Abstract
One of the important components of China's economic reform started in 1979 is to introduce foreign captial and to establish Chinese-foreign joint venture corporations (JVCs). Generally speaking, managers seem to enjoy more power to manage their business in JVCs than those in Chinese state-owned corporations (SOCs). Past research shows that organizations need to maintain practices which are consistent with the overall business strategy in order to remain competitive in the global market (Caligiuri and Stroh, 1995). This is particularly true for managerial human resources. Ishida (1996) reported that many Japanese globalizing corporations do not put the first priority on profit, but on strengthening network systems and HRM systems to cope with the international competition and technological changes. Contrary to these global business practices, Chinese managers are doing their job mainly within the changing domestic rather than global business environment, although they are quite aware of the strategic importance of linking the long-term plan with the changing global business environment (Chen, 1996; Chen and Wakabayashi, 1997). What is particularly important for Chinese managers in JVCs and SOCs in this connection is to acquire needed knowledge and skills to cope with the changing environment. For the purpose of identifying what kinds of managerial skills and abilities are required to achieve effective managerial performance, the present study was designed to isolate ten critical managerial skills for managers in SOCs and in Japanese JVCs in China. The results suggest there exist basically no significant difference in the critical managerial skills required between the two groups of managers. Discussions were made on opportunities to use managerial skills on the job and the career progress environment as determinates of skill utilization and learning.
