Social Justice Research, VoL 7, No. 3, 1994

Justice on the Road to Change in the People's Republic of China James R. Meindl, 1 Raymond G. Hunt, t and Yu Kai Cheng 2

Dengist reform programs, including mandated changes in the operation of Chinese industrial enterprises, depart radially from previous Maoist practices and ideologies. With these changes, issues of distributive justice have become extremely salient in China. We explore shifting norms regarding distributive justice in China, with a focus on the conceptions of, and implications for, practicing managers. After first reviewing the pertinent literature, we present some original data gathered from Chinese managers in 1986 and in 1989, comparing them to data gathered from managers in the United States. KEY WORDS: distributive justice; industrial justice; China; leadership; management.

INTRODUCTION Questions about who ought to get how much arise at every level in society and around every imaginable kind of resource, from the allocation of hard, economic benefits, to equal opportunity and intangible, symbolic resources such as prestige, status, and respect. Broadly speaking, operational answers to difficult questions about deservingness are rooted in traditional cultures, which define basic social logics: nexuses of assumptions, accepted practices, and common sense---the accumulated experience of generations refined and integrated into codes of conduct. Lending coherence to social aggregates, particular social logic at the same time contributes to the variety of human groups, defining their alternative paths to order and civility. 1School of Management, State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, New York. 2National Center for Industrial Science and Technology Management Development, Dalian University of Technology, People's Republic of China. 197 0885-7466/94/0900--0197507.00/00 1994Plenum PublishingCorporation

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The wisdom that serves a particular group ordinarily needs revision and reinterpretation over time as new needs and new sensibilities appear. Even the most stable political and economic systems suffer from persistent injustices and social tensions that suggest flaws in their underlying logic. Consequently, issues of justice and deservingness become common loci of power struggles between those satisfied with a status quo and those who would change it, and the innervating bases for battles between the "haves" and the "have-nots." In many parts of the modern world, the natural difficulties in finding answers to fairness questions are compounded and complicated by exogenous factors. As globalization and modernization cut everywhere deeper into existing social fabrics and give rise to new social patterns, new hopes, new aspirations, new institutions, and new authority structures, basic conceptions of social and industrial justice naturally come under review, are challenged (and sometimes exploited), and eventually are changed to define a new order. But when structural and economic developments outrace or lag behind changes in traditional sociocultural systems, there must in the short term be a difficult transitional period marked by uncertainty and tension about "who is entitled to what, and why." Answers to these questions that are both definitive and persuasive are difficult to find in tumultuous times; and nowhere is tension around entitlements more clearly seen than in the work organizations whence most of a citizenry derives its livelihood and much of the quality of its life. With the emergence of organization and management as preeminent tools for realizing personal and group aspirations, issues of justice and deservingness inevitably intertwine with managerial practices in both the public and private sectors of society. Forces of tradition and of change thus comingle in organizational life to generate unfamiliar problems of justice and deservingness that call for new solutions. The Salience of Justice Concerns

Since the close of the Maoist era in China late in the 1970s, interest in exploiting human resource techniques and motivational systems that are explicitly attentive to productivity variations at the individual, work group, and enterprise level has grown in Chinese workplaces. A significant departure from traditional Chinese practices, and especially from the ideologically driven ones of the post-1950 Maoist period, has put enterprise managers and supervisors in the difficult position of having to integrate contradictory tendencies: on the one side, normative pulls from cultural and political collectivism toward egalitarian distribution of resources, and,

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on the other, the promise of motivational benefits to productivity expected from modernized managerial practices and organizational arrangements (e.g., bonuses, wage incentives) that stress inequalities contingent on performance. How the tension resulting from this contradiction interacts with and produces changes in basic notions about justice---who is entitled to what and on what basis decisions are to be made about who is deserving of desirable resources--is therefore a fundamental issue everywhere in China, and necessarily in the workplace. In this paper we seek to shed light on what has been happening with distributional norms in China and how these norms are likely to affect development of the Chinese workplace. We first review some pertinent literature on Chinese concepts of justice and their relevant sociopolitical and cognitive contexts. Then, in a second part of the paper, we report some original comparative research on the subject. Throughout, we concentrate on examining equity-parity contrasts as alternative logic for determining the entitlements of recipients in China generally but, most specifically, in the thinking practices of Chinese enterprise managers. The Equity-Parity Contrast in the Thinking of Chinese Enterprise Managers

Equity---a rule that entitlements be based on relative contribution~ = represents an idea that has long been a primary focus of interest among Western organizational and human resource scholars (e.g., Carroll and Dietrich, 1978; Campbell and Pritchard, 1976; Goodman and Friedman, 1971; Freedman and Montanari, 1980; Goodman, 1975; Greenberg, i982; Lawler, 1971; Mahoney, 1975). So-called "equity theories" of work motivation, for instance, are based on a notion of relative contributions as the determining factor for entitlements (e.g., Adams, 1965; Walster et al., 1973); and the same idea of "justice" is foundational to most thinking on the maintenance of relationships in theories of social exchange and power (Blau, 1964; Emerson, 1976; Homans, 1961). Cross-cultural comparisons of equity norms with a sharply contrasting principle of equal distribution, i.e., the norm of parity, is instructive. The relative emphasis on these two principles in a social system highlights different orientations toward social and industrial justice, and the sometimes competing groundings of meritocratic and egalitarian regimes (Lerner, 1975). China affords an important venue for the comparative analysis of the operation of equity and parity rules, their conditions, and their socialorganizational implications.

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Chinese Socialist Modernism and Justice

China today stands at a sociohistorical crossroad. The death of Mao Zedong and the fall of the Gang of Four in the mid-1970s allowed a new Chinese leadership to concentrate on rebuilding an economy that had been devastated by the decade-long Cultural Revolution and the earlier Great Leap Forward. In 1978, the new leadership sought to shift the emphasis in the work of the Chinese Community Party (CCP) toward "socialist modernism," specifically to a concentration on Deng Xiaoping's "four modernizations": agriculture, industry, science and technology, defense. Of particular interest here is the second of these: the wish to reinvigorate Chinese enterprise. Modernization in this domain was hampered by the lack of adequately trained and experienced enterprise managers. Recognizing this, China, in 1984, adopted a "decision on the reform of the economic system," which was intended to encourage the selection, training, and utilization of competent managers. According to the new policy, enterprise managements were to be responsible for creating among workers a sense of responsibility and motivation to work for the productivity and efficiency of their enterprises (Hunt and Meindl, 1991). It was made clear in the new policy that this would involve linking workers' pay to their performances: "to each according to his work" became a legitimate definition of fairness (together with the novel idea in China that it was good to be rich). The implication of inequalities of return (performance-contingent pay) obviously were enormous in a social-political system hitherto grounded (since 1950 anyway) in ideological egalitarianism. Chinese efforts at modernization since Mao's death generated predictable arguments about the fair distribution of resources. These took on special point in China, however, because the intensely ideological historical context there worked peculiarly to sensitize the Chinese people to them. In fact, some portrayals of the demonstrations and other events leading up to the tragedy at Tiananmen Square in 1989 found the uprising's causes in perceived injustices about access to material goods, aggravated by the perceived hypocrisy of elite cadres and party officials who were widely seen as preaching patience and sacrifice all the while they availed themselves of luxuries and other benefits on the backs of the people (e.g., Liu, 1989; Shi, 1989; Wang and Wang, 1989). In this setting of change and ferment, Chinese intellectuals, during the past few years, have sought to analyze the traditional, cultural, ideological, and situational factors that have affected the formation of what may be a distinctive Chinese concept of fairness (e.g., Bi, 1988; Hand, 1987; Lan, 1987; Xu and Sun, 1987). Our own perspective in the matter has been

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guided by a general assumption that, at least in the short term, and given current Chinese economic and administrative technology, there is likely to be a contrarious practical, if not inherent, relationship between egalitarian values and economic growth. In China this is exemplified by a tension, on the one side, between the egalitarianism embedded in Maoist political ideology (and in Chinese traditional culture as well), and, on the other side, Dengist interpretations of Marxian ideology and associated economic reforms aimed at modernization and economic growth. To understand current conceptions of justice in China it is necessary to consider not only the recent reforms but other historical events in this century that generated ideologically driven changes and their bearing on rules of entitlement and the legitimacy of different conceptions of justice.

The Chinese Implementation of Marxian Ideology Whether or not it is Marxian ideology that has been implemented in China since 1950 is arguable (e.g., Leys, 1990). In any case, Marxian ideology has had two major interpretations in China, one by Mao the other by Deng. Both interpretations share the same utopian vision of a socialist society, but they differ considerably in how the vision is to be achieved. The differences have important implications for conceptions of distributive justice so some discussion of the matter is in order. In fact, since the civil (revolutionary) war in the late 1920s, the evolution of the Chinese distribution system and perspective on fairness can be divided into four periods, each having certain themes and emphases that affected both ideology and institutional behavior. Period 1 (1927-1949), before the founding of the People's Republic, saw a distribution system of strict equalitarian and military communist nature instituted alike among the officers and soldiers of the revolutionary army and the civilians in the liberated areas. Called a "supply system," it was a system of payment-in-kind which provided all working personnel and their dependents with the necessities of life. As described in 1928 by Mao (1951a): the Red Army has no system of regular pay . . . . In addition to grain, each man receives only five cents a day for cooking oil, salt, firewood, and v e g e t a b l e s . . . a l l of us share the same hardship, from the commander of the army to the cook, everyone lives on the daily food allowance of five cents, apart from grain. As for pocket money, everybody gets the same amount, whether it is twenty cents or forty cents.

So, the operative Maoist distribution norm at this time was a mixture of the principle of "to each in equal amount" and "to each according to his needs," but at the most rudimentary of subsistence levels. This supply sys-

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tern was a temporary expediency about which Mao had little choice. He knew it was not an ideal system and said in 1929 (Mao, 1951b): We should point out that...absolute equalitarianism is a mere illusion of peasants and small proprietors, and that even under socialism there can be no absolute equality, for material things will then be distributed on the principle of from each according to his ability to each according to his work as well as on that of meeting the needs of the work. The distribution of material things in the Red Army must be more or less equal, as in the ease of equal pay for officers and men, because this is required by the present circumstances of the struggle. But absolute equalitarianism beyond reason must be opposed because it is not required by the struggle; on the contrary, it hinders the struggle.

Determined by extremely scarce resources and the demands of the revolutionary struggle, the supply system's policy of unity between officers and rank-and-file had the important virtue of drawing a sharp contrast between the Red and the "white" armies and helped the Red army endure extreme hardships and fight bravely. But, with gradual improvement in the material supply conditions later in this first period, following successive victories by the People's Liberation Army, more and more differences in the distribution of material things appeared, although the inequalities remained small. Period 2 (1950-1957), the beginning of the People's Republic, was marked by a policy of the Communist Party "undertaking the whole thing." State ownership was extended to previously private enterprises. The salary system that had existed in these enterprises remained in place even while the supply system continued both in the army and among civilians coming from the earlier liberated areas. Thus, de facto, two different distribution systems existed during this period. At first, people, especially young intellectuals who had recently joined the revolution, took great pride in the supply system as a symbol of revolutionary commitment. However, more people working under the supply system began complaining of their relatively low income, as compared with those who were paid a regular salary; and various disadvantages of the supply system were pointed out. For instance, under the supply system, the birth of a child entitled a family to a subsidy, a policy clearly at odds with population control aspirations. In any event, between 1952 and 1955 a gradual transition from the supply system to a salary system occurred, first in the enterprises, then the government, and finally, in the military. A 23-rank administrative system was set up for civilian cadres and an 8-rank system for production workers. An academic title system was established in universities and a military rank system in the army. In addition, a variety of Soviet-style incentive systems (which had been copied from USA practices of the 1930s), including piece rates, were introduced into Chinese industries.

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Mao, now the head of government as well as the Central Community Party (CCP), was uncomfortable with these changes, once describing the privileges arranged for cadres of different ranks as vestiges of feudalistic ideology. He initiated the military rank system reluctantly, and eventually abolished it in 1965. (It has since been reinstated.) Mao also delayed implementation of a police rank system borrowed from the USSR, and gave it up altogether after the Hungarian uprising in 1956. In any event, the salary systems established in China were "low salary" varieties in comparison with other countries, and the gaps between ranks were small. Reveling in the success of the Anti-Rightist Movement of the mid1950s in quashing opinions among intellectuals that diverged from party orthodoxy, and the (largely fictional, even self-delusional) production growth of the Great Leap Forward, in Period 3 (1958-1978), the party moved to an ultraleft ideology. In 1958, Zhang Chun-qiao, then the Party Secretary of Shanghai and later the chief theorist among the Gang of Four, published an article entitled "Breaking with the Bourgeois Right Ideology." He argued that salary and incentive systems corroded the minds of cadres and workers, made them think of nothing but money, and caused them to become preoccupied with their personal gains and losses. Abandonment of the supply system he insisted was a great mistake. Because his argument appeared to have Mao's support (in the form of an editorial note), Zhang easily carried the day in the debate that followed publication of his article, and the slogan of "back to the supply system" became fashionable for a time. As the realities of the massive failure of the Great Leap Forward imposed themselves, extreme economic and other hardships spread throughout the country, and the ultraleft factions were forced to pull in their horns. Incentive plans were restored in some industries and a "contract for fixed output" system was carried out in rural areas as a way of stimulating mass enthusiasm for production. These measures had their effects, but the Cultural Revolution ended them in the later 1960s. Ultraleftists insisted that a principle of material incentive was a "poison" for all working people. They expressly deprecated the value of mental labor and required intellectuals to do physical work; and they took the average of the total fund for workers' bonuses as a fixed additional component of salaries, thereby effectively eliminating any monetary incentives. Everyone was given a fixed wage entirely unrelated to performance. This fixed pay system, plus lifelong employment, define what the masses called the "Iron Rice Bowl System" and "Eating meals from the shared big pot." The fourth, and latest period in the modern evolution of chinese concepts of fairness began in 1979. By then, with Mao dead and the Gang of Four imprisoned, and especially after the Third Plenary session of the l l t h

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Central Committee of the CCP, the party, headed by Deng Xiaoping, began to bring order out of the chaos of the Cultural Revolution and to initiate ambitious reforms to accelerate the modernization of china. The principle of material incentive was reconfirmed and contrary ultraleft ideology criticized. The Party, under Deng, articulated a thesis that China still was in a primary socialist stage whereas the distribution principle of "to each according to one's work" was the only practicable means of promoting economic productivity. A correlative policy of "permitting part of the people to become wealthy first" was enunciated, and a "norm of performance" was effectively legalized. However, attempts by the state to eliminate equalitarian norms have elicited strong feelings of injustices among the populace. As the then-general Secretary of the party, Zhao Zi-yang, pointed out in his report to the 13th Congress of the CCP in October 1987: the main trend in current distribution is still eating meals from the same big pot, qualitarianism and mutual comparison...we can analyze the facts with the same perspective of equal opportunities...in the process of reform, those with privilege either inherited from their high-status parent(s) or relatives, or obtained through illegal channels, make use of the imperfection of the new system being established or on trial, to gain ill-gotten wealth for themselves, especially those speculators and profiteers, bribing and ganging up with some corrupted cadres, make a big pile particularly in the circulation field. Thus a kind of new unfairness and unequal opportunities have been caused and the righteous indignation of the masses is fully justifiable, because the harvest of the reform has been reaped by those who have not sown and those who contribute most have not really benefitted from it. However, we should be very careful in distinguishing the ill-gotten wealth gained, even disguised with the slogan of "fighting against equalitarianism" from the legal income one earns, even if it's big.

Discussions of Chinese socialism typically range over the major alternative distribution rules recognized in the West: equity, parity, and need (e.g., Deutsch, 1975; Lerner, Miller, and Holmes, 1976). The role each plays in perceptions of fairness, however, and sometimes even their particular meanings, have been transformed by the Dengist renditions of Marxist doctrine. For example, a popular "bias or preconception" has been noted by Dengists to the effect that, since a norm of performance tends to encourage a gap between the rich and the poor, it must therefore be contrary to socialist percepts, but the Dengists view the idea as a naive misunderstanding of socialist doctrine. They argue that in classical Marxism, equalitarianism has never been advocated. And, in fact, in recent years extreme forms of it--absolute equalitarianism-----have been customarily criticized in Marxist socialist politics as "reactionary" because it hinders the growth of productivity in society. It is true, too, that a norm of need often is regarded as an ideal in socialist systems because of its humanistic nature; but it is dismissed by Dengists as unrealistic to implement because it depends on an improbable abundance of material wealth at least in the Chinese society. In fact, a key

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tenet of Marxism, they say, is that the principle of distribution appropriate to China's primary stage of socialism is "from each according to his ability, to each according to his work." This will be recognized as a virtual statement of what in the West has been called a norm of performance (equity). According to Dengist interpretations of Marxist doctrine, because the chinese economy still is underdeveloped, implementation of a norm of equity probably is the only way to promote productivity, which is the basic objective of the socialist revolution. Consider the following quotation from Marx (1875/1971): In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labor, and therewith also the antithesis between mental and physical labor, has vanished; after labor has become not only a means of life but life's prime want; after the productive forces have also increased with the allround development of the individual, and all the springs of cooperative wealth flow more abundantly--only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on its banners: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!

A norm of need, then, under current doctrine, is obviously a matter of some remote future. Thus, Deng may be no less an idealogue than Mao. His ideology--authoritarian modernization--is, moreover, a potent one which he shares with his noncommunist predecessors. Whereas the Maoist incarnation of communism was strongly committed to the rapid establishment of a more egalitarian social order, Deng's ideology stresses a different priority. Every bit as socialist as Mao, Deng, is, however, more convinced that genuine socialism, including a more egalitarian society, can only be built on the foundation of a highly developed economy, its inequalities notwithstanding. Millions of people now living and working in China have lived with both of these divergent ideologies, a fact the implications of which we shall consider later. Egalitarianism Versus Inequality A number of Western analyses have been made of the changes that are and have been taking place in China, and they point up two key issues in the conceptions of justice that are manifest in China (e.g., Butterfield, 1982; Barnett, 1986; Fairbank, 1987a, 1987b; Harding, 1987). One is that reformational changes have not been uniform across political, economic, and sociocultural spheres (Leiberthal and Oksenberg, 1988). A second is that incongruities exist which reflect influences from traditional culture and an egalitarian vision of a classless society, coexisting with the stratification that occurs, intentionally or not, from the forces of modernization and the start-up of limited, open market economic systems. Indeed, this theme of

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an underlying tension between egalitarianism, born of traditional values and Chinese socialist ideology, and salient inequalities associated with intended economic reforms and the emergence of elitism is one that rationalizes otherwise disparate observations and commentaries on post-Mao China. As one example, the egalitarian-inequality tension surface in the "Red vs. Expert" issue. Products of the Maoist educational system were understood to be not "modern experts" (as they became, perhaps, in Dengist times) but "a selected elite morally committed to the leader of the state and his vision of egalitarian revolution" (Fairbank, 1987a, p. 161). Indeed, according to Fairbank, the Cultural Revolution represented an inevitable conflict between the ruler's customary need for ideological loyalty and the modernizer's need for special skills. The underlying issue is one of acceptance of inequality. The question of the extent to which there will bee "politics in command" was the nub of the conflict between Deng and the Gang of Four, and remains an issue in China still. Implementation of the program of the Four Modernizations denoted an explicit antiegalitarian reversal of the Cultural Revolution; and Dengist policies in the countryside actually stressed the generation of inequalities (by letting some peasants get rich). The emergence of elitism in the face of egalitarian ideologies and cultural traditions represents a strongly disruptive force as inequalities spread. Harding (1987) recognized that such a long-term threat to reform could be found in social-economic inequality growing beyond politically tolerable levels. Continuation of reform would certainly further increase inequalities, both in degree and range, especially as regional differences in wealth grow in the face of restrictions on mobility, while other sources of inequity arise in China from traditional patterns of guanxi combining with endemic nepotism and cadre opportunism, and, of course, outright corruptiotr--graft and profiteering (even if some of it might be thought of as entrepreneurship by Western standards). 3 The Rise of Clientism in Distinctively Chinese Industrial Organization The tension between egalitarian ideals and forces that press for a more stratified social order becomes manifest in complex ways within Chinese enterprises. Political analysts such as Pye (1968) and Solomon (1971) have noted a distinctively Chinese character of the communist system in China and developed the idea of its patrimonial character, emphasizing 3The context of reform has also had the liberalizing effect of loosening constraints on diversity (and dissent)---on which there obviously has been a crackdown since the crescendo in Tiananmen.

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notions of political authority based on patron-client ties. Pye (1981), for instance, has argued that the fundamental dynamic of Chinese politics is a continuous tension between the imperative of consensus and conformity on the one hand, and the belief, on the other hand, that one can find security only in special, particularistic relationships, which by their very nature tend to threaten the principle of consensus. These particularistic ties tend to produce factions. (p. 4)

Walder (1986) has similarly described modern Chinese industrial organization as a "clientelist state," emphasizing the implication of "moral" corruption it entails (exemplified, for instance, by the cadre privileges that so troubled Mao and helped precipitate the Cultural Revolution). Walder used a concept of "Communist neo-traditionalism" as a Weberian "typeconcept" to distinguish China from the "generically communist." He intends this concept to "highlight the contrast with more familiar forms of industrial authority that are notable for their relative impersonality and anonymity, the relative political and economic independence of workers from management, and the resulting prominence of group conflict, bargaining, contract, and the relatively tight bureaucratic restriction of the personal discretion of immediate superiors" (p. 10). The hallmarks of the neotraditional type are chiefly two. The first is a distinctive employment relationship: one not of a market variety, nor where the employing firm is understood to be an economic enterprise, as it is in capitalist versions, but instead one where employment has mainly a welfare function. The second hallmark of the neotraditional type is a distinctive political and economic organization of the workplace, which has three features: (i) the enterprise is designed as a point of delivery for services of many kinds to workers; (ii) the party and its auxiliary organizations are an expressly organized presence in the enterprise seeking to monopolize sociopolitical relationships therein; and (iii) there being only weak employment "contracting" in the enterprise, great discretionary authority is accorded to supervisors who control the distribution of all sorts of benefits to workers, which results in a high degree of dependence on the worker's part. Walder proposed the neotraditional type of organization as a modern one that is not explicable from cultural traditions. By this he means that in Western treatments of industrial organization, tradition has been associated with ideas of dependence, deference, and particularism. Modem, on the other hand, has signified independence, contract, and universalism. Hence, "neotraditional" is a modern form of traditional organization. It describes basic features of the communist factory: (i) management control of the work force that fosters stable clientelist relations involving preferential treatment (access to benefits) to a minority of loyal and cooperative workers; (ii) vertical networks of loyalty that are regularly marked publicly and

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serve to divert antagonisms usually directed at management toward this minority of privileged activist clients; and (iii) rank-and-file pursuit of interests in the workplace through an alternative system of private exchange and mutual support (guanxi) that sometimes includes petty corruption to influence decision-maker's allocations of benefits. In practice, there are many variations on these patterns. In any case, the key institutional features of the neotraditional form are "organized dependence" and an "institutional culture" of the factory that involves particular patterns of association both between superiors and subordinates and among workers, together with the strategies used to satisfy interests. The Chinese worker's social and economic dependence on the enterprise is es, pecially profound because of the proportion of workers' needs that are satisfied at the workplace, and the relative absence of alternative sources of supply. Political dependence of workers on management arises from the thoroughness of workplace organization by the party and state: a profusion of party organizations, state security bureaus, informers, and record keeping, bolstered by control over rewards, all of which serve to preempt independent action and, in combination, Walder observed, largely explain the unique ability of communist regimes to prevent organized political activity. Meanwhile, personal dependence of workers on superiors also is heavy owing to the extensive discretionary powers of shop leaders, especially when the "workshop is coterminous with the party branch," as it certainly was before the Director Responsibility Systems of the mid-1980s, and may be again now (Hunt and Meindl, 1991). In addition, Walder pointed out, work supervisors typically play a critical broker role mediating workers' access to benefits and fostering a structure of "personalized industrial authority." A unique "institutional culture of authority," of which China's is a variation on a typical communist pattern, develops as the party cultivates a network of patron-client ties in the workshops. These vertical ties serve to divide the workforce into social and political statuses. These, in turn, provide bases for the emergence of subcultures of instrumental-personal ties via which individual interests are pursued. The two institutional principles Walder adduced from these phenomena are "Party Clientelism" which produces, from above, the status structure of the factory, the mechanism of which he described as a practice of "principled particularism," according to which the party rewards preferentially on the basis of loyalty-cooperation (not, be it noticed, performance or expertise, at least not primarily). Party clientelism may be termed a "mixed system" in that it is an olio, on the one hand, of Leninist ideas about ideological commitment and impersonal loyalties (comradeship) and role expectations of modern bureaucratic industrial organization, and, on the other hand, personal loyalties, traditional authority, and patrimonialism.

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Walder characterized the customary aim of a communist system as a quest for unbounded ideological commitment (hearts and minds), which entails an emphasis on the moral and political aspects of authority (Red vs. Expert). Principled particularism is a reward system: a particularistic means of providing incentives for universal ideological commitment. The system, however, results in personalized patron-client ties as a by-product, even an unintended consequence. 4 Expressive of this phenomenon is the idea of biaoxian, with respect to which Walder said: "What looks like a moral incentive...is, in fact, a system of reward that uses career incentives and the factory's considerable resources to reward 'moral' behavior and political loyalty, as defined by the party and management, and to penalize their opposite" (p. 132). Biaoxian itself is a subjective quality of employees, "a good attitude," that is continuously assessed by leaders and is taken into account in their treatment. It thus refers to aspect of performance other than work--attitudes, opinions, behavior in meetings, helpfulness to others, extra efforts (even outside the workplace). Chinese reward systems are typically flexible, and generally take biaoxian into account. This is not, however, per s e a corrupt practice but a "principled application" of political standards for rewards, The practice may, and does, become corrupted if and when it is personalized and degenerates into simple favoritism. In addition to affecting rewards, biaoxian is also a basis for punishments, although in less straightforward ways. A bad attitude can in fact lead to very severe punishment, but the stress on attitude rather than actions, leads to placing a great premium on contrition as a positive virtue as well as in mitigating guilt. 5 4Walder (1986) makes a crucial point in speaking about the evolution of Leninist forms of organization (mass mobilization around party-determined objectives) toward a form of clientelist rule. His point is that it results, in fact, in a modern institutional system that remains "profoundly anticapitalist." This obviously suggests, if it is correct, that many of the Western, particularly American, expectations for the reforms of the 1980s may have been fantasies, and that Tiananmen may well not have been simply a last gasp of a dying regime. 5The period of the "revitalist movement" of the Cultural Revolution often is advertised as the embodiment of collectivist and egalitarian values. Walder (1986) argues, however, that it was also reflective of a "militantly ascetic" obsessed with political loyalty and indifferent to the material needs of workers. In fact, Walder maintains that "the Maoist version of factor life [in the 1960s and 1970s] was less egalitarian and collectivist than the earlier one" (p. 193). Indeed, it led to intensified dependence on the enterprise and clientelist relations and "intensified the 'corrupt' pursuit of advantage through instrumental-personal ties" (p. 193). The whole thing, of course, "thoroughly discredited the practice of moral-political mobilization and set the stage for the reforms of the 1980's" (p. 193). Walder concludes that "the irony is that Maoism succeeded in undermining the politicized reward systems that were supposed to be its essence and served primarily to reinforce the evolution toward neo-traditional forms" (p. 221). Thus, the Cultural Revolution is seen as having targeted the party apparatus because Mao then, and Maoists now, interpreted calls for reform as expressions of "the class interests of corrupted party cadres and revisionist leaders throughout the system" (p. 191).

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The politicization of rewards and the marked dependence on leaders, the whole biaoxian phenomenon, arguably stimulates a calculative orientation to authority: giving what is wanted, manifest compliance (without conviction), especially since campaigns come and go and political winds often shift. It means, then, a strong Chinese propensity toward cynicism and conscious self-presentation, a putting on of public masks. This phantasmagoric style is exacerbated and complicated by the social fact of the divided Chinese workforce---activists vs. other workers----that splits work groups with cross-cutting loyalties and is a major structural consequence of the communist clientelist strategy and the phenomenon of guanxi. 6 Boisot and Child (1988) delivered a similar message but grounded it in the conceptual base of Williamson's (1975) transaction costs model of social relations. In a variation on Michels's (1966) "iron law of oligarchy"---the idea that modern organizations tend toward domination by narrow groups, even when this is against the wishes of both leaders and led, and that these result in the formation of elites, of particularistic self-interests, and concentration of power--Boisot and Child stress Williamson's notion of "soft contracting." They note the fief-like traditions of China, and reliance there on relational contracting to structure social relations. This strategy involves some particularism, is trusl;-based, and is therefore vulnerable to noneconomic kinds of opportunism.

Distributive Patterns of Material Benefit in Chinese Enterprises

The subject of personnel practices, material compensation in particular, in Chinese enterprises is one where contradictions between egalitarianism and inequality are especially prominent. Chinese workers are dependent on their enterprises for satisfaction of a far wider variety of material needs than is typical of Western societies or, of other Asian ones such as Japan's. Specific Chinese reward allocation (need satisfaction) practices may vary depending on the resource in question [e.g., Yu et al., (1989) (See Appendix)]. Certain of these practices, such as need-based allocations, and those that take into account seniority, tenure, or education are familiar in the West. Others are not, but derive from peculiar features of traditional Chinese culture and/or CCP ideology. Some are linked to performance norms that are an explicit part of recent Chinese economic reform efforts; 6Walder (1986) argues that network concepts are better in talking about China than group concepts because "Every occupational group or stratum, no matter how defined is divided by the social distinction between activist and nonactivist that pervades everyday life. . . . Every social group, in other words, is riddled with cross-cutting networks of allegiances that are central to the exercise of power" (p. 244).

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others refer to "needs" that are linked to communist ideology, for example, effort and being young are often considered appropriate grounds for one's entitlement to various of the several benefits controlled by Chinese enterprises. Quite apart from performance quality, effort is a distinct basis of entitlement, known among Chinese as showing the "spirit of a willing ox," that seeks to recognize good working attitudes and enthusiasm (biaoxian) irrespective of its products. Traditional Chinese culture shares with other Asian cultures a reverence for elders. Interest in economic reform has, however, prompted a contradictory emphasis on youth as a crucial resource for implementing industrial and economic development. This new valuation of youth is explicit in policies of Deng Xiao-ping, translated (literally) as the "Four-izes," which seek to have management "revolutionized, professionalized, intellectualized, and youth-ized." Political standing or loyalty to party ideology, demonstrated perhaps by public displays of commitment to correct political beliefs, has been an especially important basis of entitlements in China: as the Chinese saying goes: "it is better to have a low quality but safe product than a high quality but dangerous one." Thus a cadre, no matter how capable, who is sympathetic, say, to antiparty demonstrations by students may be seen as less deserving of benefits than would a vocally loyal party member. Indeed, political correctness is sometimes (perhaps often) a value superior to technical competence, as the slogan "Red vs. Expert" suggests (Hunt and Gao, 1989). A distinguishing feature of prereform compensation schemes in China was the goal of minimizing differentials among workers. Pay grades were established, some with variations aligned to economic/regional zones within China, and any wage adjustments were across-the-board. No systematic means of compensating differential productivity were available to enterprise managers. Symbolic recognition for work was commonly based as much on ideological considerations and citizenship factors as on productivity and performance factors. Recently in China new compensation schemes have attempted to introduce Western-style policies designed to make rewards more contingent on performance outputs. Although differentials in base salaries and wages still tended to be minimal by Western standards, the introduction of bonus pools was meant to provide opportunities for rewarding productivity and to give incentives for improved future performance. In the West, ostensibly, compensation policies are designed to control and reward performance. The introduction of modified-Western style, performance-based compensation policies in China has been met with a good deal of resistance. Initial attempts to move away from norms of egalitarianism precipitated widespread interpersonal divisiveness, to such an extent

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that some prereform nonperformance criteria for rewards, such as seniority, were reinstated (Shirk, 1981); and official compensation practices have been augmented by informal practices designed to accommodate established sensibilities about the distribution of rewards. In 1986, for example, a typical compensation policy would be based on a two-component structure: a "composition wage" and a "floating wage" of about 15-20% of the total. The floating wage was meant, in part, to differentiate among workers of varying levels of productivity relative to some standard performance goal. Work group leaders, however, often "leveled" bonus allocations, and, when faced with policy pressures to reward differentially, simply rotated "high" bonuses to different workers on a monthly basis, ignoring performance or failing even to set performance goals. Thus, given the local alternatives, it was in the interest of managers and workers to follow a policy of very low performance standards, which thereby maximized the absolute amount of bonus money available for allocation, and then to distribute bonuses in a way that minimized inequality (Becket and Gao, 1989). Preferences for outcome equality in organizations can result from a perceived illegitimacy of performance standards. It seems likely that at least some of the problems with moving toward equity-oriented reward systems in China have been a result of failure to reach consensus about the performance standards on which outcomes are based. The implementation of a two-part compensation system implies some general agreement about what a fair quota is (i.e., the point at which a bonus rate will kick in). Egalitarian reactions are a likely response to the interpersonal strife and divisiveness derivative of descensus on that level of performance that entitles one worker to more or less benefit than another. Of course, an emphasis on consensus is itself a likely symptom of more fundamental distrust of performance-equity-based rules of entitlement, stemming, in the Chinese case, from egalitarian values associated with Maoist ideology and collectivistic cultural orientations and low tolerances for interpersonal disharmony. These factors, together with inevitable imperfections in performance appraisals, no doubt fuel Chinese reticence toward newly sanctioned opportunities for more highly differentiated distributions of workplace benefits. By official policy, as we have said, contemporary China seeks simultaneously to introduce reforms that will move its economy closer to a market-based form while retaining the major features of its planned economic and social systems ("socialism with Chinese characteristics"). Hence, the typical enterprise manager and worker has to reconcile communist ideology and egalitarian values with pragmatic economic policies that inevitably lead to income inequalities. Consider now some empirical observations on how this appears to be working, at least up until Tiananmen.

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Research Strategy As a means of investigating these matters, two partial replications were done in the PRC of a study reported by Meindl (1989). That study, using a sample of middle- and lower-level managers in the USA, relied on a research strategy in which practicing managers read and responded to a series of case vignettes. The vignettes varied systematically in key respects around a hypothetical allocation problem. Both the American and the Chinese studies focused on the joint effects of differing value contexts and sociotechnical arrangements on the extent to which equity- versus paritybased distribution rules are used among recipients of benefits. This permits an examination of the extent to which managers are likely to be flexible or rigid in their application of particular distribution logic, and also permits an estimate of which particular logic is more or less likely to guide allocation decisions in differing value contexts. Further light could be shed, too, on equity-parity contrasts in managers' thinking by observing if and how response patterning in alternative value contexts were affected by differing sociotechnical arrangements among benefit recipients. Evidence from studies of university students indicate that Orientals, with native cultures that are typically considered collectivistic by Wester standards, are much less likely that their American counterparts to express preferences for equity-type allocation rules (e.g., Leung and Bond, 1982; Berman et al., 1985; Mann et al., 1985; Mahler et al., 1981). Several studies of ethnic Chinese students in Hong Kong (e.g., Leung and Bond, 1982, 1984; Leung and Park, 1986) and in Taiwan (e.g., Chu and Yang, 1976) show mixed preference patterns depending on circumstances; however, we are not aware of any studies that report on data drawn from managerial groups inn mainland China. A more or less implicit assumption was made to the effect that the equity-parity contrast would be resolved in China according to some weighted compromise integration of egalitarian values and political pressures for more differentiated distributions. As Dengist reforms and the ideology they represent were more consistently implemented and took hold, and social substrata caught up with them, we expected there would be a shift in the relative prominence of parity and equity logic and in the forms of their integration. The data from the USA managers provided a comparative baseline against which to evaluate the results of the Chinese data. A quick review of them is in order here. Data from 96 managers in the conditions that were replicated in China are summarized in Table I. Several of their features are noteworthy. Clearly the American managers have a strong preference for equity-based allocation schemes. At the same time, however, it is also clear that there is no blanket preference for equity over parity values

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in the USA sample. The USA managers were responsive to the alternative value conditions presented to them, and were sensitive to the sociotechnical relations within the work groups described to them. For example, allocation patterns consistent with an equity rule emerged when interdependence was low, especially when productivity values were being maximized. On the other hand, allocations more consistent with a parity rule occurred when interdependence was high, especially when allocators were constrained to maximize interpersonally oriented socioemotional values. It was also apparent that American managers' perceptions of fairness changed depending on how tightly coupled work group members tasks and activities were. The managers were inclined to define fairness in terms of an equity rule when interdependence was low, but recognized that fairness implied a more parity-based standard when co-workers were highly interdependent. Furthermore, evidence was found that USA managers tended to resolve allocation problems involving conflicting normative pressures from one and another allocation rule (e.g., productivity values coupled with tight sociotechnical interdependence) by increasing parity, i.e., by minimizing differentials among co-workers. With this summary of findings about American managers' equity-parity decisions as a baseline, we can look now at similar data on Chinese managers collected in China in 1986 and in 1989.

METHOD Sample Collecting social scientific data from enterprise workers is uncommon in China, where there is considerable reticence about allowing outsiders access to such information without some official sponsorship. Satisfying this condition, however, would have introduced obvious problems for the research, given the issues under study. Consequently, data were gathered from convenience samples gained via personal contacts. The 1986 group Table I. Mean Allocation Index Scores (USA) Interdependence level Value condition Low High Productivity Cohesion Fairness

18.50 7.84 21.00

8.29 7.00 8.19

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consisted of lower and middle managers (N = 66) participating in programs at the National Center for Industrial Science and Technology Management Development, located at the Datian University of Technology. The 1989 group included managers (N = 86) similar in age and experience to the 1986 group, drawn from several enterprises in Dalian City, including a bearing manufacturer, a forging company, an electrical motor company, a boat repair and maintenance plant, and various units within the Dalian Harbor Administration. Managers participated in the study voluntarily with assurances of anonymity and confidentiality. Both studies were administered by the researchers and their assistants, none of whom were members of the work units from which the managers came. Design and Procedure Managers read a short case vignette describing an allocation problem. After reading the vignette, they were asked to make what they felt would be the best, most appropriate, allocation given the circumstances described in the case. The information in the vignettes was systematically varied to create three distinct value conditions and two different levels of work-group interdependence. Thus, in some of the cases, the overriding concern was with the overall productivity of a work group (Productivity). In other cases, either cohesion and the minimization of conflict (Solidarity), or fairness (Justice) were the major concerns. Work-group interdependence was manipulated by describing the technical, work-flow arrangements within the group. Low and high interdependence corresponded to alternative technology types---mediating and intensive---denoting pooled and reciprocal interdependence respectively. Each of these was fully described in text and in graphic formats. The two variables were fully crossed, producing a 3 x 2, six-cell factorial design. The Productivity and Solidarity contexts were meant by design to correspond with the situational goals that have been the focus in previous research (e.g., Leventhal, 1976). The typical finding is that equity allocations are more likely when productivity is the goal, whereas parity is more likely when cohesion and group harmony are at stake. Inclusion here of a Justice condition allowed an examination of what managers viewed as fair without the constraints imposed by considerations of productivity or cohesion. It also provided a way to assess the extent to which the definitions of fairness that emerged in the Justice condition differed systematically from those in other conditions involving maximization of alternative values. In addition, the interaction and additive effects of group interdependence levels on allocation patterns allowed an assessment of how potentially con-

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flicting pressures associated with value contexts and sociotechnical configurations are resolved.

The Case Vignettes

The case materials, experimental manipulations, and case-relevant questions were based on the Meindl (1989) study of managers in the USA. Comparable Chinese language versions were generated using standard back-translation methods (Brislin, 1980). The case vignettes were developed specifically for the purposes of comparative research, and represented variations around a core case entitled "The M & M Machining Company." The first few paragraphs of the cases provided general background on the company, its product lines, the number of employees, and the organization of the plant. This was followed by a description of the various work-flow arrangements among the various production groups, accompanied by figures composed of boxes and arrows designed to illustrate the three most common types of arrangements in the plant. The next portion of the case described some recent changes that had been instituted in the plant, which included the installation of a system designed to measure and monitor the plant's productivity. It went on to describe how the appraisal system made it possible to obtain a productivity index score for each worker. The next paragraph described the wage and benefits at the company as fairly typical for the industry. It also described a bonus system in which production supervisors made decisions about the distribution of individual allocations, in percentage terms, from a total pool available to the group, which was left ambiguous by design. What followed next was a description of the focal work group, consisting of five members and a supervisor, Mr. Wang. A part of this description included an analysis of the dominant type of workflow interdependence that existed among the members in Mr. Wang's unit. The description also included a summary of the productivity scores for each of the five work-group members. The case concluded with a paragraph describing Mr. Wang's task of making bonus allocations to his workers, while contemplating recently communicated concerns of top management regarding the operations of the plant. It was within the context of this basic scenario that the manipulations of interdependence and value contexts were delivered. Value Contexts. The conditions of Mr. Wang's decision regarding the distribution of bonus money were manipulated so that one of several values was made obvious as a context in which allocations were to be made. For example, in some versions of the case, the overriding concern was with the

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overall productivity of the work group (Productivity), operationalized as follows: Mr. Wang is now faced with the decision about how much of the bonus pool he will give to each of the workers in his group. Mr. Wang is aware of the fact that in recent months the company's economic performance has been lagging behind. As a result, management has become increasingly concerned about the plant's internal, operating efficiency. In particular, there has been pressure from top management to increase the general productivity levels of the production line work groups.

This was followed by a role-playing question, consistent with the value context that was introduced: There are any number of ways in which the bonus money might be distributed to the workers in Mr. Wang's group. In your experience, in situations like the one described in the case, how should the bonus money be distributed if Mr. Wang's primary goal is to maximize the overall productivity of the work group members? In other words, how much of the bonus pool should each worker receive if the company is concerned about motivating high performance and group productivity?

The other cases were written so that either cohesion (Solidarity) or fairness (Justice) was the major concern. Interdependence Levels. Work-group interdependence was manipulated by describing the technical work-flow arrangements within the group: Low and High interdependence corresponded to mediating and intensive technologies, denoting pooled and reciprocal interdependence, respectively. Each of these was fully described in text and graphic formats. For example, low interdependence was operationalized as follows near the beginning of the case: In some of the work groups, there is what's called a "mediating" technology. In these groups, the work that is processed by each member of the unit is relatively independent of the work processes by other members of that unit. The workers in these units have "one person" jobs in the sense that their work activities and tasks can be performed autonomously. In such groups, there is relatively little need for coordination, communication, and interacting regarding task-related matters.

A figure displaying, with boxes and arrows, this conception of the work flow was included. Later on in the case, the focal work group was defined in similar terms: The work flow in this particular group is mostly as described in panel A of Exhibit 1. Although workers perform their jobs side by side, the interdependence among them is generally low. Each worker can process their work in an autonomous fashion without having to interact and coordinate their activities with one another. Typically, there is little need to adjust or to accommodate to another co-worker.

Dependant Variables. The principal dependent measures focused on the allocation patterns recommended by the managers, who were asked to distribute, in percentage terms, bonus resources to each of the five workgroup members described in the case vignette:

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Make your recommendations by using the line below to indicate what percentage of the total bonus pool should be allocated to each individual in this work group. The amount allocated to any individual can be as low or as high as you see fit. But remember, the total percentage must add up to exactly 100%. Write in the amount (%) each worker should receive.

The theoretically important aspects of these allocations were captured in a single index, computed on the basis of the relative amount of total resources allocated to the most and the least productive workers described in the case vignette (Difference Index). The inference was that the greater the difference, the more equity-based distributive rules were being applied; and the smaller the difference, the more parity rules were being used. 7

RESULTS Chinese Managers, 1986 The 1986 data are summarized in Table II. A two-way ANOVA revealed significant main effects for Value condition, F(2, 52) = 5.38, p = 0.008; for Interdependence level, F(1, 53) = t2.78, p = 0.001, and for their interaction, F(2, 52) = 5.620, p = 0.006. In contrast to the American managers, a strong preference for parity emerged among the Chinese managers. At the same time, however, like their USA counterparts, these managers also showed sensitivity to the alternative value contexts confronting them, and, to some degree, a respon-

Table 1I. Mean Allocation Index Scores (China, 1986) Interdependence level Value condition

Low

High

15.13

4.68

Cohesion

9.56

4.50

Fairness

12.10

12.70

Productivity

7Since quantified productivity figures were provided in the case vignettes, exact contribution information was known to the readers. When the relative productivities of individuals are dearly quantifiable and easily compared across individual recipients, an exact equity-based distribution can be computed as a baseline from which allocation index scores may deviate. Given the productivity figures presented in our case vignettes, an exact equity solution implied a score of 15 on this index. Exact parity, of course, provides a baseline of zero.

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siveness to the differing sociotechnical arrangements with which those contexts were crossed. Despite this responsiveness, however, their responses to the justice value conditions indicate a rather rigidly general definition of justice which, by American standards, is closer to parity than to equity. Overall, the 1986 data painted a relatively unsurprising picture of the cognitive and dispositional orientations Chinese managers were likely to bring to bear in making allocation decisions. The picture changes dramatically, however, when we look at data collected 3 years later, just a few months before the Spring 1989 demonstrations and Tiananmen Square violence.

Chinese Managers, 1989

The 1989 data are summarized in Table III. A two-way ANOVA revealed a significant main effect for Interdependence level, F(1, 76) = 9.94; p < 0.01. That main effect was qualified by an interaction between Value condition and Interdependence level, F(2, 76) = 2.99; p < 0.05. These data indicate a remarkable change in preferences away from the parity norm that was so dominant in 1986, toward allocations that rivalled the preferences of American managers for equity. Indeed evidence of equity-type differentiations by the Chinese managers occurs under conditions where even the USA managers were willing to use more of a parity-based logic, as in the case of the solidarity value context. By and large, there is less evidence in 1989 of either the parity norm or the responsiveness to alternative allocation contexts that was shown in 1986. Furthermore, when faced with potentially incompatible demands from particularly incongruent value context/sociotechnical pairings, the default solutions tended to be approximations closer to equity than to the less differentiated parity approximations displayed by either the American managers or their 1986 Chinese counterparts. This somewhat more rigid commitment to the implementation of equity-type solutions is juxtaposed with an apparently newfound flexibility in the definition of fairness, which is revealed in responses

Table III. Mean Allocation Index Scores (China,

1989) Interdependence level Value condition

Low

High

Productivity Cohesion Fairness

15.62 15.58 18.85

15.71 10.71 11.00

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to the justice-value contexts. Here we observe evidence that justice is defined as equity or as parity depending to some extent on the sociotechnical relationships that exist among recipients.

GENERAL DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS These data, along with the observations made by other analysts reviewed here, of changes that have been and are taking place in China, allow some tentative conclusions. First, the initial wave of post-Mao reforms that took place in the first half of the 1980s, while significant in terms of official ideology regarding economic matters and enterprise management, produced relatively little corresponding change in the way organizations actually were run. What changes did occur probably were unintended and in some cases antithetical to planned changes of the sort described by Walder (1986). We had indeed expected to find a greater reliance on parity-based logics among the Chinese managers, in comparison with their counterparts in the USA where equity norms are dominant. This expectation was based on an assumption of a traditional collectivistic Chinese culture, bolstered by past research on ethnic Chinese groups outside of the PRC (see Bond, 1986; Hsu, 1970) and other assumptions about the ideological significance of egalitarian values. Our 1986 data on normative conceptions of justice among Chinese manager were entirely consistent with this expectation. Hence, they suggested that Party attempts to reduce egalitarianism were not taking hold. The egalitarian legacy inherited from Chinese cultural and ideological traditions of collectivism, central planning, and communism were arguably revealed in our finding a pattern of allocation preferences that was predictably different from those of American managers who live and work in a contrasting cultural, economic, and political context dominated by individualism, capitalism, and democracy. Although the Chinese managers who participated in the 1986 study did show some similarity to their USA counterparts, their tendencies toward paritybased allocation schemes were unambiguously stronger; and parity (as opposed to equity) was the principle way in which they defined justice. These findings provide the first empirical evidence on such matters from China. The message of cultural transition and shifting normative conceptions regarding justice and deserving carried by the 1989 data is a different matter that leads to a second conclusion at once more complex and probably controversial. On the one hand, we observe what appears to be a rather remarkable overall shift in expressed preferences for resolving allocation problems away from parity toward equity, with few (if any) overt signs of influence from egalitarian principles or collectivistic mentalities. Further-

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more, the direction of this movement certainly is consistent with centrally planned reform efforts in China and thereby suggests that such efforts were beginning to have an effect on the way managers were thinking about the distribution of benefits in their enterprises. By 1989 Chinese managers were showing evidence of developing a broadened view of justice, in the sense that equity- and parity-based distributions both were seen to produce justice depending on circumstances. But, at the same time, when compared with either American managers or their own Chinese counterparts just 3 years earlier, the application of these principles was more rigid and limited to using equity allocation schemes in a way that was relatively insensitive to alternative value contexts or sociotechnical arrangements. Perhaps the strong official push for equity in the service of productivity prompted the 1989 managers to reject parity solutions even when doing so meant violating traditional egalitarian definitions of fairness. If hardly definitive, these findings are surely intriguing. They suggest, for one thing, the possibility that we are witnessing a cultural sea-change from the sort of egalitarianism prevalent in China until just a few years before these data were gathered. On the whole, however, we suspect that the Chinese managers' somewhat inflexible adherence to an equity logic is more likely to be symptomatic of an internal struggle with pressures from the "campaign-like" official requirements for commitment to forward-looking reforms that were described earlier, and their customary preferences and values associated with prereform ideologies. Thus, the data most probably point to endemic Chinese problems integrating new ideas and policies with past practices and concepts. Such problems, per se, are generic to massive social, political, and economic changes. The comparative data given here give a glimpse of one particular society (China) coping with transitional dilemmas of deservingness and entitlement. Older Chinese patterns and premises are shifting and being reintegrated, psychologically, with new ideologies and centrally planned reforms, under conditions, however, where current realities simultaneously deviate from the past and fall short of hopeful visions of a more prosperous Chinese future. How things have shifted since the Tiananmen incident, and what eventually will emerge from China's contemporary quandary, and the events by which it may progress, can only be guessed. For a time, however, China and its managerial cadres will continue to confront major psychological, social, political, and organizational challenges from the new realities implied by a shift in distributive logic. The ambitious and truly massive sociocultural changes being attempted not only in China but in the former Soviet states and those of Eastern Europe present an uncommon opportunity for social and organizational science to learn more about the manifold dynamics of justice in human affairs.

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APPENDIX Allocation rules vary according to the relative emphasis placed on inputs. At one extreme, inputs are defined in terms of contributions made to the relationship which directly benefit the other party or some conception of the group's goal. This is in fact the way that equity principles have been implemented around matters of compensation in organizational settings. The emphasis on inputs is typically operationalized in terms of contributions to organizational missions in the form of performance and productivity. At the other extreme are allocation schemes for which the specific notion of contributions and inputs, in general, are largely irrelevant. These are parity-based schemes entailing the notion of equality of outcomes. Here, one is entitled to share equally in outcomes by virtue of one's membership in the group. Somewhere between these two extremes lie input-sensitive rules but without the connotation of contributions implied by strict equity principles. Such rules implicate inputs which by intent are only weakly or not at all related to performance considerations. In these cases, inputs are not aptly considered contributions, but simply as alternative bases for entitlements. Allocations based on an assessment of needs would be one example of a nonperformance, input-sensitive rule that has attained some normative status, appropriate and familiar within certain contexts and situations. Thus it is possible to talk about the relative, normative status of contribution, noncontribution, and parity-based allocation schemes and conceptions of justice.

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