A grounded investigation of Chinese office politics
Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Administration
ISSN: 1757-4323
Article publication date: 5 September 2016
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to critically review the extant western literature on political skill and impression management in human resource management and organisational behaviour and applies an inductive approach to explore an equal Chinese concept of office politics in the People’s Republic of China (PRC).
Design/methodology/approach
An empirical study conducted in a wide range of Chinese organisational forms, employing an inductive approach based on critical incident technique.
Findings
Data collected from 173 employees supported this model and indicated the existence of 14 clusters of behaviours that characterise political skill, impression management and the overlap between the two. Extending impression management theory, the authors found that individual players’ political skill drives the dynamics of Chinese office politics and may help a subordinate gain a favourable image with superiors and serve as the overlap between individual political skill and impression management from the Chinese perspective.
Originality/value
The authors used a grounded theory approach to report the construct of a Chinese concept of office politics in the PRC, which is much similar to the western concept of political skill in organisation. Compared with western political skill literature, this study found both universal and cultural-specific phenomena on political perspective in Chinese organisations.
Keywords
Citation
Han, Y., Wang, Z., Sheard, G. and Kakabadse, N. (2016), "A grounded investigation of Chinese office politics", Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Administration, Vol. 8 No. 3, pp. 281-297. https://doi.org/10.1108/APJBA-12-2015-0108
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2016, Emerald Group Publishing Limited