Pub Date : 2020-01-01DOI: 10.1177/2057150X19891880
Yu You, Yifan Huang, Yuyi Zhuang
How do natural disasters impact political trust in contemporary China and what is the causal mechanism? Existing literature indicates that the severity of disaster, government relief effort and information dissemination are three key factors influencing people’s political trust in the context of acute natural disasters. This study uses the Wenchuan earthquake as a natural experiment and focuses specifically on the survey data collected right before and after the earthquake. It finds that primarily due to the ‘rally round the flag’ effect and extensive media coverage, public trust in government officials at all levels rose significantly after the earthquake. During the crisis, state-run media played a vital intermediate role. The more a citizen was exposed to the official media coverage, the more likely his/her political trust was to increase. However, the division of work in disaster relief among different levels of government resulted in differences in the level of increase in trust. As local-level governments are often directly responsible for the rescue and post-earthquake relief, they gained the highest increase in political trust, while state-level officials gained the least. The short-run upsurge in political trust receded as time went by. Government mobilization and media coverage are core contributing factors to the increase in political trust during the post-disaster period. Nevertheless, the key to consolidating political legitimacy lies in long-term efforts to build good and effective governance.
{"title":"Natural disaster and political trust: A natural experiment study of the impact of the Wenchuan earthquake","authors":"Yu You, Yifan Huang, Yuyi Zhuang","doi":"10.1177/2057150X19891880","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/2057150X19891880","url":null,"abstract":"How do natural disasters impact political trust in contemporary China and what is the causal mechanism? Existing literature indicates that the severity of disaster, government relief effort and information dissemination are three key factors influencing people’s political trust in the context of acute natural disasters. This study uses the Wenchuan earthquake as a natural experiment and focuses specifically on the survey data collected right before and after the earthquake. It finds that primarily due to the ‘rally round the flag’ effect and extensive media coverage, public trust in government officials at all levels rose significantly after the earthquake. During the crisis, state-run media played a vital intermediate role. The more a citizen was exposed to the official media coverage, the more likely his/her political trust was to increase. However, the division of work in disaster relief among different levels of government resulted in differences in the level of increase in trust. As local-level governments are often directly responsible for the rescue and post-earthquake relief, they gained the highest increase in political trust, while state-level officials gained the least. The short-run upsurge in political trust receded as time went by. Government mobilization and media coverage are core contributing factors to the increase in political trust during the post-disaster period. Nevertheless, the key to consolidating political legitimacy lies in long-term efforts to build good and effective governance.","PeriodicalId":37302,"journal":{"name":"社会","volume":"6 1","pages":"140 - 165"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2020-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/2057150X19891880","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49582599","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-10-01DOI: 10.1177/2057150X19871909
Yang Zhou
Based on a comparison between labor markets in China and those in the USA and using data from the China Family Panel Studies and the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, this paper studies the level, distribution and socioeconomic patterns of job mobility in contemporary China. I first discuss the different social contexts in China and the USA that have generated distinct opportunity structures of job mobility. Differences in levels of economic development, cultural traditions and institutional arrangements help to shape different labor markets and job mobility patterns across the two societies. I argue that job mobility is not always as good as we thought. There is a duality of job mobility at both the individual and the societal levels. Second, I develop several indexes and use the percentile share method to analyze job mobility rates by different groups and their uneven distributions. Compared to the USA, I find that China has a lower overall level of job mobility, a more skewed distribution and a higher concentration of mobility in socioeconomically disadvantaged groups, such as the elderly, the less-educated and those of rural origin. The results demonstrate the importance of understanding the duality of mobility; that is, that mobility can be either upward or downward. In contemporary China, socioeconomically disadvantaged people may suffer downward job mobility.
{"title":"Understanding job mobility patterns in contemporary China: A comparative study based on the China Family Panel Studies and the Panel Study of Income Dynamics","authors":"Yang Zhou","doi":"10.1177/2057150X19871909","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/2057150X19871909","url":null,"abstract":"Based on a comparison between labor markets in China and those in the USA and using data from the China Family Panel Studies and the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, this paper studies the level, distribution and socioeconomic patterns of job mobility in contemporary China. I first discuss the different social contexts in China and the USA that have generated distinct opportunity structures of job mobility. Differences in levels of economic development, cultural traditions and institutional arrangements help to shape different labor markets and job mobility patterns across the two societies. I argue that job mobility is not always as good as we thought. There is a duality of job mobility at both the individual and the societal levels. Second, I develop several indexes and use the percentile share method to analyze job mobility rates by different groups and their uneven distributions. Compared to the USA, I find that China has a lower overall level of job mobility, a more skewed distribution and a higher concentration of mobility in socioeconomically disadvantaged groups, such as the elderly, the less-educated and those of rural origin. The results demonstrate the importance of understanding the duality of mobility; that is, that mobility can be either upward or downward. In contemporary China, socioeconomically disadvantaged people may suffer downward job mobility.","PeriodicalId":37302,"journal":{"name":"社会","volume":"5 1","pages":"453 - 473"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2019-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/2057150X19871909","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43430501","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-10-01DOI: 10.1177/2057150X19875073
Sheng Long
This study explores the question of how ethnic groups were assimilated by the Imperial State to be placed under the administration of the central government and how their ethnicity changed during this process of nationalization. This paper studies the case of the Yi ethnic group in Bailu Ying of Mianning county, Sichuan Province in China. The ancestors of Yi people in Bailu Ying lived on Mount Daliang before the Wanli reign of the Ming Dynasty. In the early period of the Ming Dynasty, the government had set up Ningfan Garrison on the river valley on the west side of Mount Daliang. By the late Wanli Period, the garrison was consistently being attacked by the indigenous people in the area. In order to quell the resistance, the Imperial Court recruited Yi people as soldiers to guard the garrison. Afterwards, a new settlement of the Yi tribe in the Bailu Ying River valley emerged, and in the process the Yi people’s livelihood was transformed from herding and fishing to agriculture. In the early Qing, the Yi people in Bailu Ying were further integrated into the Imperial system with the inclusion of chieftains in the imperial governing body. However, up until the later years of the Qianlong reign, the Yi maintained relative autonomy in terms of its tribal settlement, power structure and cultural integrity. Later, with the arrival of new Han migrants, the introduction of the Baojia system, and the promotion of Han culture and education, the Yi group in Bailu Ying gradually lost its independence and began to be assimilated into the national identity, leading to the formation of Shuitian (rice field) Yi ethnicity. The case of the Shuitian Yi shows that the survival strategy of tribal minorities from the mountains did not necessarily follow the pattern of ‘avoiding becoming part of empires’, as suggested by James C. Scott, nor were these ethnic people always slow and passive in integrating with empires. On the contrary, the acceptance of the imperial rule was a survival strategy that helped to creating new ethnic groups while also consolidating frontiers for the Ming and Qing Empires.
{"title":"The nationalization process and formation of Shuitian Yi ethnicity during Ming and Qing: A case study of the Yi ethnic group in Bailu Ying, Mianning County, Sichuan","authors":"Sheng Long","doi":"10.1177/2057150X19875073","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/2057150X19875073","url":null,"abstract":"This study explores the question of how ethnic groups were assimilated by the Imperial State to be placed under the administration of the central government and how their ethnicity changed during this process of nationalization. This paper studies the case of the Yi ethnic group in Bailu Ying of Mianning county, Sichuan Province in China. The ancestors of Yi people in Bailu Ying lived on Mount Daliang before the Wanli reign of the Ming Dynasty. In the early period of the Ming Dynasty, the government had set up Ningfan Garrison on the river valley on the west side of Mount Daliang. By the late Wanli Period, the garrison was consistently being attacked by the indigenous people in the area. In order to quell the resistance, the Imperial Court recruited Yi people as soldiers to guard the garrison. Afterwards, a new settlement of the Yi tribe in the Bailu Ying River valley emerged, and in the process the Yi people’s livelihood was transformed from herding and fishing to agriculture. In the early Qing, the Yi people in Bailu Ying were further integrated into the Imperial system with the inclusion of chieftains in the imperial governing body. However, up until the later years of the Qianlong reign, the Yi maintained relative autonomy in terms of its tribal settlement, power structure and cultural integrity. Later, with the arrival of new Han migrants, the introduction of the Baojia system, and the promotion of Han culture and education, the Yi group in Bailu Ying gradually lost its independence and began to be assimilated into the national identity, leading to the formation of Shuitian (rice field) Yi ethnicity. The case of the Shuitian Yi shows that the survival strategy of tribal minorities from the mountains did not necessarily follow the pattern of ‘avoiding becoming part of empires’, as suggested by James C. Scott, nor were these ethnic people always slow and passive in integrating with empires. On the contrary, the acceptance of the imperial rule was a survival strategy that helped to creating new ethnic groups while also consolidating frontiers for the Ming and Qing Empires.","PeriodicalId":37302,"journal":{"name":"社会","volume":"5 1","pages":"509 - 544"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2019-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/2057150X19875073","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46230950","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-10-01DOI: 10.1177/2057150X19872742
Lang Zhou, Q. Sun
This paper focuses on the religious psychology of peasants who undergo religious conversion in order to cure an illness or disease. Field research was conducted in Wang village in Northern Jiangsu, examining the psychology of newly converted peasants. In academic circles psychology of peasants is usually critiqued according to utility and rationality. In this paper, belief is a starting point for understanding the psychology of peasants. The natural mentality and family ethics of the peasants lead them to place high expectations on religion as a tool for curing disease and facing life crises and dilemmas. The three levels of religious practice include: religious construction of ‘belief’; emotional embedding of ‘belief’; and developing ‘faith’. These requirements lead to the transformation of the individual’s psychological status from secular to religious. Based on the interaction between the individual and religion which is affected by the initial disease and its seriousness, peasants’ religious psychology is divided into three types: collapse of belief; transition of belief; and upgrading of belief. The rituals and different attitudes towards belief constitute the mechanism of developing religious psychology and also shape peasants’ attitudes towards faith. In addition, this paper explores the role of belief in understanding individual religious psychology, religious conversion, and religious revival in Chinese rural religious practices.
{"title":"The psychology of peasant religious conversion for the purpose of disease control: The role of belief in understanding Chinese rural religious practices","authors":"Lang Zhou, Q. Sun","doi":"10.1177/2057150X19872742","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/2057150X19872742","url":null,"abstract":"This paper focuses on the religious psychology of peasants who undergo religious conversion in order to cure an illness or disease. Field research was conducted in Wang village in Northern Jiangsu, examining the psychology of newly converted peasants. In academic circles psychology of peasants is usually critiqued according to utility and rationality. In this paper, belief is a starting point for understanding the psychology of peasants. The natural mentality and family ethics of the peasants lead them to place high expectations on religion as a tool for curing disease and facing life crises and dilemmas. The three levels of religious practice include: religious construction of ‘belief’; emotional embedding of ‘belief’; and developing ‘faith’. These requirements lead to the transformation of the individual’s psychological status from secular to religious. Based on the interaction between the individual and religion which is affected by the initial disease and its seriousness, peasants’ religious psychology is divided into three types: collapse of belief; transition of belief; and upgrading of belief. The rituals and different attitudes towards belief constitute the mechanism of developing religious psychology and also shape peasants’ attitudes towards faith. In addition, this paper explores the role of belief in understanding individual religious psychology, religious conversion, and religious revival in Chinese rural religious practices.","PeriodicalId":37302,"journal":{"name":"社会","volume":"5 1","pages":"474 - 508"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2019-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/2057150X19872742","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47852514","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-09-24DOI: 10.1177/2057150X19872685
Yao Lu, W. J. Yeung, Jingming Liu, D. Treiman
Internal migration in China has resulted in large numbers of left-behind children. Despite growing attention paid to this population, existing research has not systematically addressed the mediating mechanisms linking parental migration to children's health. The present study examines the influences of migration on the health of left-behind children in China and the mediating channels, using data from a new nationally representative survey. We compare three groups of rural children aged 3–15 years (N = 2473): those who were left behind by both parents, those who were left behind by one parent and those living with both non-migrant parents. Results show that the health of rural children left behind by both parents (but not by one parent) is worse than the health of children living with both parents. The health disadvantage of these children is mediated by their caregivers' poor health status and caregiving practices. These mediating factors not only have a direct impact on child health but also exert an indirect impact by shaping children's nutritional intakes. Contrary to conventional wisdom, monetary remittances are not a significant mechanism linking migration to child health.
{"title":"Health of left-behind children in China: Evidence from mediation analysis","authors":"Yao Lu, W. J. Yeung, Jingming Liu, D. Treiman","doi":"10.1177/2057150X19872685","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/2057150X19872685","url":null,"abstract":"Internal migration in China has resulted in large numbers of left-behind children. Despite growing attention paid to this population, existing research has not systematically addressed the mediating mechanisms linking parental migration to children's health. The present study examines the influences of migration on the health of left-behind children in China and the mediating channels, using data from a new nationally representative survey. We compare three groups of rural children aged 3–15 years (N = 2473): those who were left behind by both parents, those who were left behind by one parent and those living with both non-migrant parents. Results show that the health of rural children left behind by both parents (but not by one parent) is worse than the health of children living with both parents. The health disadvantage of these children is mediated by their caregivers' poor health status and caregiving practices. These mediating factors not only have a direct impact on child health but also exert an indirect impact by shaping children's nutritional intakes. Contrary to conventional wisdom, monetary remittances are not a significant mechanism linking migration to child health.","PeriodicalId":37302,"journal":{"name":"社会","volume":"5 1","pages":"431 - 452"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2019-09-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/2057150X19872685","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41868343","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-07-01DOI: 10.1177/2057150X19848147
M. Luo, E. Chui
Prior research has shown that time availability, relative resources, and gender perspective have great effects on couples’ division of housework, yet less attention has been paid to how the magnitude of these influences varies by cohort. By embedding the three dominant micro-level perspectives on housework in a macro-level context (i.e. cohort-level), this study examines each of the three perspectives’ explanatory powers for explaining the housework behaviors of two post-1976 cohorts: the early- and late-reform marriage cohorts. Regression results and Relative Importance analyses examining the three perspectives on housework show dissimilar effects for the two cohorts: the relative resources and gender perspectives better predict the housework gender gap in early-reform couples, while the time availability perspective better predicts the housework gender gap in late-reform couples. Specifically, the three most important predictors of the housework gender gap for the early-reform cohort are wife’s weekly paid work hours, wife’s proportion of couple’s income, and wife or her parents owning the house, while for the younger, late-reform cohort, the three most important predictors are wife’s employment, wife’s weekly paid work hours, and number of co-living children, suggesting that the relative resources perspective is weakened for the late-reform cohort. In addition, both the Relative Importance analyses and the Seemingly Unrelated Regression estimations reveal that although early-reform couples are likely to ‘do gender’ as a performance, this diminishes for late-reform Chinese couples. These changes indicate an uneven process regarding gender equality and the need to take cohort into account when testing the micro-level theoretical perspectives on the housework gap.
{"title":"The changing picture of the housework gender gap in contemporary Chinese adults","authors":"M. Luo, E. Chui","doi":"10.1177/2057150X19848147","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/2057150X19848147","url":null,"abstract":"Prior research has shown that time availability, relative resources, and gender perspective have great effects on couples’ division of housework, yet less attention has been paid to how the magnitude of these influences varies by cohort. By embedding the three dominant micro-level perspectives on housework in a macro-level context (i.e. cohort-level), this study examines each of the three perspectives’ explanatory powers for explaining the housework behaviors of two post-1976 cohorts: the early- and late-reform marriage cohorts. Regression results and Relative Importance analyses examining the three perspectives on housework show dissimilar effects for the two cohorts: the relative resources and gender perspectives better predict the housework gender gap in early-reform couples, while the time availability perspective better predicts the housework gender gap in late-reform couples. Specifically, the three most important predictors of the housework gender gap for the early-reform cohort are wife’s weekly paid work hours, wife’s proportion of couple’s income, and wife or her parents owning the house, while for the younger, late-reform cohort, the three most important predictors are wife’s employment, wife’s weekly paid work hours, and number of co-living children, suggesting that the relative resources perspective is weakened for the late-reform cohort. In addition, both the Relative Importance analyses and the Seemingly Unrelated Regression estimations reveal that although early-reform couples are likely to ‘do gender’ as a performance, this diminishes for late-reform Chinese couples. These changes indicate an uneven process regarding gender equality and the need to take cohort into account when testing the micro-level theoretical perspectives on the housework gap.","PeriodicalId":37302,"journal":{"name":"社会","volume":"5 1","pages":"312 - 339"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2019-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/2057150X19848147","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44976488","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-07-01DOI: 10.1177/0018726718823149
Zhuoni Zhang, Tianzhu Nie, Duoduo Xu
Using data from the 2011 population census and the Hong Kong Panel Study of Social Dynamics, this paper examines the academic performance and non-cognitive skills of the children of Chinese migrants in Hong Kong aged 14 and below. Our analyses show that the poorer academic performance of Chinese migrants’ children results mainly from disadvantageous family background and parenting practices. Children of cross-border and migrant families do not differ from children of natives in Chinese, mathematics, or English, once parental education and parent–child communication about school life are controlled for. Children from migrant families have significantly higher levels of non-cognitive ability than children of natives. Our analyses also show that parental education is positively associated with Chinese and English performances; parents talking with children about school life significantly improves children’s performance in Chinese, mathematics, and English; and parental migrant status and parenting practices have positive effects on non-cognitive skills.
{"title":"Family background, parenting practices, and child outcomes: Chinese migrants’ offspring in Hong Kong","authors":"Zhuoni Zhang, Tianzhu Nie, Duoduo Xu","doi":"10.1177/0018726718823149","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726718823149","url":null,"abstract":"Using data from the 2011 population census and the Hong Kong Panel Study of Social Dynamics, this paper examines the academic performance and non-cognitive skills of the children of Chinese migrants in Hong Kong aged 14 and below. Our analyses show that the poorer academic performance of Chinese migrants’ children results mainly from disadvantageous family background and parenting practices. Children of cross-border and migrant families do not differ from children of natives in Chinese, mathematics, or English, once parental education and parent–child communication about school life are controlled for. Children from migrant families have significantly higher levels of non-cognitive ability than children of natives. Our analyses also show that parental education is positively associated with Chinese and English performances; parents talking with children about school life significantly improves children’s performance in Chinese, mathematics, and English; and parental migrant status and parenting practices have positive effects on non-cognitive skills.","PeriodicalId":37302,"journal":{"name":"社会","volume":"5 1","pages":"263 - 282"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2019-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/0018726718823149","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44298781","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-07-01DOI: 10.1177/2057150X19856285
Man Shuai
The mainstream explanation for employee turnover is either cause–effect factor analysis or interaction analysis. The former is effective in identifying causal relations between factors and the latter in revealing the dynamics of interpersonal relationships. Combining the benefits of both methods, this study applies guanxi circle theory to studying employee turnover. It places various turnover factors under the framework of interpersonal interactions and uses the social network structure as an analytic point from which to examine the dynamic evolution of trust within the organization. The study finds that in the case of the Tianyuan Tea Company, the collective resignation was largely caused by the collapse of trust within the guanxi circles that informally operated within the company social network centered on the management authority who had the power of hiring, firing, and promotion. Five conclusions are proposed: (a) the formal hierarchical structure of power can either coincide with or be separate from the informal guanxi circles – when the two are in accordance, resignations rarely happen, while discordance between the two is often an indicator of potential resignations; (b) organizational changes are most likely to cause guanxi circles outsiders to resign; (c) members of the inner guanxi circle in the organization do not resign because of discordant relationships with lower level managers, but rather, they get relocated with promotion; (d) the collapse of ‘bridges’ between guanxi circles can cause collective resignations; (e) those who survive organizational shakeups are members of the inner guanxi circle in the organization and the ‘bridges’ of guanxi circles. This study contributes to the research on employee turnover by introducing a new perspective of guanxi circle theory as well as drawing attention to the important function of the ‘bridge’ in coordinating between circles, and by offering theoretical understanding and practical guidance for social governance.
{"title":"Lost trust and dissolved guanxi circles: A case study of a collective resignation event at Tianyuan Tea Company","authors":"Man Shuai","doi":"10.1177/2057150X19856285","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/2057150X19856285","url":null,"abstract":"The mainstream explanation for employee turnover is either cause–effect factor analysis or interaction analysis. The former is effective in identifying causal relations between factors and the latter in revealing the dynamics of interpersonal relationships. Combining the benefits of both methods, this study applies guanxi circle theory to studying employee turnover. It places various turnover factors under the framework of interpersonal interactions and uses the social network structure as an analytic point from which to examine the dynamic evolution of trust within the organization. The study finds that in the case of the Tianyuan Tea Company, the collective resignation was largely caused by the collapse of trust within the guanxi circles that informally operated within the company social network centered on the management authority who had the power of hiring, firing, and promotion. Five conclusions are proposed: (a) the formal hierarchical structure of power can either coincide with or be separate from the informal guanxi circles – when the two are in accordance, resignations rarely happen, while discordance between the two is often an indicator of potential resignations; (b) organizational changes are most likely to cause guanxi circles outsiders to resign; (c) members of the inner guanxi circle in the organization do not resign because of discordant relationships with lower level managers, but rather, they get relocated with promotion; (d) the collapse of ‘bridges’ between guanxi circles can cause collective resignations; (e) those who survive organizational shakeups are members of the inner guanxi circle in the organization and the ‘bridges’ of guanxi circles. This study contributes to the research on employee turnover by introducing a new perspective of guanxi circle theory as well as drawing attention to the important function of the ‘bridge’ in coordinating between circles, and by offering theoretical understanding and practical guidance for social governance.","PeriodicalId":37302,"journal":{"name":"社会","volume":"5 1","pages":"374 - 406"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2019-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/2057150X19856285","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49310165","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-07-01DOI: 10.1177/2057150X19853191
Shao‐Hua Zheng
Up to the present, the distinguished Tibetan writer, Alai, has published four full-length novels – King Gesar, Nyarong (Zhandui), Red Poppies, and the Hollow Mountain series – which have, to a great extent, shaped outsiders’ impressions of Kham, or Eastern Tibet, one of the three traditional divisions of ‘cultural Tibet’ or ‘ethnographical Tibet’. Based on a historical anthropological perspective, this article examines the spatial and temporal dimensions of Kham history reflected in these four novels. On the one hand, it shows how the native Khampa's senses of space, referring to surrounding political entities, changed first from an ancient model of ‘four regimes in four directions’, then to a dual model of the central Han and local Tibetan polities on opposing sides during late Imperial China and the Republican Period, and finally to the unitary model of a single central government in the contemporary period. In addition, this article shows how Khampa have experienced changing senses of time, from circulatory Tibetan Buddhist time to the dynastic time of Chinese Empires to modern linear time. Beyond revealing the transformations in the spatial and temporal senses of the Khampa people, Alai also implicitly describes the alternative models in Sino-Tibetan relations as both historical reality and ideality: Spatially, in the process of forced integration, Han Chinese and Tibetan people have simultaneously experienced ethnic distinction, which has been recognized by elite Khampa agents; Temporally, free borderland markets, acting in the role of historical transcendence, have been protective and under control, especially for the sake of the Tibetan side. The above narratives are both empirical facts and Alai's expectations and construction. On the one hand, as an ethnic-minority writer and native speaker (Tibetan dialect rGyalrong), Alai loves his fellow Tibetans and tends to understand their conditions from the bottom up; on the other hand, raised in a peripheral Tibetan village near a Han area, educated in modern Mandarin schools and a Mandarin college, and unable to practice writing in his mother language, Alai has a conception of history that has been generated from the top down. It is easy to understand how, faced with issues of frontiers and ethnic minorities, native elites like Alai are quite likely to develop a historical construction of literary complexity. This complexity further diversifies outsiders' impressions of Tibet.
{"title":"The history and future of Kham: Perspectives based on a historical anthropological reading of Alai's four novels","authors":"Shao‐Hua Zheng","doi":"10.1177/2057150X19853191","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/2057150X19853191","url":null,"abstract":"Up to the present, the distinguished Tibetan writer, Alai, has published four full-length novels – King Gesar, Nyarong (Zhandui), Red Poppies, and the Hollow Mountain series – which have, to a great extent, shaped outsiders’ impressions of Kham, or Eastern Tibet, one of the three traditional divisions of ‘cultural Tibet’ or ‘ethnographical Tibet’. Based on a historical anthropological perspective, this article examines the spatial and temporal dimensions of Kham history reflected in these four novels. On the one hand, it shows how the native Khampa's senses of space, referring to surrounding political entities, changed first from an ancient model of ‘four regimes in four directions’, then to a dual model of the central Han and local Tibetan polities on opposing sides during late Imperial China and the Republican Period, and finally to the unitary model of a single central government in the contemporary period. In addition, this article shows how Khampa have experienced changing senses of time, from circulatory Tibetan Buddhist time to the dynastic time of Chinese Empires to modern linear time. Beyond revealing the transformations in the spatial and temporal senses of the Khampa people, Alai also implicitly describes the alternative models in Sino-Tibetan relations as both historical reality and ideality: Spatially, in the process of forced integration, Han Chinese and Tibetan people have simultaneously experienced ethnic distinction, which has been recognized by elite Khampa agents; Temporally, free borderland markets, acting in the role of historical transcendence, have been protective and under control, especially for the sake of the Tibetan side. The above narratives are both empirical facts and Alai's expectations and construction. On the one hand, as an ethnic-minority writer and native speaker (Tibetan dialect rGyalrong), Alai loves his fellow Tibetans and tends to understand their conditions from the bottom up; on the other hand, raised in a peripheral Tibetan village near a Han area, educated in modern Mandarin schools and a Mandarin college, and unable to practice writing in his mother language, Alai has a conception of history that has been generated from the top down. It is easy to understand how, faced with issues of frontiers and ethnic minorities, native elites like Alai are quite likely to develop a historical construction of literary complexity. This complexity further diversifies outsiders' impressions of Tibet.","PeriodicalId":37302,"journal":{"name":"社会","volume":"5 1","pages":"407 - 427"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2019-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/2057150X19853191","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48223094","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-07-01DOI: 10.1177/2057150X19855310
Xu Yan, Q. Ren
This research studies whether children’s gender influences household adults’ perceptions of their illnesses and the pattern of seeking medical treatments for them, the aim of which is to understand to what extent minor girls (under 15) are discriminated against in Chinese rural households’ allocation of curative healthcare. Using the 2014 wave of China Family Panel Studies (CFPS), we find that households in rural China do allocate more medical resources to boys than girls. Gender differences mainly exist in children’s hospitalization rates and medical expenditures. Girls are especially disadvantaged as they grow older. They also face an added problem of sibling rivalry that leads to sick girls being less likely to be taken to a hospital when they have siblings of the same gender. These results suggest that sick girls in rural China may not be able to receive sufficient curative healthcare due to son preference. This is not only a threat to girls’ well-being, but also a potential cause of the imbalanced sex-ratio of the Chinese population.
{"title":"Selective neglect: Gender disparities in children’s healthcare utilization in rural China","authors":"Xu Yan, Q. Ren","doi":"10.1177/2057150X19855310","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/2057150X19855310","url":null,"abstract":"This research studies whether children’s gender influences household adults’ perceptions of their illnesses and the pattern of seeking medical treatments for them, the aim of which is to understand to what extent minor girls (under 15) are discriminated against in Chinese rural households’ allocation of curative healthcare. Using the 2014 wave of China Family Panel Studies (CFPS), we find that households in rural China do allocate more medical resources to boys than girls. Gender differences mainly exist in children’s hospitalization rates and medical expenditures. Girls are especially disadvantaged as they grow older. They also face an added problem of sibling rivalry that leads to sick girls being less likely to be taken to a hospital when they have siblings of the same gender. These results suggest that sick girls in rural China may not be able to receive sufficient curative healthcare due to son preference. This is not only a threat to girls’ well-being, but also a potential cause of the imbalanced sex-ratio of the Chinese population.","PeriodicalId":37302,"journal":{"name":"社会","volume":"5 1","pages":"283 - 311"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2019-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/2057150X19855310","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41528999","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}