ABSTRACT  The Sixth Plenary Session of the 16th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China pointed out creating harmonious culture is an important task for building socialist harmonious society. Building harmonious culture needs all companies to create harmonious culture, because a company is a basic social unit. Henceforth, many Chinese companies advocate building harmonious corporate culture. Scholars must study basic theories for harmonious corporate culture. This study tried to answer two questions: What is harmonious corporate culture in Chinese mind and how do different Chinese perceive harmonious corporate culture? Firstly, this paper analyzed background of harmonious corporate culture from Chinese traditional culture and era needs. Secondly, authors designed an open-ended questionnaire and sent them to employees in Jiangsu and Shanghai. 329 questionnaires were returned and 291 questionnaires were valid, representing a response rate of 88.45%. Thirdly, this study explored dimensions of harmonious corporate culture and identified different viewpoints from different group. Finally, this paper discussed the results and pointed out limitations of this study and future research. The results of this paper were basis of defining, measuring, analyzing, and creating harmonious corporate culture.

1. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND AND QUESTIONS

The Fourth Plenary Session of the 16th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China put forward building socialist harmonious societies and the sixth plenary session of the 16th central committee of the communist party of China pointed out creating harmonious culture is an important task for building socialist harmonious society. Building harmonious culture needs all companies to create harmonious culture, because a company is a basic social unit^[1].

Why do Chinese corporations advocate harmonious corporate culture? Maybe Chinese traditional culture and era needs are reasons.

Chinese philosophy has a history of several thousand years. Its origins are often traced back to the Yi Jing (yi jing), which introduced some of the most fundamental terms of Chinese philosophy. Its first flowering is generally considered to have been in about the 6th century BCE, but it draws on an oral tradition that goes back to Neolithic times.

  The Tao Te Ching (dao de jing) of Lao Tzu (lao zi) and the Analects (lun yu)of Confucius (kong zi) both appeared around the 6th century BC, around the time of early Buddhist philosophy.

Confucianism focused on the fields of ethics and politics, emphasizing personal and governmental morality, correctness of social relationships, justice, traditionalism, and sincerity. Confucianism and legalism are responsible for creating the world’s first meritocracy. Confucianism was and continues to be a major influence in Chinese culture. Harmonious culture is meant to respect the tradition of basing virtue under Confucius upon "harmony with differences" while exploring extensively our cultural resources and cultural ideas or beliefs.

The Chinese schools of philosophy, except during the Qin Dynasty, can be both critical and tolerant of one another. Despite the debates and competition, they generally have cooperated and shared ideas, which they would usually incorporate with their own.

Harmony was a central concept in Chinese ancient philosophy. Confucian, Taoist, Buddhist and Legalist that were the major Chinese traditions all prized “harmony” as an ultimate value, but they disagreed on how to achieve it. Confucians in particular emphasized the single-character term for “harmony” (he), which appears in all of Confucianism’s “Four Books and Five Classics” (si shu wu jing). The most forceful articulation of identification of personal and communal harmony comes from the Doctrine of the Mean (zhong yong), which defines harmony as a state of equilibrium where pleasure, anger, sorrow and joy are moderated and restrained, allowing “all things in the universe to attain the way”.

During the Industrial and Modern Ages, Chinese philosophy had also begun to integrate concepts of Western philosophy. Chinese philosophy has been attempts to incorporate democracy, republicanism and industrialism. Mao Zedong added Marxism, Stalinism and other communist thought. The government of the People’s Republic of China encourages Socialism with Chinese Characteristics.

The theoretical bases of harmonious socialist society are Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought, Deng Xiaoping Theory, and the important thought of "Three Represents" (That is, the CPC must always represent the development trend of China's advanced productive forces, the orientation of China's advanced culture, and the fundamental interests of the overwhelming majority of the people in China.).

Six main characteristics of a harmonious society are democracy and the rule of law, fairness and justice, integrity and fraternity, vitality, stability and order, and harmony between man and nature. The principles observed in building a harmonious socialist society as following: putting people first; development in a scientific way; in-depth reform and opening up; democracy and the rule of law; properly handling the relationships between reform, development and stability; and the participation of the whole society under the leadership of the Party.

The authors tried to define harmonious corporate culture: harmonious corporate culture is the corporate culture that adheres to people-oriented principle and considers harmony as a core concept, by managing in good faith and scientific administration to achieve harmony among enterprises, society and nature, and eventually make enterprises develop harmoniously and healthily.

Chinese traditional culture is the basis of harmonious corporate culture. Era need is the direction of harmonious corporate culture. “Harmonious Corporate Culture” is a new identification and is different from any existent conceptions. What is harmonious corporate culture? This study wants to answer this question by analyzing Chinese viewpoints from open-ended questionnaires.

Question 1: What is harmonious corporate culture in Chinese mind?

Harmonious corporate culture is a new and special conception for Chinese. General views of Chinese could be found by searching dimensions of harmonious corporate culture. In fact, different person has different idea. Maybe there are difference among different group, which can be classified by sex, age, education and position. This study will find and explain those differences.

  Question 2: How do different Chinese perceive harmonious corporate culture?

Today, many Chinese companies advocate building harmonious corporate culture. Understanding conception and characters of harmonious corporate culture are very important. This paper will answer two questions which are basis of this field.

2. METHODS

2.1 Sample and Procedure

  The empirical analysis was carried out in Jiangsu and Shanghai. Jiangsu’s economic and social development has always been keeping ahead in China. Shanghai is China’s chief industrial and commercial centre and one of its leading centres of higher education and scientific research. They are both lie in center of China’s east coast. We can know what modern Chinese are thinking and hoping by studying employees in Jiangsu and Shanghai.

  Questionnaires couldn’t be counted because of using both paper version and computer version. From January 2007 to January 2008, authors sent questionnaires to employees who work in Jiangsu and Shanghai. 329 questionnaires were returned and 291 questionnaires were valid, representing a response rate of 88.45%.

  Table 1 summarizes the key statistics for the sample used in the study.

Table 1 Characteristics of the sample

2.2 Measures

  Authors designed an open-ended questionnaire based on study purpose. This scale only used one question to collect information for answer question 1 of this study. This question is “Please use ten words or ten sentences to describe harmonious corporate culture”.

3. RESULTS

  This research found there were some similar viewpoints about harmonious corporate culture from collected questionnaires. Authors classify these viewpoints as 15 dimensions after holding 10 study group meetings. Some dimensions were identified based on China’s traditional culture and present policies. Table 2 lists 15 dimensions in English and Chinese because of some dimensions with Chinese characteristics.

Table 2 Dimension and frequency of harmonious corporate culture

  This study calculated dimensions’ frequencies from different group to know different person’s ideal of harmonious corporate culture. Table 3 shows statistics for male’s and female’s viewpoints on harmonious corporate culture.

Table3 Frequency and order of harmonious corporate culture from female and male

Table 4 shows statistics for Managerial employees’ and Nonmanagerial employees’ viewpoints on harmonious corporate culture.

Table4 Frequency and order of harmonious corporate culture from different position

Table 5 shows statistics of the recognition of harmonious corporate culture by persons who have different education background.

Table5 Frequency of harmonious corporate culture from different degree

4. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS

4.1 Results

  Some companies advocate building harmonious corporate culture and some companies boast that they possess harmonious corporate culture after government called on all society to create harmonious culture. But what is harmonious corporate culture? Some scholars wanted to explain it, but nobody answered this question by empirical study. Authors answered question 1 of this study by analyzing collected data. A lot of standpoints were found, but some standpoints could be classified as one because they possess same meaning but are described by different words. Study group held 10 meetings to discuss harmonious corporate culture dimensions based on questionnaires. Finally, 15 dimensions were identified. They are People oriented, steady development, scientific administration, vitality, stability and order, fraternity and concord, unity and cooperation, fairness and impartiality, democratic participation, managing in good faith, pursuing excellence, social responsibility, energy conservation and environmental protection, incorporating things of diverse nature, and common development and win-win situation. The result answered question 1: What is harmonious corporate culture in Chinese mind?

  Dimensions were arranged on frequency. People oriented ranked first. People oriented in China has three sources: Max’s study of humanity; “People first” descending from Chinese history and new anthropocentric^[2]. Chinese like speaking “people oriented” relating to Chinese traditional culture. The genesis of people oriented is traceable to the Western Zhou Dynasty and people oriented became the core thought of Confucianism which influenced Chinese deeply. Many archaism were concerned with people oriented, such as “The people are the most important element in a state; next are the gods of land and grain; least is the ruler himself^[3].”(min wei gui, she ji ci zhi, jun wei qing) Many scholars also considered people oriented is core and basis of harmonious corporate culture^[4][5].

This paper compared different groups’ viewpoints to answer question 2 -- how do different Chinese perceive harmonious corporate culture?

  People oriented, unity and cooperation, vitality, and fraternity and concord were ranked from 1 to 4 by female and male. The same results made authors surprised. But they are different in fifth dimension. The fifth of female is democratic participation and the fifth of male is stability and order. Female status was lower than male in ancient China. Female had to comply with the three obedience and the four virtues (san cong si de) in past. The three obediences obey her father before marriage, her husband when married, and her sons in widowhood and the four virtues (morality, proper speech, modest manner and diligent work) of women in ancient China, which were spiritual fetters of wifely submission and virtue imposed on women in feudal society. Female status is improving after female deputy attended the first National Congress of the Communist Party of China. Today, Chinese female think much of the rights of women, so democratic participation is fifth dimension. The ancients belief “Men’s work centers around outside, women’s work centers around the home^[6]”(nü zheng wei hu nei, nan zheng wei hu wai) which came from The Book of Changes (yi jing). Man had to work hard in society for earning money and getting honour for his family. Today, both man and woman work in government, company, school, hospital and so on, but man always plays major role and assumes primary responsibility in society and home for traditional culture. Change is fast and competition is fierce in modern society, so man is facing great pressure. This is reason that man hopes live and work in more stable environment, so stability and order is fifth dimension.

People oriented, unity and cooperation, and vitality were ranked from 1 to 3 by Managerial employee and Nonmanagerial employee. Scientific administration and democratic participation were ordered as fourth dimension by managerial employee. Managerial employee look deeper and think further than nonmanagerial employee because managerial employee at higher level and hold more responsibility in organization. Managerial employee cares about management questions. Fraternity and concord was ordered as fourth dimension by nonmanagerial employee. Nonmanagerial employee less concern about enterprises’ overall operation and management state than managerial employee do. They understand harmonious corporate culture from their own specific the work and life. Nonmanagerial employee does specific task and needs direct corporation. They believe that the staffs’ civilized language and behaviours, mutual understanding, the warm atmosphere of interpersonal relationships in the enterprise are very important aspects of harmonious corporate culture. Nonmanagerial employee cares about good relationship. Generally speaking, the differences of the harmonious corporate culture dimensions understanding between managerial employee and nonmanagerial employee are closely related to their location in the organizational structure and their working content in the enterprise.

People oriented was ordered as first dimension and unity and cooperation was ordered as second dimension by all persons whatever their education background are. Vitality was ordered as third dimension by all responders except persons who got master or doctor degree. The responders whose highest education qualification over master degree ordered scientific administration as second dimension too. The person holding advanced academic degree has more opportunity to be promoted to managerial position, so they think scientific administration is very important in a harmonious environment. Compared with other groups，the relatively higher education group who get  undergraduate degree, are more interested in stability and order, fairness and impartiality dimensions. People in this group are the middle and high-level managers in the enterprise, that is, not only they are familiar with the overall state of the enterprise, but also they understand deeply internal staffs’ living conditions characteristics. Therefore, they put more attention on stability and order, fairness and impartiality dimensions.

All groups ordered people oriented, unity and cooperation, and vitality as most important three dimensions. The same results showed what core contents for harmonious corporate culture are.

4.2 Limitations and Future Research

  This study was just an exploratory study. The authors searched harmonious corporate culture’s dimensions by open-ended questionnaire. But the validity of these results need be proved by more studies. Authors will design close-ended questionnaire based on this study and collect new data. Dimensions of harmonious corporate culture will be confirmed by exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis.

  This paper only discussed what harmonious corporate culture is. In the future, how to create harmonious corporate culture should be studied.

  Authors compared viewpoints from different sex, position and education. Age, birthplace, nationality and work experience influence individual thought too. Different opinions from different group should be identified in future study.

China should act as not only the defender of Chinese culture but an explorer and promoter of the new harmonious culture. Harmony is the social theme for present China. Studying basic theory of harmonious corporate culture will contribute to our society.

REFERENCES

[1] Lianke SONG, Dongtao, YANG, Hao YANG. Why do companies create harmonious cultures? Comparing the influence of different corporate cultures on employees. Enterprise Management and Change in a Transitional Economy. 2008. p595-603.

[2] LU Wanglin. On theoretic source of “human oriented” -- analyzing the scientific factor of “scientific development view” from one point of view. Hebei Academic Journal, 26 (5), 2006, p228-230.

[3] Mencius. The Mencius. Warring States time.

[4] Liangbo CHENG, Lincheng JING. An search on creating harmonious corporate culture. Group Economy, (17), 2007, p294-295.

[5] Xiangkui GENG. Extracting kernel of Confucianism to create harmonious corporate culture. Theoretical Research, (3), 2007, p47-48.

[6] The Book of Changes.