Research Express@NCKU - Articles Digest
1 of 1
Research Express@NCKU Volume 24 Issue 7 - August 16, 2013 [ http://research.ncku.edu.tw/re/articles/e/20130816/2.html ]
The Effect of Confucian Work Ethics on Learning
about Science and Technology Knowledge and Morality
Quey-Jen Yeh
1,*and Xiaojun Xu
21 Department of Business Administration, National Cheng Kung University, ROC 2 School of Management, Fudan University, Shanghai, P. R. China
yehqj@mail.ncku.edu.tw
Journal of Business Ethics, August 2010, Volume 95, Issue 1, pp 111-128
C
hina and overseas Chinese, including Taiwan, have become the global manufacturing and marketing force, prompting greater changes in cross-cultural business cultures between Chinese-managed organizations and their culturally different Western partners. Chinese societies, rooted in Confucianism, often appear traditional, centralized, and guanxi-oriented, and thus seem to impede technology and innovation. However, these innovation suppressing values may simply reflect the negative-leaning poles of Confucianism. Theory of cultural values has asserted the ultimate determinant of Confucianism for Eastern Asian economic successes (Franke, Hofstede and Bond, 1991*).This study defines a Confucian work ethic dimension that stresses the justified tradition. In combination with Western innovative cultures, this Chinese style might facilitate learning about knowledge and morality in an interaction unique to the Chinese high-tech sector. Particularly, contrary to the Western style that tolerates conflict to achieve harmony, Confucian work ethics, which presents an Eastern way, prefer to respect hierarchy to attain harmony.
The samples came from Shanghai and Hsinchu in Taiwan, in which most enterprises in Shanghai were Western MNCs (multinational corporations) and most of those in Taiwan were POEs (privately owned enterprises).
Because Western MNCs stimulated China’s adoption of Western practices, the data from these two samples represent two levels of Westernization. The findings reveal that the two seemingly contradictory values almost equally influence the facilitation of learning about morality, whereas the Eastern way more effectively teaches about general knowledge and the Western way more effectively teaches professional knowledge. Furthermore, though the samples from both locations enjoy positive advantages from their combined cultures, Shanghai appears more Westernized than Taiwan, and Taiwan benefits more from Confucian work ethics and a higher level of quality learning, particularly with regard to morality. This result may suggest the benefits of Confucius’s ideas, if they are not used excessively to emphasize the negative aspects. In addition, Westernization alone may not be the only useful approach in Chinese high-tech sectors.
*Franke, R. H., Hofstede, G., and M. H. Bond: 1991, ‘Cultural Roots of Economic Performance: A Research Note’, Strategic Management Journal 12, 165-173.
