Two undergraduates look at job information at an employment fair in Beijing on Monday. ZOU HONG / FOR CHINA DAILY

Yu Zhiwei, vice-president of LinkedIn China, said: "Some argue that top leaders are likely to go back to their former foreign employers eventually, because training and promotions at local firms are, to some extent, arbitrary. But I'm remaining positive. Local firms are learning fast from their multinational competitors in terms of culture, gender equality and work-life balance."

Luo Jun, chief executive of Tujia, the five-year-old house-sharing platform based in Beijing, said: "The emergence of China as a local economic leader results in localization of human resources ... People will continue to switch jobs to local companies."

However, Zhao Ruobing, senior vice-president of CreditEase, said that Chinese job seekers need to ready themselves for the challenges resulting from this change.

She said: "They must overcome cultural differences, adjust to less structured organizational processes and manage an increase in workload. Executives need to understand that multinational firms and local companies are at different stages of maturity so they can adapt and succeed in the new environment."

As for multinational companies, another author and a Bain partner Stephen Shih said, they had better respond with new strategies to retain managers.

Shih said: "I don't think multinational companies are putting in place new plans to help retain their leaders, and they need to do that."

The research, jointly conducted by Bain and LinkedIn China, analyzed 25,000 Chinese executives whose titles are directors or above. They come from 220 major corporations across 18 industries, representing both the manufacturing and service sectors.