The Role of Age and Gender in Regards to Work Values in Shanghai.pdf

1、This research paper aims to get a better understanding of differences in terms of typical work-related values between age groups and genders among current and aspiring“white-collar”professionals in Shanghai.
　　The stu

2、dy carries relevance for those who wish to conduct business in China or with the Chinese market through interaction with Chinese professionals.
　　The literature review covers literature and work conducted on Chinese c

3、ulture，and changing of culture，both in regards to differences within the local population and also the relationship to the cultures of other nations (often western culture(s)).
　　The main“problem”of studying culture i

4、s the complexity of both defining and measuring it appropriately. The cultural dimensions framework，which was developed by Hofstede，Hofstede and Minkov is a framework which is often turned to when comparing national cult

5、ures and has therefore played an important part in this study.
　　Unlike many scholars and studies，this paper does not use samples of other countries in order to contribute to the discussion of whether Chinese culture

6、is becoming more“westernized”as a result of globalization and foreigninfluences. Many find this to be a reasonable assumption，andMing-Jer Chen1 argues in his study“Inside Chinese Business:A guide for managers worldwide”t

7、hat western business culture is the dominating force in global business. Certain sources indicate that this is the case for certain identified work-related values，such as the Humanities Center at Stanford University2. Ho

8、wever，there is also data to indicate that underlying values，often rooted in Confucian teachings，still persists among younger generations of Chinese professionals. This paper will therefore not approach the discussion of

9、whether Chinese professionals converge more towards western values in general，but rather focus on the diversity among its local population.
　　A highly relevant study which served as an inspiration for this paper is“Do

10、ing Business in 21 Century with the New Generation of Chinese Managers:A Study of Generational Shifts in Work Values in China”by Ralston，Egri，Stewart，Terpstra and Yu3. The study examines the generational differences of C

11、hinese professionals and concludes a significant shift in the work-related dimensions“individualism”and“collectivism”. This study was however written a relatively long time ago and did not examine dimensions beyond indiv

12、idualism and collectivism，individualism and Confucianism.
　　1Chen，M 2001，Inside Chinese business:A guide for managers worldwide，Harvard Business Press 2“WhytheWestRules-ForNow.”StanfordHumanities.December1,2010.Access

13、edFebruary10,2016.http://shc.stanford.edu/news/research/why-west-rules—-now. 3Ralston，Egri，Stewart，Terpstra，Yu;Doing Business in the 21st Century with the New Generation of Chinese Managers:A Study of Generational Shifts

14、 in Work Values in China (1991). Source:Journal of International Business Studies，Vol 30，No 2 (2nd quarter 199) pp. 415-427.
　　The background information of this paper indicates that the shift provenin“Doing Business

15、in the 21st Century with the New Generation of Chinese Managers”could still be going on，and that certain sub groups defined by age and gender could show disparities in work-related values beyond just collectivism and ind

16、ividualism.
　　The generational shift is obviously based on age and its impact on individuals，hence also included in this paper. However，as most the research regarding the evolving culture is based on generational diff

17、erences，certain variables，which could very much prove to be relevant，have perhaps not been granted the appropriate amount of attention. It is natural that culture in terms of work-related is not continuously measured by

18、a vast range of variables as it would be require enormous effort and resources. The purpose of this paper was to identify relatively large sub-groups and compare their differences on a general basis. One independent vari

19、able that naturally sticks out is gender，which coincidentally has been ignored compared to age in many studies. Therefore，the comparisons of gender played an important part of the paper. The sample was constructed to be

20、homogenous in terms of gender throughout the different age groups so that it would be possible to identify differences between genders not only in general，but differences between genders throughout the different age grou

21、ps.
　　The study did in some ways enforce both views that China is converging towards western values，and at the same time staying true to some of its corevalues. For instance，the study showed that the youngest responde

22、nts in thisstudy did show a higher degree of individualism than the older respondents. The same can be said about indulgence and masculinity，although here the scores do not differ at the same extent as withindividualism.

23、 The one-child-policy is one factor，which was predicted to affect the indulgence dimension inparticular. Interestingly，the two youngest generations，both consisting of individuals born after this policy was instated，showe

24、d higher scores than the oldest generation (while the difference between the youngest and second youngest generation were not as apparent). The masculinity score showed a slight increase from the oldest generation contin

25、uing to the youngest.
　　The scores for the long-term orientation and uncertainty avoidance dimensions did show that there were little disparities among the age groups，although the uncertainty avoidance level was sligh

26、tly lower for the middle generation (age 30-39). The long-term orientation scores were close to identical for all age groups.
　　The power distance was expected to be highest among the youngest respondents,which the re

27、sults also proved. This was expected to due to the age-based hierarchy that exists in Chinese culture.
　　The score for monumentalism was close to identical for the two youngest generations，with the oldest generation s

28、coring somewhat lower than the following generations.
　　Gender also proved to be a deciding factor for some dimensions，and most results concurred with the predictions. Women did in fact show a higher degree of individ

29、ualism，a lower degree of power distance，and slightly more surprising a lower degree of uncertainty avoidance and higher degree of long-term orientation. As expected，the female respondents also scored lower on masculinity

30、 than the male respondents. The only dimension that was close to identicalin terms of overall scores was indulgence，which was also predicted. In terms of monumentalism，the female sample had a slightly higher score than t

31、he male respondents.
　　The findings were mostly consistent with the constructed hypotheses，and the study did in fact enforce the idea that certain values such as individualism，indulgence and power distance would be in

32、fluenced by age. At the same time the findings showed that values such as uncertainty avoidance and long-term orientation were little，if not at all affected by age.
　　It should however be mentioned that although certa

33、in disparities between age and gender were discovered，many of which were also predicted based on the literature review and secondary data，the overall disparities did not seem to be extreme. The most significant differenc

34、e was in the individualism dimension，which was expected to shift towards a higher degree of individualism for the younger generations.
　　One should also keep in mind that values could arguably me transient throughout

35、a persons life，hence the shifts might not result on China becoming,for instance，more individualistic. There is always a possibility that the younger individuals will shift towards more collectivistic values in time. Inor