Capturing the psychological well-being of Chinese workers and understanding its relationship with factory performance.
type: CreativeWork
description: Capturing the psychological well-being of Chinese workers and understanding its relationship with factory performance Media reports of workers losing their lives in factory disasters indicate the failure of audit-based regimes to protect even physical well-being in global supply chains, while distress has been seen to lead to workers’ suicides, yet there is neither clear guidance nor even consensus on how factories should be monitored to facilitate the urgently needed change. Workers themselves are excluded from the social sustainability debate. The lack of knowledge about what impacts Chinese factory workers’ well-being led to a first research question: What are the factors that influence well-being for Chinese factory workers? To persuade stakeholders of the value of making changes, evidence of how that may affect factory performance was also sought. A link would provide an extra incentive for businesses to prioritise these workers’ well-being. This led to the formulation of a second research question: How does workers’ well-being influence factory performance? Going to the heart of the matter by asking the workers, fieldwork set out to discover what life is really like for workers in these factories. A novel research method using workers’ daily digital diaries was developed. A brief pilot in 2017 was followed by a 12-month study across four factories in 2019. Potential well-being interventions were also designed and tested in an operating factory environment to produce the empirical data required. The fieldwork identified three interdependent aggregate dimensions impacting these workers’ well-being: 1) social displacement, struggles with factory life and the trade-offs with long-term life goals; 2) frustration and demotivation due to operational problems and 3) work relationships impacting self-worth. Operational problems causing loss of remuneration were understood to impact workers’ life goals, which in turn undermined working relationships. The first research …
abstract: Capturing the psychological well-being of Chinese workers and understanding its relationship with factory performance Media reports of workers losing their lives in factory disasters indicate the failure of audit-based regimes to protect even physical well-being in global supply chains, while distress has been seen to lead to workers’ suicides, yet there is neither clear guidance nor even consensus on how factories should be monitored to facilitate the urgently needed change. Workers themselves are excluded from the social sustainability debate. The lack of knowledge about what impacts Chinese factory workers’ well-being led to a first research question: What are the factors that influence well-being for Chinese factory workers? To persuade stakeholders of the value of making changes, evidence of how that may affect factory performance was also sought. A link would provide an extra incentive for businesses to prioritise these workers’ well-being. This led to the formulation of a second research question: How does workers’ well-being influence factory performance? Going to the heart of the matter by asking the workers, fieldwork set out to discover what life is really like for workers in these factories. A novel research method using workers’ daily digital diaries was developed. A brief pilot in 2017 was followed by a 12-month study across four factories in 2019. Potential well-being interventions were also designed and tested in an operating factory environment to produce the empirical data required. The fieldwork identified three interdependent aggregate dimensions impacting these workers’ well-being: 1) social displacement, struggles with factory life and the trade-offs with long-term life goals; 2) frustration and demotivation due to operational problems and 3) work relationships impacting self-worth. Operational problems causing loss of remuneration were understood to impact workers’ life goals, which in turn undermined working relationships. The first research …
author: Bellingan, Minette
language: eng
keywords: worker well-being, digital diaries, CSR audit, supply chain, productivity, CSR, Factory Audits, Workers Well-being, Factory productivity, Digital Diaries
license: https://www.rioxx.net/licenses/all-rights-reserved/
date published: 2021-12-31
date modified: 2026-07-22T22:24:07Z
provider: Cambridge University
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of Cambridge

PropertyValue
property ID: DOI
value: 10.17863/CAM.82054