Work values and cultural background: a comparative analysis of work values of Chinese and British engineers in the UK

Frontiers in Psychology

Psychology

Wei Huang¹  Ziteng Shi²  Yuhui Liang³ 

[1] School of Labor and Human Resources, Renmin University of China, Beijing, China;School of Marxism, Hohai University, Nanjing, China;School of Public Administration, Hohai University, Nanjing, Jiangsu, China;

关键词: work values;    cultural differences;    work ethic;    habitus;    ethnicity;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1144557

 received in 2023-01-14, accepted in 2023-05-05,  发布年份 2023

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

In literature of work-related values and attitudes, it is often argued that different work attitudes could be attributed to different ethnic origins and cultural backgrounds. This perspective article argues that we should avoid a deterministic argument of cultural essentialism and explore how ethnic differences in work values were formed in specifical socioeconomic and cultural contexts. To support this argument, this research conducted in-depth interviews to explore the mechanisms underlying the formation of British and Chinese immigrant engineers’ work values in three dimensions: intrinsic-extrinsic, masculine-feminine, uncertainty avoidance-entrepreneurial risk. The main finding in this paper is that the different social and cultural milieus where both ethnic groups grew up to a large extent contributed to their different work habitus, which further resulted in their different work values. To conclude, this paper contributes to the literature by rejecting the cultural essentialism, which links individual work attitudes with their ethnic/cultural backgrounds in a “deterministic” way.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
Copyright © 2023 Shi, Huang and Liang.