The industrial relations of China’s internet industry: Politics, technology, and labour activism
type: CreativeWork
description: This thesis is organised around a collection of articles on the work experience of technology workers in China’s internet industry. It adopts a pluralist industrial relations approach and comments on themes that go beyond the Marxist tradition of labour studies in sociology. Both macro- and micro-angles are deployed in the investigation of a leading Chinese internet company, Digitech (pseudonym); a separate case study of Alibaba also is included. Drawing on qualitative methodologies – including 61 interviews, workplace observations, policy documentation and analysis – this thesis investigates the work experience of China’s technology workers, particularly with regard to how this experience is affected by government policies and the implementation of digital management technologies in the workplace. It also explores motivations for collective action by technology workers and the challenges they face in reality. Chapter 1 introduces the theoretical tradition and explains the benefits of the pluralist industrial relations approach used in this research project. It also gives details of the research design and methodologies, including considerations of research ethics during the design, fieldwork and write-up stages of this doctoral project. The empirical chapters follow. Chapter 2 argues that the Chinese government plays a significant role in shaping the collective work experience in business reality by promoting competition within the business sectors. It also finds that the censorship of online labour activism and ambiguity in court decisions have lowered the interest of technology workers in organising and defending their rights. Chapter 3 documents how technology workers are managed through digital technology and details the impacts of this management approach on their working and living conditions, namely an increase in work intensity and an intensification of competition among workers. It also shows that workers gain higher incomes but proportionately lower share…
abstract: This thesis is organised around a collection of articles on the work experience of technology workers in China’s internet industry. It adopts a pluralist industrial relations approach and comments on themes that go beyond the Marxist tradition of labour studies in sociology. Both macro- and micro-angles are deployed in the investigation of a leading Chinese internet company, Digitech (pseudonym); a separate case study of Alibaba also is included. Drawing on qualitative methodologies – including 61 interviews, workplace observations, policy documentation and analysis – this thesis investigates the work experience of China’s technology workers, particularly with regard to how this experience is affected by government policies and the implementation of digital management technologies in the workplace. It also explores motivations for collective action by technology workers and the challenges they face in reality. Chapter 1 introduces the theoretical tradition and explains the benefits of the pluralist industrial relations approach used in this research project. It also gives details of the research design and methodologies, including considerations of research ethics during the design, fieldwork and write-up stages of this doctoral project. The empirical chapters follow. Chapter 2 argues that the Chinese government plays a significant role in shaping the collective work experience in business reality by promoting competition within the business sectors. It also finds that the censorship of online labour activism and ambiguity in court decisions have lowered the interest of technology workers in organising and defending their rights. Chapter 3 documents how technology workers are managed through digital technology and details the impacts of this management approach on their working and living conditions, namely an increase in work intensity and an intensification of competition among workers. It also shows that workers gain higher incomes but proportionately lower share…
author: Liu, Hong Yu
language: eng
keywords: China, digital management, Internet Industry, labour activism, pluralist industrial relations
license: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/f84d6668-8de1-4c36-9a06-3029255a8403/download
license: https://www.rioxx.net/licenses/all-rights-reserved/
date published: 2023-03-26
date modified: 2026-07-24T01:33:21Z
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.96558