Sunghoon Kim – författare

This book explores the diversity and dynamism of China’s workplaces and of the wider labour market experiences of its workforce. Drawing on the authors’ extensive recent research, it considers a diverse range of issues and types of workplaces. These changes include: the continuing spread of market-oriented human resource management across public and private sector organisations; greater employment rights for workers; local diversity in regulatory control alongside the governmental priority of a ‘harmonious society’; persistent shortages of skilled labour co-existing with vast underemployment amongst the unskilled; uneven access to education and training across regions; and changes in union behaviour and influence.

Unlike other studies - which tend to assume changes to management, work and employment are relatively uniform across modernising parts of the economy - this book conveys the rich variety among contemporary China’s local labour markets by looking at them, and the institutions that influence them, from the bottom-up. It focuses on other under-explored but emerging phenomena such as family-owned firms, the role of private services businesses, and the emergence of employer associations.

This book explores the diversity and dynamism of China’s workplaces and of the wider labour market experiences of its workforce. Drawing on the authors’ extensive recent research, it considers a diverse range of issues and types of workplaces. These changes include: the continuing spread of market-oriented human resource management across public and private sector organisations; greater employment rights for workers; local diversity in regulatory control alongside the governmental priority of a ‘harmonious society’; persistent shortages of skilled labour co-existing with vast underemployment amongst the unskilled; uneven access to education and training across regions; and changes in union behaviour and influence.

Unlike other studies - which tend to assume changes to management, work and employment are relatively uniform across modernising parts of the economy - this book conveys the rich variety among contemporary China’s local labour markets by looking at them, and the institutions that influence them, from the bottom-up. It focuses on other under-explored but emerging phenomena such as family-owned firms, the role of private services businesses, and the emergence of employer associations.

Human Resource Management (HRM) is fundamentally shaped by institutional and cultural factors, such as the different political environments and social philosophies of particular countries and regions. By examining the various organizational aspects of business life and systems of people management in Asia, the study of HRM across the continent can, therefore, give us a greater understanding of Asian societies, as well as the contemporary world of work more generally.

This handbook provides an up-to-date and intellectually engaging overview of HRM in the Asian context. Distinctive in its comprehensive coverage of traditional as well as emerging topics of HRM, it analyzes important themes, such as the regulatory framework for work and employment, religiosity, family business, and gender. Using a comparative approach, it also effectively highlights the unique features of each country’s attitudes towards HRM. Covering a range of themes and case studies, sections include:

• Institutional and cultural contexts,

• Labour regulation and industrial relations,

• Thematic and functional HRM,

• HRM in selected Asian countries, such as China, Japan, Vietnam, India, and Singapore.

Written in a highly accessible style, this book will be useful to students and scholars of Human Resource Management, Asian Business, Economics, and Sociology.

Chapter 15 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.