In the Tang era, official sacrifices to mountain and water spirits became more methodical than those of the preceding dynasties. What deserves more attention is that the imperial court bestowed noble titles, which were normally awarded to aristocrats and powerful officials, on the twenty-eight mountain and water spirits, including the Five Sacred Peaks, Four Strongholds, Four Seas and Four Waterways. These practices reflected the two-sided attitude of the Tang rulers to the mountain and water spirits. When confronting violent political changes, the rulers yearned for blessings and protection from these natural deities. On the other hand, with the expansion of monarchical power in the secular world, they sought to establish their authority in the realm of divinity. Running parallel in most cases, the bestowal of nobility and the official sacrificial system constituted the official cult of mountain and water spirits, which survived until the first years of the Ming Dynasty.
"This book offers an ethnographic analysis of how corporate culture has been transformed in the age of globalization and promotes the importance of a national ideology's role in corporate culture studies. Based on fifteen months of participant observation as a shop-floor salesperson, this book explores the gap between management-created corporate ideology and employees' interpretations of and responses to this ideology. The book approaches the issue by examining the formation, dissemination, and interpretation of corporate ideology at a global Japanese fashion retailer in Hong Kong. It does so by charting the history of the company's corporate policy: from centralized attempts at corporate employee management, through the creation of store manager "missionaries" intended to disseminate their ideology, to the ultimately unexpected outcomes as corporate ideology collided with its interpretations by store employees. The interdisciplinary nature of this book will appeal to scholars and upper level students in the fields of management, marketing, anthropology, and cultural studies as well as those interested in globalization, cross-cultural management and retail management"--
"This book offers an ethnographic analysis of how corporate culture has been transformed in the age of globalization and promotes the importance of a national ideology's role in corporate culture studies. Based on fifteen months of participant observation as a shop-floor salesperson, this book explores the gap between management-created corporate ideology and employees' interpretations of and responses to this ideology. The book approaches the issue by examining the formation, dissemination, and interpretation of corporate ideology at a global Japanese fashion retailer in Hong Kong. It does so by charting the history of the company's corporate policy: from centralized attempts at corporate employee management, through the creation of store manager "missionaries" intended to disseminate their ideology, to the ultimately unexpected outcomes as corporate ideology collided with its interpretations by store employees. The interdisciplinary nature of this book will appeal to scholars and upper level students in the fields of management, marketing, anthropology, and cultural studies as well as those interested in globalization, cross-cultural management and retail management"--
Family care is a traditional source of support for older persons in China. However the forces of industrialization and urbanization in China mean that some older people have to adapt to social changes and live independently. The establishment of a social security system and the development of community social services provide great support for older persons who live independently. The majority of old people in China regard the community as their extended family. Since China has a large population and limited financial resources, it is estimated that social services and service facilities meet only 30% and 20% of the demand, respectively. The author proposes that in the process of rapid economic development, the government and non-government organizations need to pay more attention to the growing problems of older persons and to provide more support to them.
As the global economy has evolved, many companies have expanded their operations overseas in a constant search for potential markets in which to sell their products and services. As these companies seek to establish themselves abroad, it becomes imperative to train and to retain local employees. Despite this pressing need, Japanese companies have been widely criticized for failing to retain the services of experienced local employees. The retail industry, in particular, experiences a high degree of employee mobility and requires instant solutions for adjusting to the fast changing environment in which its firms operate. However, many companies believe in the rationality of their corporate systems without questioning suitability to the local circumstance. This thesis uses an anthropological approach to evaluate the company building process of a leading Japanese fashion enterprise (referred to by the pseudonym "Ichi") in Hong Kong. In adopting this approach, I seek to explain the formation and expression of Ichi's corporate ideology, and its interpretation by the firm's employees. This analysis focuses on two primary themes: Ichi's managerial control and the way employees attempted to satisfy company expectations in a purely superficial manner. Specifically, I adopt a participant-observation approach over fifteen months to provide a comprehensive illustration of the activity within Ichi's Hong Kong stores. The first part of this thesis suggests that Ichi uses its corporate ideology, Ichi DNA, to control employees through its corporate system including training, ranking, remuneration, and promotion. Ichi's implementation of its corporate system in Hong Kong seeks to apply its ideology to local employees to promote a "shared" set of values and its own institutional culture, thus unifying important principles across the company. This suggests that industrial familialism, which many scholars have identified as unique to Japanese corporate culture, only superficially illustrates the nature of Japanese companies. This thesis further demonstrates that during the implementation of Ichi's corporate ideology, store employees individually or collectively distorted reports of their performance to attain personal career goals. This challenges the widespread perception that "harmony" is a genuine characteristic of the Japanese company. By examining the actions of different nationalities, the thesis also shows that Store Managers manage human relations within their stores primarily on the basis of different interpretations of the corporate ideology rather than their ethnic backgrounds. This similarly refutes the presumption that Japanese companies are ethnocentric in nature. Evidence from this study demonstrates that the general assumption of the efficacy of scientific management must be reexamined, as the company's managerial practices and relationships with its employees are more heavily influenced by worker politics than the firm's rational structure. By exploring the company building process and the effect of dynamic human relations on it, this study seeks to address the gap between corporate ideology and those practices that exemplify it, contrasting starkly with studies that claim that Japanese firms are uniquely culture- or ethnocentric. ; published_or_final_version ; Japanese Studies ; Doctoral ; Doctor of Philosophy
Purpose Group criticism plays an important role in intergroup relations and conflicts, but few studies have related group criticism to intercultural communication contexts. This study aims to explore two cultural groups' (Chinese international students in the USA and American domestic students) collective face concern as a unique experience in intercultural communication and other psychological responses while encountering group criticism targeting their country image.
Design/methodology/approach A laboratory experiment was conducted assessing Chinese international students (n = 115) and American domestic students' (n = 100) responses to a research-confederate critic (whose group membership was manipulated) criticizing participants' country image such as blaming China and the USA for air pollution or using drugs in the Olympics. analysis of covariance, correlational analysis and regression analysis were adopted to analyze the data.
Findings Chinese international students reported higher collective face concerns and lower liking toward the critic compared with American students. When criticism specifically targeted participants' country image, Chinese international students reported more discomfort feelings than American students; and while responding to the critic who identified as participants' ingroup member, Chinese international students' discomfort feelings were more susceptible to their collective face than American students in the same condition.
Originality/value This study illustrates cultural differences in collective face concerns and psychological reactions in responding to criticism targeting a country image in intercultural communication contexts.
From the old Chinese songs, we know that '56 Chinese brothers and sisters' live together in a big family. This expression refers to the number of nationalities living in P.R. China. However, many Han Chinese live far away from the National Minorities and they get to know their brothers and sisters mainly through media - books, newspapers or movies. As the function of media in China extended from politics to entertainment, it seems worthwhile to study the role which media serve in communicating knowledge (images) about National Minorities to the Han Chinese and what kind of images of the Minorities are actually transmitted. This paper tries to analyse the depiction of Yi Minority in Chinese media - in particular Chinese movies - from 1949 to the present. There are different phases of representations. Through a comparison of these phases, it can be analysed whether and in which way the depiction of National Minorities has been changed since 1949. The images of the Yi Minority transported through the media are of particular interest because they are a basis of communication and understanding but they also lead to misrepresentation and cliché.
