Wei-Ju A JIN
Lincoln School of Management
University of Lincolnshire and Humberside
Lincoln, LN 2 5QF
UNITED KINGDOM
INTRODUCTION
Despite the overwhelming Western pressure to converge with the so – called developed countries, China seems to be determined to proceed with its open – door modernization program while sticking to its contemporary socialist beliefs. With few countries still having faith in socialism or having tasted any significant economic progress under the socialism banner in the 20th Century, it is foreseeable that the 21st Century will pose a significant challenge to China in both economy and ideology. With much confusion surrounding the newly coined and adopted national pursuit of socialist market economy or market socialism, Chinese State – Owned Enterprises will have to change dramatically in their ways of existence and operation. Otherwise, it would be difficult for them to survive and succeed in the fierce market competitions with less and less governmental subsidiary and favouritism. This paper intends to discuss one aspect of organizational management for Chinese SOEs, which is human resource management. It intends to probe the problem situations in the present SOEs while exploring possible changes, which may help the SOEs to succeed in both the economical and ideological pursuits. The success of Chinese SOE reforms will be crucial to the successful transformation of China from a command – and – control ideologically – driven socialist country to that of an ideological – led market socialism. To help with the exploration, we will utilize a discussion on systems thinking as against systemic thinking. The exploration for ways forward for human resource development of today´s information technology.
KEY WORDS: China, socialist market economy, transition, HRM changes.
