As China moves from a planned to a market economy, professionals suffer the same signs of job stress experienced in Western countries. Multinational companies have long offered counseling to their expatriate managers. Locals, however, frowned on any form of psychological therapy. When China's largest bank hired Chestnut Global Partners to offer employee counseling services, Chestnut learned immediately that it could not talk about such issues as conflict management. Instead, Chestnut stressed workplace harmony. Chestnut also found that Chinese workers refused one-on-one counseling. They preferred group sessions or online counseling. Footnote What cultural elements were at work here?

Question

Social Studies

Thumper

9 January, 12:59

As China moves from a planned to a market economy, professionals suffer the same signs of job stress experienced in Western countries. Multinational companies have long offered counseling to their expatriate managers. Locals, however, frowned on any form of psychological therapy. When China's largest bank hired Chestnut Global Partners to offer employee counseling services, Chestnut learned immediately that it could not talk about such issues as conflict management. Instead, Chestnut stressed workplace harmony. Chestnut also found that Chinese workers refused one-on-one counseling. They preferred group sessions or online counseling. Footnote What cultural elements were at work here?

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Deven Tyler · Answer 1

The culture of China is a high-context culture. Individuals in this kind of culture usually dont talk about many things because they assume that other people are familiar with the context. This is a possible reason why locals frowned on any form of psychological therapy. They consider that talking individually to improve this situation is useless because they are all immersed in the same problem, so they opt for group counseling sessions. This is because Chinese culture is collectivistic and this consists of focusing their attention on group work and thinking.