Common Careers, Different Experiences: Women Managers in Hong Kong and Britain

Citation

Tremaine, M. (2002), "Common Careers, Different Experiences: Women Managers in Hong Kong and Britain", Women in Management Review, Vol. 17 No. 8, pp. 404-406. https://doi.org/10.1108/wimr.2002.17.8.404.1

There is a lot of truth in the old saying that you should not judge a book by its cover. Although the cover design of this book is uninspiring and the paper quality is rather coarse, once I began to skim‐read the contents, there were two things that made me want to read and review it. One was the impact of the quotations from the women interviewed, as I flicked through the pages running my eyes over the text. The quotes were so real and direct and immediate that they made you feel really in touch with the women. Their personalities jumped out at me through the words. The other strong impression, even on a cursory skimming, was the author’s respect for culture and the way that an understanding of culture had informed her research.

A thorough reading has been even more rewarding than expected. This book is interesting, exceptionally readable and it may well turn your stereotypes upside down. British women are not necessarily more privileged and certainly not as satisfied in career terms as their counterparts in Hong Kong. To explore the differences between the careers of women managers in Hong Kong compared with Britain, Katharine Venter carried out a survey collecting data from 401 male and female managers (164 in Hong Kong and 237 in Britain). She then went further and carried out interviews with a sub‐sample of women drawn from the survey respondents, 23 in Hong Kong and 22 in Britain.

The results are then set against the different contexts in the two countries. Venter considers contextual differences under three headings: the impact of industrialisation and economic growth in each country; the nature of the socio‐political environments; and the contrasting cultural values in the two workplaces. The book’s objectives are to consider the role of culture while exploring the way that women managers in Hong Kong and Britain experience and explain their careers.

The main finding of her research is reflected in the book’s title, Common Careers, Different Experiences. Both the Chinese women and the British women hold management positions, but the British women are depressed and defeated by their experience of discrimination against them as women. As Donna from Britain says, “I find the sort of male attitude is very much, you know, we’ll do what we want to do and we’ll do it when it suits us. And you girls will do it when it suits us, not when it suits you …” (p. 71).

Many of the British sample of women managers had had experiences of being blocked in their careers because of entrenched sexism in their workplace culture. All‐male promotion panels were unlikely to recommend women for advancement. One British woman even described bullying and threats as one male manager’s way of keeping women in their place.

The Chinese women described their workplace experiences in an entirely different way. They expected to be treated politely by men who recognised them as “ladies”. They accepted that there would be discriminatory attitudes and practices and that some of these would be rather foolish, but they treated these attitudes as an irritant, part of the reality of life rather than something that would stop their progress.

Their focus was on hard work as a way of climbing the career ladder. They felt that there were unlimited opportunities, one just needed to be ready to take them when they arose. Win‐yang from Hong Kong explains that a woman must give 50 or 100 per cent more effort than a man “to build her role up to the top level” (p. 72) because in Chinese culture, men are seen as more important than women. Yuen‐king (Hong Kong) explains that when two equally qualified candidates apply for an executive position, “management would tend to select the male because in their mind the man is the pillar of the family and then working women are just taking it for a pastime” (p. 72).

Nevertheless, the women in Hong Kong, while not having a career plan as such, were focussed on financial success and prepared to take risks to achieve it. British women appeared to be more influenced by career security. Whereas women in Britain would blame bias and male discrimination for their failure to reach the top, in Hong Kong the women saw each individual as ultimately responsible for reaching a goal. Ngan‐ling (Hong Kong) talks about the importance of having a “healthy attitude” towards your work. For her a healthy attitude means having confidence in yourself and knowing that you can do a job well, even if you have not done it before. She believes that if you have a healthy attitude you are bound to succeed.

Those who are familiar with Heider’s (1958) attribution theory may have already experienced the mental equivalent of a flashing light. There is a potential link here between Venter’s account of the differences between her two groups, and the theory’s account of different outcomes that are likely to arise from attributing failure to either “internal” or “external” causes. Women in Britain, who think that their failure to gain a promotion is the result of something external (such as male discrimination) are likely to feel that since the cause of their lack of progress is outside their power to change, there is no point in continuing to try to climb the career ladder.

However, Hong Kong women who feel that they have failed because they have not worked hard enough, an internal attribution, are more likely to continue to strive even harder. Certainly the tone of the quotation from the interviews with British women is one of discouragement and defeat, while the women in Hong Kong talk with a sense of energy and optimism about their feelings that they are able to achieve what they wish through hard work.

The environment within each country does, of course, play a part in the difference, which Venter acknowledges and explains in her final chapter. The pace of industrialisation in each country has had an effect on the women’s careers. In Britain industrialisation has been slower and taken place over a longer time frame, in Hong Kong the burgeoning opportunities created by the pace of industrialisation have meant that women are needed in the workforce. Naturally the growth in jobs is a catalyst for the Hong Kong women’s optimism.

The socio‐political context in both countries is different too, with welfare provisions in Britain, whereas in Hong Kong there is no state provision for helping those in need. The main source of support and help is the family. The extended family’s importance in Hong Kong’s way of life underlines that country’s cultural differences compared with Britain. Hong Kong’s culture is broadly considered to be collectivist. In other words, the group is seen as more important than the individual and the individual’s identity is merged within the extended family.

Britain’s culture is more individualistic. Each individual is expected to take responsibility for personal needs and family support is not as extensive or systemic as in Hong Kong. Venter refers to work by Hofstede and Trompenaars on cultural dimensions to explain the ways the two cultures differ, not only in terms of the individualism‐collectivism dimension, but also along the specific versus diffuse category of cultural difference. Hong Kong is seen as having a more diffuse culture meaning that for people in this culture, the separate facets of life all meld together and influence each other.

For example, in Hong Kong religion affects a person’s whole life; at home and at work the values influencing one’s conduct are the same. In Britain, religion is likely to be seen as a separate segment of one’s life, which does not necessarily affect one’s work and career. Similarly, education in Britain is a separate step in the sequence of life stages, after which one moves on to working life. In Hong Kong, educational choices are liable to be made with a view to work and the needs of the extended family.

Venter also makes the point that assumptions about similar attitudes towards gender politics cannot be made across the two cultures. Women’s groups, although they exist in Hong Kong, are not politicised or based on ideology or feminist principles. Hong Kong’s women’s groups work on practical issues to improve women’s well‐being. In Hong Kong women do not want to be the same as men. They would like their feminine qualities, although different from masculine ones, to be valued equally. For British women managers there is more tension in their working lives, as their expectations of gaining equality with male managers is frustrated when they are not treated in the same way as the men within their organisations.

So, for British women, their careers as managers are often disheartening when their progress is blocked by discrimination and sexist attitudes. For Hong Kong women managers, anything is possible as long as they work hard towards their goal of financial success and are prepared to take risks to gain new opportunities. Of course there is much in their lives of both groups of women that is similar, but the way that they interpret their experiences is completely different.

Reading Katharine Venter’s book is the first time that I have ever seriously questioned whether or not feminism could be harmful to one’s energy and career goals. Would ignorance be blissful? The insight this book gives into the work experiences of women within two different cultures is fascinating and thought‐provoking. It is a book that will make you question some of your assumptions and will take you into a deeper understanding of the impact of culture on working life.