Changing Experiences of Work in Reformed State-Owned Enterprises in China

Abstract

Although previous studies on state-owned enterprise (SOE) reforms in China report the ascendancy of management control and highlight the exploitation of workers, studies that adopt a path-dependent approach report that managers in reformed SOEs are constrained by their traditional socialist ideology and practices in imposing drastic changes. Against this background, a study involving seven reformed SOEs was conducted. This paper focuses on worker reactions to enterprise reforms, and presents analyses that are based on the context-dependent approach to organizational changes in the West. Management control has become stricter in all of the reformed SOEs, but there are significant differences in various work dimensions across enterprises. Multivariate analyses indicate that improved job security and increased mental labour are key predictors of increased job satisfaction. This paper confirms the theoretical values of the context-dependent approach and introduces theoretically derived analyses to worker reactions to SOE reforms in China.