A Holistic Comparison between Han-Fei-Tzu and Western Human Resource Management Thoughts
Author
Abstract
The trend of learning managerial wisdom from Chinese ancient books is now growing and spreading out. Especially, the Han-Fei-Tzu written around 250 B.C. is the one that mostly be studied by Chinese and foreign scholars. But the research method which these scholars applied is more based on a humanistic approach, not a social science oriented research approach, so that the study results are authors' subjective interpretation which can not be compared with the Western management thought scientifically.
This exploratory study utilized content analysis, which is more objective and systematic qualitative method in social science research, to analyze the Chinese managerial thought consisted in the Han-Fei-Tzu. Based on the structures of theories in modern Western human resource management (HRM), this study developed several categories to classify the content related to management thought of this ancient book into the suitable categories. This method helped us transform the ancestors' managerial thought into understandable modern managerial language, so that we could know the meaning of them from the modern viewpoint. This effort will foster the evolution of academic studies in Chinese management field and in cross-cultural comparative management field.
From the perspective and the structure of modern human resource management theories, it interpreted the managerial thought consisted in this Chinese ancient book. From the perspective of same referent structures, it compared the Chinese ancestors' managerial thought with Western human resource management thought. Finally, the exploratory study would be integrated to construct the Chinese perspective of management thoughts.
Key Words
Han-Fei-Tzu, Human Resource Management (HRM), Content Analysis, Chinese Management Though
