Stephen W. K. Chiu

Hong Kong : becoming a Chinese global city

Introduction 1. Global Connections: Centre of Chinese Capitalism 2. An Industrial Colony 3. The Building of An International Financial Centre 4. A Divided City 5. Decolonization, Political Restructuring, and Post-Colonial Governance Crisis 6. The Return of the Regional and the National 7. A Chinese Global City?

Getting Ahead in the Capitalist Paradise: Migration from China and Socioeconomic Attainment in Colonial Hong Kong1

This article examines the initial labor market outcome and the subsequent mobility process of Chinese immigrants in Colonial Hong Kong using complete work history data and event history modeling. Contrary to the rhetoric that Hong Kong is a capitalist paradise for adventurers, the data showed that immigrants were penalized in their initial class placement, subsequent mobility, and current income attainment. Differences in educational attainment and the lack of transferability of pre-migration human capital partly explained the attainment gap between immigrants and the natives. Yet the disadvantage of immigrants was also embedded in the local economic structure. The process of deindustrialization significantly lowered the chance of immigrants getting good first jobs when entering the labor market. Moreover, since deindustrialization benefited the natives by providing them with more opportunities in the service sector, it inadvertently widened the gap in upward mobility chances between natives and immigrants.

Choosing the right battlefield for the war on drugs: an irrelevance result

Abstract We describe a model where the effectiveness of a specific tax imposed by a government seeking to minimize consumption of some good is independent of whether the tax is imposed at the manufacturing or retail level.

The Organization of Industrial Relations in Hong Kong: Economic, Political and Sociological Perspectives

In this paper we focus on the question of why the organization of industrial relations in post-World War II Hong Kong has remained much less formalized and centralized than in other industrial societies. We assess the merits of three analytical perspectives — transaction cost economics, political conflict and neo-institutional sociology — in accounting for these characteristics. We argue that the economic and political perspectives, despite their limitations, contribute to the understanding of the Hong Kong case but that it is the institutional environment, analyzed from a neo-institutional sociological perspective, which has constituted the overarching framework within which political and economic variables operate. We conclude by suggesting that the contrast between the continuity in the organization of industrial relations in postwar Hong Kong and the reorganization of industrial relations in post-colonial Asian societies shows that political arguments may apply best during periods of major political transformation when significant shifts occur in the power structure.

Voices of Xiagang : Naming, Blaming, and Framing

“We workers did nothing wrong.” When asked how they understood their layoff experience and why the enterprise collapsed, this comment popped up most frequently from the xiagang workers that we talked to. In their view, workers are always good workers. They worked diligently for the enterprise and did what they were told to do. As they characterized themselves, they were always laolaoshishi, that is, honest and simple-minded. If the enterprise collapsed, the fault did not lie with workers because they merely worked according to orders from above. If there was overstaffing in the enterprise, that also had nothing to do with the workers. As they said, “a stone falling down from the sky could kill nine and a half managers” (tianshang diaoxia yike shitou, keyi zasi jiugeban jingli). It was the administrative ranks that were bloated, not the rank and file of workers. They therefore rejected vehemently the official discourse of jianyuan zengxiao, that is, to retrench staff and to enhance efficiency, in the restructuring of state enterprises. But it was indeed the workers who bore the brunt of this policy. A deep sense of unfairness resulted. Apparently, workers’ understanding of xiagang was and is vastly different from the state discourse.

From a labour-surplus to a labour-scarce economy: challenges to human resource management in Hong Kong

In this paper, the acute problems faced by the market economy of Hong Kong are assessed. These are seen to arise from the shift in the labour market from labour surplus to labour scarcity. The major geo-political role of Hong Kong both in servicing the extendal capital requirements of South China and as a key state within the conurbation of ‘little dragons’ is also examined. The consequences of this structural shift in terms of the challenges being mounted to HRM both strategically and functionally are also evaluated and are interpreted as an evolutionary process.

HRM in Hong Kong since 1997

A diverse set of human resource management (HRM) practices became institutionalized during Hong Kongs industrialization from the 1950s through the 1970s within the context of an open economy, a government disinclined to intervene in business decisions or the labour market and a weak trade union movement. Economic restructuring, labour market changes and rising labour costs during the 1980s and 1990s pressured employers to find more effective ways of using their human resources. We focus on how the economic downturn following the Asian Financial Crisis has impacted on employment practices including employment security, compensation, skill formation, work reorganization and employment relations. We discuss changes in the public as well as private sector and argue that reforms in the former are loosening the rigidities of its highly structured internal labour market system. Public sector employment practices are thus likely to converge increasingly with the ‘best practices’ of private sector and overseas government HRM systems.

Women's Labor Force Participation in Hong Kong: 1991–2011

Abstract Using Hong Kong population census and by-census data from 1991, 1996, 2001, 2006, and 2011, this study examined the trends and determinants of womens labor force participation (WLFP) in Hong Kong. It looked at the determinants of WLFP from the perspectives of availability, marketability, market demand, and new household economic theory. The results showed that the labor force participation for married women has been rising over the study period, but their availability to the labor market is still constrained by childrearing responsibilities. This is in spite of the fact that their education levels and the existence of domestic help are factors that ostensibly make it more possible for women to stay in the labor force. It also showed that other family members’ income (e.g., the husbands income) is an important factor for womens participation in the labor force, supporting the idea that the decision to stay in the labor force vs. to stay at home is a joint decision of the family. The study also implies that economic restructuring and the fluctuations in immigrant composition influence WLFP.

The Reign of Market: Institutional Setting, Business Cycle, and Strikes in Hong Kong

How market forces shape social actions has always been an important theme in social analysis. Since the “long sixteenth century,” the capitalist market has ushered in a new era of human history. Spreading from the capitalist core of Northeastern Europe, commodification and accumulation have become the organizing principles of the modern world (Wallerstein 1974). The advent of the market has given rise to new forms of collective action such as strikes, or the temporary withdrawal of labor power by workers. Strikes have been the most direct form of protest of the working class against the perceived injustices arising from the operation of a market economy. Although in many places strikes now only occur infrequently, they have developed from a novel tactic used by disgruntled workers into a feature of our everyday life. Strikes have indeed come to be the modal form of working class collective action in a market society (Tarrow 1994).