Shame and discipline: The practice and discourse of a “Confucian model” of management in a family firm in China

Abstract

At the height of economic globalization since the 1990s, neoliberal capitalism has been declared as the only game in town. Against the spread of the neoliberal capitalism from the West to the rest of the world is a growing trend of various local forms of capitalist practices or “spiritual economies.” Using the framework of global assemblage, this article examines how a “Confucian model” of management is put to practice in a self-acknowledged family firm in eastern Zhejiang, China. While the firm’s “Confucian model” of management contains a neoliberal logic of aiming at creating a more disciplined, ethical, and productive workforce, I argue that it is not an example of neoliberal capitalism. Moreover, I argue that the model is not an application of the earlier concept of Confucian capitalism engendered in other parts of Asia. Instead, it is a unique local assemblage consisting of three overlapping but heterogeneous components.