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China's international engagement is changing geopolitical dynamics to an extent that Western governments appear concerned. Negative reports of this engagement in Africa abound, not least in the area of employment relations and human resource management. Yet currently there is a lack of serious management research and theory development in this area, leaving international HR managers to rely on anecdotal information. The way Chinese management engages with African workforces may be quite different from Western managers'. The current work suggests that understanding this engagement should be informed by China's recent anti-imperialist involvement in Africa, its commercial motivation coupled with its political-seeking motive, the values such as paternalism that modify Western influences on Chinese HRM that are brought to Africa, and possible synergies with African values. Yet the current work identifies from the current published evidence a disparity between China's professed strategic level of engagement and what happens at the organizational level, indicating that many Chinese organizations may be contributing to employment, but not to upskilling of workers, mutual learning, or engagement with local communities. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite increasing Chinese MNE activity in emerging countries, there is a paucity of studies and critical analysis of expatriate management in Emerging Market Multinational Enterprises (EMMNEs). This article provides a needed critical evaluation of the literature and research, and identifies an agenda for research. Chinese firms' expatriation policies and practices should be viewed differently to those of Western firms. This has implications for policy regarding state MNEs in African countries, and individual Chinese MNE expatriation policies. There are potential synergies between Chinese and African cultural values, moderated by a low importance of the knowledge transfer role of Chinese expatriates. This may be moderated by the relational nature of career development including expatriate selection and a low emphasis on predeparture training. The main contribution of this work is to inform empirical research at organizational level by making explicit differences in Chinese MNE engagement in Africa to Western MNEs, how this may influence differences in expatriate policy and practices, and why this may contribute a different perspective to the extant expatriation literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China’s presence in Africa appears to be part of a new geopolitical dynamic that may be affecting the way management and organizational knowledge from the South should be conceptualized and studied. The purpose of this article is to interrogate the adequacy of emerging critical management theories premised on challenging the West’s modernization projects, particularly Postcolonial and Dependency Theories, in the light of a changing geopolitical dynamic. It discusses the need for a new theoretical lens through which to understand and research China’s presence in Africa at organizational and community levels. It points to the lack of empirical knowledge at these levels, and proposes a research agenda based on an interrogation of China’s previous anti-colonial relationship with African countries and the way its present-day motives are played out at organizational level, and with an aim to understanding the extent to which China’s engagement is given voice to African management and organizational knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The author offers observation on modernization theory in international management. Topics addressed include a study by L. Kemp and colleagues which explored the role of women in Islamic societies, problem of a modernization assumption in international management studies that the author believes cross-cultural management scholars should challenge, and insignificance of knowledge transfer for Chinese multinational enterprises operating in Africa.