Globalization_in_China

1. Globalization in China One of the major themes in international relations studies is the impact of globalization on states' international behavior. Globalization bas pushed states to conform their policies and institutions to certain suggested directions, but the willingness and capability of states to adapt to the logic of globalization vary, depending on their respective resources, skills, and strategic choices. Some competent and adaptive states take active participation in globalization with decisive, institutional, distributive, and structural changes, considering globalization as an opportunity to enhance national competitiveness. Other states struggle to retard the influence of globalization, viewing it as a threat to social China shows both perceptions of globalization – challenges and opportunities-simultaneously. On the one hand, China welcomes economic globalization as a way to enrich national competitiveness and actively integrates itself into the international economic community. On the other hand, China tries to confine the impact of globalization exclusively within economic field, reflecting its traditional concern about the possible political impact of globalization on its regime stability. Given China's dual responses to the process of globalization, Chinese leaders seem to perceive globalization and to approach to it, applying a standard and a method different from those of the Westerners. As a dominant wave of world transition, globalization requires to coordinate states' international behavior on the basis of 'generalized' principle of conduct, for which states' socialization is a prerequisite. As for socialization, constructivists argue that states' identities and self-interest are socially constructed. They also emphasize the important role of international norms and values in shaping states' preferences and behavior. Multilateral regimes in both domains of economy and security serve as major conduits for transferring international norms and values to states. Given accelerating worldwide interconnection as a major engine of globalization, the relationship between international regimes and states, in particular states' socialization in the process of globalization is the centerpiece of globalization debate. Globalization is a multidimensional process and the impact of economic globalization should be spilled over to the other parts of society, including the fields of politics and security. Therefore, the impact of China's economic globalization should be extended to China's integration into the international security community by dint of the intensification of socialization, the long-term process of ‘learning,’ which involves a fundamental change of assumptions, approaches and even national interests. Examining China's recent international globalization in public, which works mainly for the maintenance of CCP rule and domestic stability, not for the cognitive process of transformation in political and security interests. Behind their enthusiastic commitment toward economic globalization, the Chinese leaders have pursued their traditional policies of politics and security with remarkable consistency. Their national interests in the security setting-its irredentism on the island of Taiwan and their expansion to the South China Sea – have undergone no substantial change. There found no indication for China to compromise them, if not change them, in accordance with international norms and values in the foreseeable future. In this respect, this paper argues that the impact of globalization on Chinese international behavior falls short of a fundamental change in Chinese worldview. Chinese leaders have consistently negated the learning to internalize the principles of multilateralism and precluded the process of socialization from reaching to the substantial level. To prove this argument, this paper explores the Chinese characteristics of globalization and China's domestic impediments to limit socialization. As is the trend in transnational, supranational, and global forces, globalization in the post-Cold War era has exerted pressures on states to change. China, a socialist and developing country, has controlled the impact of globalization on itself and bas modified it to be a managed globalization. On the one hand, China enhances its economic competitiveness by vigorously and voluntarily joining in the waves of globalization. On the other hand, China struggles to constrain the political impact of globalization on the formation of worldview. China’s managed globalization, thus far, proves to be successfully implemented, i.e., China’s economy still continues to grow, while China’s socialization remains to be meaningless. Given the definition of socialization as a process to embrace the assumption that multilateralism is conducive to national interests, the failure in socializing China attributes to three factors. First, Chinese leaders identify globalization with economic globalization. Since Chinese government strongly restrains the impact of globalization from being spread to the other parts of society, it is out of the question to anticipate socialization in the field of security. Second, China's globalization was motivated by endogenous impulse. The major goal of China’s economic globalization has been the consistent development of economic competitiveness. Since China's economic development has buttressed the legitimacy of the Communist Party of China, China's globalization proves to be initiated by the domestic logic of political stability. However, endogenous origin has rather provided diplomatic rooms for China's globalization to be independent of exogenous pressures. Third and the most important factor is the realpolitik dominance in Chinese foreign policy process. Most of the Chinese support realpolitik Weltanschauung and their preference on it is so deeply rooted and so widely spread that no other alternative ideology, including liberalism or multilateralism, can replace it. The Chinese government officials, who participate in multilateral institutions, such as, the ARF, are not exception to this point. It is a tough job to convince them that multilateralism, instead of realism, is consistent with China's national interests. In terms of influence over policy-making process, China's epistemic community is meaningless. The major actors in the process of socialization are not states, but individuals. There is a need to educate individuals on the essence of multilateralism. In addition, China also necessitates forming an epistemic community with "like-minded" fellows. But the multilaterlists are so few in China’s foreign policy community that it precludes the formation of the community. The Chinese political system that isolates the multilateralists from involving in the decision-making process is another obstacle to overcome. China's party schools, central or provincial, are designed to control officials' ideological loyalty. Overall, the limited number of multilateralists in China is the very reason that causes the marginal influence over the country's foreign policy-making process. 2. Established concepts of customer participation and its importance 2.1 Definitions of customer participation Customers’ service experiences are formed throughout the service delivery process in which customers interact with service organizations, its related systems and its employees (Bitner et al 1997). In other words, services are produced through interaction between service provider and consumer, not by one-side offering from the service firms to consumer. Thomas (1994) explained this special propensity of services by relating it with its main characteristic, inseparability of production and consumption process. Customers’ participation is, therefore, sometimes inevitable for service organizations and has significant impacts on outcomes of service performance (Thomas 1994). Given the importance of customer participation in service sector, it is essential to clearly understand the concept. Kelley et al(1990 cited in Hsieh, Yen, Chin 2004) defined customer participation indirectly by prescribing the customers as “partial employees” who are temporary participants in the service delivery process of service organizations. Also, Namasivayam (2003) defined the consumer as the ‘sole producer of the service product’ and service providers as ‘facilitator’ and ‘enabler’. Although, the detail of the definitions varies with the author, they have common agreed theme under their definitions. That is, customer’s participation means inputs by customers such as their actions and resources for service production and delivery (Yen, Gwinner and Su 2004). 2.2 Importance of customer participation in service sector The role of participation of customers in service delivery process has been receiving attention throughout many academic literatures for over decades (Cermark, File & Prince 1994). The author could identify the reason why customer participation has been one of the most important topics to be underscored within this sector by researching its impact on customers’ satisfaction. Many researchers has agreed with that customer participation has great impacts on performance of service provider and customers’ perception of service quality which in turn affects their degree of customer satisfaction (Bateson, 2002; Cermak, File & Prince, 1994; Mills 1986). However, before discussing the importance of customer participation, it is necessary to understand the interrelationship between those concepts to better understand the mechanism how customer satisfaction level is decided. 2.3 Influences of customer participation on expectation and quality perception The importance of the concept of customer participation can be identified in this context because it has great impact on customers’ expectations and perception of service quality. Kelley, Donnelly and Skinner (1990) found out the impact of customer participation on customer’s expectation level. According to Kelley, Donnelly and Skinner (1990), customers have ‘set of normative expectations’ of ‘what service employees should do’ and ‘what customers should behave’ for better performance and if customers’ behavior during the service delivery process is not met by normative expectation, they tend to expect lower quality. For example, when customer wants to get accounting service, completed and accurate tax records have to be provided to accountants at service encounter. However, if the clients didn’t prepare well, they expect lower level of service performance. In this example, preparation of tax records by customer is customer participation and well prepared tax records are normative expectation. Also, customer participation can influence on service performance (Bitner et al 1997). For example, services such as health care, education and weight loss require active customer participation for better performance because it helps service providers know exactly what various customers’ needs are. If customers do not actively participate, the desired performance outcome is not possible in these service types (Bitner et al 1997). Similarly, Kellog,Youngdahl, & Bowen (1997) argued that customers’ active role in preparation of service encounter, relationship building and information exchanging during the service delivery process are positively related with their satisfaction level by demonstrating the empirical research result. 3. Appropriate service type and situation for customer participation As mentioned through this document, there is still conflicting discussion about the impact of customer’s role of co-producer. It can lead to increased productivity and customer satisfaction in some services. In contrast, it has detrimental impacts on service quality and performance outcome in other service categories. 3.1 Classification of services To identify the proper service type in which customer participation has positive impacts on both service provider and consumer, the first step is to identify the typology of services. Larson and Bowen (1989) categorized services into 4 groups by two dimensions, diversity and unpredictability of customer demand and customer’s disposition to participate. The following figure shows 4qudarants of service type which is classified by two dimensions diversity of demand and customer disposition to participate. Figure 1 High Sequential customized service design (Quadrant 3)Examples: Appliance and car repairs, cleaning, gardening | Reciprocal service design(Quadrant 2)Examples: Psychotherapy, medical care, education | Pooled service design(Quadrant 4)Examples: Banks and insurance companies, fast food restaurants, airlines | Sequential standardized service design (Quadrant 1)Examples: Laundromats, self-service retail stores, car rentals | Diversity of Demand Customer disposition to participate High (Sources: Adapted from Larson and Bowen 1989) However, an underlying limitation of this categorization is that it is hard to make all kinds of services fit into this model. 3.2 Relevant service types and situations According to Larson and Bowen (1989), the best suited service type to encouraging customer participation is quadrant 1 and 2. First, services included in Quadrant 1 have traits of low diversity of demand and high customer disposition to participate. In this service type, because uniqueness of customer needs is low, service provider can standardize their process which allows active role of customers in production of services. They stated that customers are not motivated to participate to guarantee the service quality, given the clarity of standardization. And customers of these services are more price-sensitive, thus, it is important to reduce cost by encouraging customer participation and holding minimum employees. By standardizing the supply of goods and facilities, organization can utilize the customer disposition to participate as resources and realize mass production of services (Larson and Bowen 1989). Typical examples of this design are Laundromats and car rentals which have relatively standardized options. On the other hand, services included in Quadrant 2 have characteristics of high diversity of demand along with high customer disposition to participate. According to Larson and Bowen (1989), customers of this group of services tend to have complex and unique problems and customers’ self, rather than their goods are the focus of these services. Thus, customers of these services tend to be less sensitive about price and have great willingness to participate in the service production to monitor the quality of services (Larson and Bowen 1989). They (1989) stated that customer participation in this service type enable customers to provide information adequate for problem solving. And employees should heavily interact with customers to determine their unique needs and must provide expertise to meet those needs. The typical examples of this service type in which customer participation is appropriate to be encouraged are professional services such as legal advice and medical care (Larson and Bowen 1989). 4. Conclusions The importance of the diversity of the management and customer participation in service industry has been proved in terms of its impact of the organization and customers’ level of satisfaction and its positive effects in building long term relationship within external and vice versa through extensive academic researches. Also, many researches have been conducted to identify the factors which can encourage not only the organization itself but customers to participate. However, the outcomes of the diversity management and customer participation vary with the management skill and service types in which customer participate. Therefore, further research about outcomes of the diversity management and customer participation should be conducted to identify different impacts of the management and customer participation on diverse kinds of skills and services. 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