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Cultural conflicts lead to job hopping Culture differences with Western bosses is the main reason many highly paid Chinese managers at local foreign ventures leave their jobs, a recent research report suggests. The report, which was co-compiled by George B. Graen, chair professor of international management at the University of Louisiana and professors from Donghua University, tracked 150 Chinese MBA graduates and senior managers in 33 local foreign ventures over the past six years. About 48 percent of the surveyed Chinese managers with a bachelor degree quit their jobs during the six-year research period, saying that the biggest problem was their foreign bosses don't understand the Chinese way of thinking. The turnover rate was only 24 percent for managers who said their boss has a strong understanding of Chinese culture, the report said. For managers with a lower education, the contrast was especially sharp between those with a CEO who understands Chinese culture and those without. The research suggested that 24 percent of managers with a college degree resigned their jobs over cultural conflicts with their bosses. However, only 12 percent of those with a more localized boss changed jobs during the six year study. "Interviews with those managers revealed that personal competence and culture acceptance by Western bosses are the major factors forcing them to change jobs," Graen said. "But the latter is more critical and more trouble-causing because many CEOs simply didn't realize that," he added. Expatriates sent to work in China, according to Graen, are expected to do two jobs - both leading the company to achieve economic growth and helping to integrate the joint venture into Chinese society and markets. But many Western bosses know little about the country and don't consider it important to learn, local managers said. "Our ideas are constantly ignored and we are treated as second class citizens in the company," said Kelvin Zhou, market director at a local US pharmaceutical company. "I could not stand that any more and just quit," he added.
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