organizations does indicate that men were slightly more likely than
women to have left their state-owned or collective organizations and gone to work for a
market organization since it is difficult and much less likely to have moved from one
state- owned or collective organization to another.
As for internal career beliefs, both women and men value achievement, contributing
to the family, and collectivism as career goals and use loyalty to superiors and
networking as career tactics. Gender differences in ancient Chinese philosophy do not
seem to dictate contemporary career beliefs as measured in this study. Women were
more likely than the men to try to learn more and to want to get more education to get
what they wanted in their careers. These findings among relatively well educated
 CDI managerial employees are consistent with the findings of Bu and McKeen that there
12,1 were few gender differences in intrinsic and achievement career goals among Chinese
students in Canada and in the PRC (Bu and McKeen, 2001).
The lack of significant differences findings for the scales might be attributed to low
internal consistency in the scales, however, similar findings occurred with single items
that were most closely identified with the central meaning of the scales and this tends
24 to support the finding of no difference. In the case of collectivism, however, the gender
difference was proposed based on collective loyalty to family, yet this item did not load
on the collectivism scale. The results are consistent with more recent accounts of few
gender differences in many aspects of work behavior in Western literature and the
belief among women that they must do a better job and be more qualified in order to
get the same promotions and rewards (Powell and Graves, 2003). These findings also
might be an indication of cultural convergence if the reason for the finding of no gender
differences resides in the younger generation becoming less strongly influenced by
traditional Confucian and Taoist notions that women are inferior and should not
Downloaded by ECU Libraries At 10:52 04 January 2018 (PT)

operate in the world outside of the family. Perhaps the older Chinese norm of
subordination of women is not held by women when they determine their career goals
and tactics for non-family roles.
There were more differences between being employed in an SOE and not being
employed in an SOE than there were gender differences. Those who were employed in
an SOE were more likely to have collectivist careers goals and family security career
goals and less likely to use networking and getting more education as career tactics
than those employed in other settings. These findings are consistent with both the
values of SOEs to preserve jobs and look out for the welfare of workers and with the
requirements to use education and networking to find a position in a non-SOE job in
the PRC today.
There are significant implications for practitioners in these findings. Managers in
non-SOE and joint ventures need to recognize that their employees are using networks
and willingness to change jobs as key career advancement tactics. They must be
prepared to expend efforts to retain valued male and female employees if they do not
want them to leave to advance their careers. Managers of SOEs that are reducing staff
as government policies reduce support for less successful SOEs are likely to lose
valued employees if they fail to provide the family security that their employees desire.
According to these results, managers in all organizations cannot justify discrimination
against hiring or promoting women based on their lower commitment to achievement
or to learning relevant job skills.

Limitations
The sample was not representative of the entire People’s Republic of China even
though it did contain variation in regions, industries and patterns of ownership. A
larger more representative sample of individuals would have permitted more
sophisticated analysis with larger subgroup sizes to identify changes by cohort,
industry, and ownership. Since there has been little previous research about careers in
the PRC but more research about cultural values, this study used the previous research
on Chinese cultural values to shape the hypotheses about internal career goals and
tactics. This may have been a logical connection that was too loose to justify the
hypotheses and serve as one reason that hypotheses were not supported. Another
 explanation for conflicting results may be because values are translated in career goals Career
and tactics in different ways according to different gender roles, such as achievement perceptions in
being expressed in working hard to do well in your current job for women and in some
other ways for men. the PRC
Some of these conflicting results may be because the multiple items of each career
construct derived from western ideas of career goals and tactics did not load onto
single factors. When they did load onto one factor, they still did not present scales with 25
high internal consistency; PRC participants’ patterns of response indicated that there
may be different conceptual groupings.
The factor analysis results indicate that the common western ideas of career goals and
career tactics may not apply well to the PRC situation. The exact nature of career goals
and career tactics in the PRC deserves further qualitative study followed by careful
development of better measures. In addition, future scholars might be able to use these
findings to conduct research on similar topics using a nationally representative sample.
Downloaded by ECU Libraries At 10:52 04 January 2018 (PT)

Conclusions
In the first half of the twentieth century Chinese women were devalued and confined to
the domestic sphere while Chinese men accepted the obligation to support their family
financially. The 1949 revolution codified gender equality in employment according to the
law but the law was not always enforced. Recently, market competition has eliminated
pressure and control by the central government to adhere to the gender equality proposed
in the constitution resulting in fewer women than men being hired and promoted to upper
levels of management in the growing private sector of the economy. In spite of these social
changes and some gender differences in men and women’s external careers in the PRC,
the most consistent finding of this study is that women and men have few differences in
career goals and tactics. The only gender difference was that women were more
committed than men to wanting to learn more and do their current job well in order to
pursue their careers. Based on these findings, organizational policy-making managers
and career men and women can learn that women as well as men may be very desirable
employees who are motivated to achieve. Female and male employees are equally
motivated to work hard, to achieve and do a good job and are equally loyal to the
organization, the society and their superiors. This study indicates that women and men
are ready and eager to contribute to organizations that are willing to give them a chance
and women are particularly motivated by situations that give them opportunities to learn.
In addition, scholars of work settings and of gender relations in the PRC have a fertile
field for future development of theory and measurement.

References
Arthur, M., Khapova, S.N. and Wilderom, C.P.M. (2005), “Career success in a boundaryless career
world”, Journal of Organizational Behavior, Vol. 26 No. 2, pp. 177-202.
Becker, B. and Conner, P. (2003), “Personal value systems and decision”, Public Personnel
Management, Spring, pp. 1-41.
Bu, N. and McKeen, C.A. (2001), “Work goals among male and female business students in
Canada and China: the effects of culture and gender”, International Journal of Human
Resource Management, Vol. 12 No. 2, pp. 166-84.
Cao, Y. (2001), “Careers inside organizations: a comparative study of promotion determination in
reforming China”, Social Forces, Vol. 80 No. 2, pp. 683-712.
 CDI Chen, C.C., Lee, Y.T. and Dou, S.G. (1995), “The effect of modernization on Chinese values”, paper
presented at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Society, New York City.
12,1
Chen, C.C., Meindl, J.R. and Hunt, R.G. (1997), “Testing the effects of vertical and horizontal
collectivism: a study of reward allocation preferences in China”, Journal of Cross-Cultural
Psychology, Vol. 28 No. 1, pp. 4-70.
Chen, F. (1998), “Extending maternity leave not an answer”, China Daily, p. 2.
26 Chinese Culture Connection (1987), “Chinese values and the search for culture free dimensions of
culture”, Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, Vol. 18, pp. 143-64.
Cooke, F.L. (2003), “Equal opportunity? Women’s managerial careers in governmental
organizations in China”, International Journal of Human Resource Management, Vol. 14
No. 2, pp. 317-34.
Derr, C.B. and Laurent, A. (1989), “The internal and external career: a theoretical and
cross-cultural perspective”, in Arthur, M.B., Hall, D.T. and Lawrence, B.S. (Eds), Handbook
of Career Theory, Cambridge University Press, New York, NY, pp. 454-71.
Downloaded by ECU Libraries At 10:52 04 January 2018 (PT)

Granrose, C.S. (Ed.) (1997), The Careers of Business Managers in East Asia, Quorum, Westport,
CT.
Granrose, C.S. (Ed.) (2005), Employment of Women in Chinese Cultures: Half the Sky, Edward
Elgar, Cheltenham.
Greenhaus, J.H. and Callanan, G.A. (1994), Career Management, Dryden, Fort Worth, TX.
Guisso, R.W. (1982), “Thunder over the lake: the five classics and the perception of women in
early China”, Women in China, Philo Press, New York, NY.
Hall, D.T. (1976), Careers in Organizations, Goodyear, Palisades, CA.
Hall, D.T. (2004), “The protean career: a quarter century journey”, Journal of Vocational Behavior,
Vol. 65, pp. 1-13.
Hofstede, G.H. (1984), Culture’s Consequences: International Differences in Work-Related Values,
Sage, Newbury Park, CA.
Hong, X. (1997), “Women promoted to leading positions”, China Daily, p. 2.
Honig, E. and Hershatter, G. (1988), Personal Voices: Chinese Women in the 1980s, Stanford
University Press, Stanford, CA.
Jiang, A.F. (2000), “The conflict between males and the role of contemporary female
professionals”, Chinese Education and Society, Vol. 33 No. 6, pp. 37-44.
King, J.E. (2000), Gender Equity in Higher Education: Are Male Students at a Disadvantage?,
ERIC ED446573, ACE, Washington, DC.
Park, S.H. and Luo, Y.D. (2001), “Guanxi and organizational dynamics: organizational
networking in Chinese firms”, Strategic Management Journal, Vol. 22 No. 5, pp. 455-77.
Parpart, J. and Stichter, S. (1990), Women, Employment and the Family in the International
Division of Labor, Temple University Press, Philadelphia, PA, pp. 11-62.
Leung, A.S.M. (2002), “Gender and career experiences in mainland Chinese state owned
enterprises”, Personnel Review, Vol. 31 No. 5, pp. 602-19.
Powell, G.N. and Graves, L.M. (2003), Women and Men in Management, Sage, Thousand Oaks,
CA.
Ralston, D.A., Egri, C., Stewart, S., Terpstra, R.H. and Yu, K.C. (1999), “Doing business in the 21st
century with the new generation of Chinese managers: a study of generational shifts in
work values in China”, Journal of International Business Studies, Vol. 30 No. 2, pp. 415-28.
 Ren, J.Y. (1993), “A Taoist Classic: The Book of Lao Zi, English translation by He Guanhu, Gao Career
Shining, Song Lidao, and Xu Junyao”, in Jiyu, R. Transl. (Ed.), Lao Zi, Book of Lao Zi – A
Modern Chinese Translation, (1985), Foreign Language Press, Beijing, translated by Ren perceptions in
Jiyu, The Shanghai Chinese Classics Publishing House, Shanghai. the PRC
Schein, E.H. (1978), Career Dynamics, Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA.
Shu, X. and Bian, Y. (2003), “Market transition and gender gap in earnings in urban China”,
Social Forces, Vol. 8 No. 4, pp. 1107-45. 27
Wang, P., Lawler, J.J., Walumbwa, F.O. and Shi, K. (2004), “Work-family conflict and job
withdrawal intentions: the moderating effect of cultural differences”, International Journal
of Stress Management, Vol. 11 No. 4, pp. 392-412.
Wang, Z. (1998), Research on Women in Contemporary China: Guide to Women’s Studies in
China, Monograph #50, Institute of East Asian Studies, Berkeley, CA.
Wolfe, M. (1985), The People’s Republic of China, Women Workers in Fifteen Countries: Essays in
Honor of Alice Hanson Cook, ILR Press, Ithaca, NY.
Downloaded by ECU Libraries At 10:52 04 January 2018 (PT)

Yang, N., Chen, C.C., Choi, J.P. and Zho, Y.M. (2002), “Sources of work family conflict: a Sino-US
comparison of the effects of work and family demands”, Academy of Management Journal,
Vol. 43 No. 1, pp. 113-23.
Yeh, R.S. (1989), “On Hofstede’s treatment of Chinese and Japanese values”, Asia Pacific Journal
of Management, Vol. 6 No. 1, pp. 149-60.
Zuo, J.P. (2003), “From revolutionary comrades to gendered partners”, Journal of Family Issues,
Vol. 24 No. 3, pp. 314-38.
Further reading
Chen, F. (1998), “Laid off women need training”, China Daily, p. 2.
Cho, H.J. (1987), “Male dominance and mother power: the two sides of Confucian patriarchy in
Korea”, Discussion paper of the International Cultural Society of Korea, Seoul.
Ralston, D.A., Gustafson, D.J., Elsass, P.M., Cheung, F. and Terpstra, R.H. (1992), “Eastern
values: a comparison of managers in the United States, Hong Kong, and the People’s
Republic of China”, Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 77 No. 5, pp. 664-71.
Ralston, D.A., Yu, K.C., Wang, X., Terpstra, R.H. and He, W. (1994), “An analysis of managerial
work values across the six regions of China”, paper presented at the annual meeting of the
Academy of Management, Dallas, TX.
Smith, P.B., Dugan, S. and Trompenaars, F. (1996), “National culture and the values of
organizational employees: a dimensional analysis across 43 nations”, Journal of
Cross-Cultural Psychology, Vol. 27 No. 2, pp. 231-64.

About the author

Cherlyn Skromme Granrose, Professor of Management at Berry College, Rome GA, also served
on the faculty at Temple University (1981-1993) and Claremont Graduate University (1993-2000).
She had Fulbright awards to South Korea-Taiwan, Singapore, and PRC. Her books include
Employment of Women in Chinese Cultures, The Careers of Business Managers in East Asia,
Cross-cultural Work Groups, Work-Family Role Choices for Women in their 20s and 30s, and Job
Saving Strategies: Worker Buyouts and QWL. She is a member of APS, AIB, and AOM, serving
on the board of the Gender and Diversity Division and Chair of the Careers Division. Cherlyn can
be contacted at: cgranrose@berry.edu

To purchase reprints of this article please e-mail: reprints@emeraldinsight.com

Or visit our web site for further details: www.emeraldinsight.com/reprints
 This article has been cited by:

1. Maria S. Wong, Paige Worthy, Joey Fung, Eva C.-H. Chen. 2017. A Qualitative Analysis of the Experience
of Female Chinese American Church Leaders: Associations with Gender Role, Culture, and Work-Family
Balance. Pastoral Psychology 4. . [Crossref]
2. Jia Wang, Melika Shirmohammadi. 2016. Women Leaders in China. Advances in Developing Human
Resources 18:2, 137-151. [Crossref]
3. Yunxia Zhu, Alison M. Konrad, Hao Jiao. 2016. Violation and activation of gender expectations: Do
Chinese managerial women face a narrow band of acceptable career guanxi strategies?. Asia Pacific Journal
of Management 33:1, 53-86. [Crossref]
4. Ye Luo. 2016. Gender and Job Satisfaction in Urban China: The Role of Individual, Family, and Job
Characteristics. Social Indicators Research 125:1, 289-309. [Crossref]
5. Carol Woodhams, Huiping Xian, Ben Lupton. 2015. Women Managers’ Careers in China: Theorizing
the Influence of Gender and Collectivism. Human Resource Management 54:6, 913-931. [Crossref]
Downloaded by ECU Libraries At 10:52 04 January 2018 (PT)

6. Guang Huang, Klaus G. Grunert, Dayin Lu, Yanfeng Zhou. 2015. Chinese Urban Consumers
Segmentation Based on Modified Food-Related Lifestyle (FRL). Journal of International Consumer
Marketing 27:4, 328-343. [Crossref]
7. Yusuf M. Sidani, Alison Konrad, Charlotte M. Karam. 2015. From female leadership advantage to female
leadership deficit. Career Development International 20:3, 273-292. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
8. Wayne H. Decker, Thomas J. Calo, Hong Yao, Christy H. Weer. 2015. Preference for group work in
China and the US. Cross Cultural Management: An International Journal 22:1, 90-115. [Abstract] [Full
Text] [PDF]
9. Xiang Yi, Barbara Ribbens, Linna Fu, Weibo Cheng. 2015. Variation in career and workplace attitudes by
generation, gender, and culture differences in career perceptions in the United States and China. Employee
Relations 37:1, 66-82. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
10. Mboni Kibelloh, Yukun Bao. 2014. Can Online MBA Programmes Allow Professional Working Mothers
to Balance Work, Family, and Career Progression? A Case Study in China. The Asia-Pacific Education
Researcher 23:2, 249-259. [Crossref]
11. Hang Yue Ngo, Sharon Foley, Ming Shuang Ji, Raymond Loi. 2014. Linking Gender Role Orientation
to Subjective Career Success. Journal of Career Assessment 22:2, 290-303. [Crossref]
12. Jiehua Huang, Iiris Aaltio. 2014. Guanxi and social capital: Networking among women managers in China
and Finland. International Journal of Intercultural Relations 39, 22-39. [Crossref]
13. Jay Wu. 2013. Accumulated choices, cultural triangle and economic growth. The Journal of Socio-
Economics 47, 158-169. [Crossref]
14. Hayfaa A. Tlaiss. 2013. Women managers in the United Arab Emirates: successful careers or what?.
Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: An International Journal 32:8, 756-776. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
15. Ariane Ollier-Malaterre, Monique Valcour, Laura Den Dulk, Ellen Ernst Kossek. 2013. Theorizing
national context to develop comparative work–life research: A review and research agenda. European
Management Journal 31:5, 433-447. [Crossref]
16. Vasanthi Srinivasan, L.S. Murty, Monisha Nakra. 2013. Career persistence of women software
professionals in India. Gender in Management: An International Journal 28:4, 210-227. [Abstract] [Full
Text] [PDF]
 17. Matthew H.T. Yap, Elizabeth M. Ineson. 2012. Diversity management: The treatment of HIV-positive
employees. AIDS Care 24:11, 1349-1358. [Crossref]
18. Lynette Reid. 2011. Looking back to look forward: Māori cultural values and the impact on career.
International Journal for Educational and Vocational Guidance 11:3, 187-196. [Crossref]
19. Afam Ituma. 2011. Africa: a fertile but “uncharted” territory for career studies. African Journal of Economic
and Management Studies 2:2, 243-254. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
20. Yun Yang. 2011. Gender and Engineering Career Development of Hotel's Employees in China. Systems
Engineering Procedia 1, 365-371. [Crossref]
21. Peter A. Creed, Oi Yin Wong, Michelle Hood. 2009. Career decision-making, career barriers and
occupational aspirations in Chinese adolescents. International Journal for Educational and Vocational
Guidance 9:3, 189-203. [Crossref]
22. Matthew H.T. Yap, Elizabeth M. Ineson. 2009. HIV‐infected employees in the Asian hospitality industry.
Journal of Service Management 20:5, 503-520. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
23. Russell Smyth, Qingguo Zhai, Xiaoxu Li. 2009. The impact of gender differences on determinants of
Downloaded by ECU Libraries At 10:52 04 January 2018 (PT)

job satisfaction among Chinese off–farm migrants in Jiangsu. Journal of Chinese Economic and Business
Studies 7:3, 363-380. [Crossref]
24. Michael Z. Sincoff, Crystal L. Owen, Joseph W. Coleman. 2009. Women as Managers in the United
States and China: A Cross-Cultural Study. Journal of Asia-Pacific Business 10:1, 65-79. [Crossref]
25. Huiping Xian, Carol Woodhams. 2008. Managing careers: experiences of successful women in the Chinese
IT industry. Gender in Management: An International Journal 23:6, 409-425. [Abstract] [Full Text]
[PDF]
26. Cem Tanova, Mine Karataş‐Özkan, Gözde İnal. 2008. The process of choosing a management career.
Career Development International 13:4, 291-305. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
27. Caroline Kamau. Strategising Impression Management in Corporations 60-83. [Crossref]
28. Caroline Kamau. Strategising Impression Management in Corporations 1707-1731. [Crossref]