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Changes in work values across the regions of China

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Abstract

This study examines changes in values of Chinese professionals across high, moderate, and low development regions between 1993/94 and 2004/05 and as such explores values in China’s recent past. The 1993/94 to 2004/05 period was crucial during China’s evolution from a socialist state to one more open to capitalism. The foundation of our investigation is crossvergence theory, which we extend by developing a multilevel-crossvergence perspective of national and regional influences on work values/behaviors. We test hypotheses specific to national-level and to regional-level changes in the importance of individualism, collectivism, and Confucianism values. Our study demonstrates that differences in hypothesized predictions result from the level on which a study is focused. This, in turn, results in differing support for study findings, which is a significant limitation of single-level studies. In sum, this study reveals the importance of delving beneath the national-level to gain a more fine-grained, regional-level understanding of values evolution in China. This is a finding that we believe may generalize to other countries, in particular, developing countries.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University Fellows International Research Consortium, Ft Myers, FL, USA

    David A. Ralston

  2. Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC, Canada

    Carolyn P. Egri

  3. American University of Beirut, Beirut, Lebanon

    Charlotte M. Karam

  4. University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Huairou, China

    Yongjuan Li

  5. Nottingham Business School China, Ningbo, China

    Ping Ping Fu

Authors
  1. David A. Ralston
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  2. Carolyn P. Egri
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  3. Charlotte M. Karam
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  4. Yongjuan Li
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  5. Ping Ping Fu
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to David A. Ralston.

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Ralston, D.A., Egri, C.P., Karam, C.M. et al. Changes in work values across the regions of China. Asia Pac J Manag 35, 145–179 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10490-017-9519-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10490-017-9519-y

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