Motivating Human Productivity in the People's Republic of China

Abstract

The authors were part of a group touring the People's Republic of China in the fall of 1978, before the startling news that China and the United States had established diplomatic relations. This provided an opportu nity for them to participate in a number of industrial and business projects and to learn how Chinese management seeks to motivate pro ductivity. Business contacts were made in four major cities, and a number of discussions were held with third-country nationals engaged in busi ness in China on a day-by-day basis. Different facets of the motivation effort were examined: the ideology of hard work, the manner of evaluat ing it, techniques of exerting pressure to increase it, and the approaches used to reward the greater productivity of one person over another. A number of factors are similar to motivational practices in the United States and Western Europe, and some are strikingly different from what would be regarded as acceptable in the Western World.