۱- Introduction

۲- Empirical conjectures

۳- Research methods for the literature review

۴- People management in Ancient China (before 1911): evidence of divergence

۵- Proto-HRM in the early stages of modern China’s development (from 1911 to 1949): some evidence of convergence

۶- Personnel administration during the ‘Maoist’ regime from 1949 to 1978: from convergence to divergence?

۷- Human relations and Human Resource Management in China after 1979: moving towards convergence?

۸- Evidence of the influence of scientific management and human relations on the emergence of Chinese HRM: convergence, divergence or more, depending on the context?

۹- Discussion: the emergence of HRM in China vis–à-vis the dynamism of convergence, divergence and contextualisation

۱۰- Conclusions

References

Abstract

This article aims to use the emergence of Human Resource Management (HRM) in China to shed light on the dynamism of convergence, divergence and contextualization in the broader field. It argues that the ways used to manage people in China have diverged or converged with Western or foreign-developed theories and practices, in different institutional contexts and at different periods of time. Overlapping with this intellectual narrative, it looks at HRM in China in its contemporary historical setting, to show how theories such as the US-inspired Scientific Management and Human Relations and the Soviet model of Personnel Administration have influenced and shaped various ways of managing people. The bibliometric review of the unfolding of HRM in China presented in the article will, we argue, also shed further light on wider issues of convergence/divergence and contextualization.

Introduction

In this article, we ask if the emergence of Human Resource Management (HRM) in China is a possibly unique case, or indeed even otherwise, in order to emphasize and add further evidence to the study of convergence, divergence and contextualization in the study of management in general and HRM in particular. The reason for selecting China as an example is due to its long history from a feudal to a modern and industrialized society, the rich experience of the nation’s closing and opening its doors to stop or speed up interactions between East and West over the last hundred years, and in particular its unprecedented transition from a planned to a market-driven economy over the last four decades. The dramatic changes that have occurred in the way people are managed in China have clearly shown evidence of divergence or convergence with Western or foreign-developed theories and practices in different periods of time because of distinctly different institutional contexts and different stages of economic development. To start with, in this article, we examine an intellectual narrative of what is now known as ‘Human Resource Management’ (renli ziyuan guanli) (HRM), albeit ‘with Chinese characteristics’ (juyou zhongguo tese), in the People’s Republic of China (PRC or China), in order to show the diverse influences and legacies in its development and to identify areas for further study. We propose to set out the foundations of this field of study, looking at both its past, present and future in greater detail than previously or more recently attempted, via a bibliometric review of the field (e.g., Busse, Warner, & Zhao, 2016; Chen, Su, & Zeng, 2016; Warner, 1995; Zhu, 2005) and adding evidence to and drawing out the implications for the debate on convergence/divergence and contextualization.