The 996 Working Pattern in Chinese Internet Firms: How Hegemonic Despotism Promotes Long Working Hours for Employees

The 996 working pattern has increasingly become one of the most salient employment problems among Chinese internet firms, yet existing research still provides very little insight into what really causes employees to work on a 996 or even 007 schedule. In this article, the authors highlight a rearticulation of hegemonic despotism to account for the 996 working pattern in internet firms. Drawing on qualitative fieldwork in six China-based internet firms, the authors determine that the most prominent and coercive mechanism behind the 996 working pattern is that of informal-flexible-allied despotism, which generates the cumulative effects of high risk of job loss and permanent unemployment. The complementary hegemonic mechanisms that rely on normative control and career identification provide explanations for employee compliance and willingness to keep striving. This article is among the first to examine the 996 working pattern in China. It also contributes to labour process analysis by providing an updated version of hegemonic despotism for understanding the contemporary workplace. Moreover, this study has practical implications in enabling beneficial changes to the 996 working pattern.