This study examines the extent to which employee judgments about distributive and procedural justice predict job satisfaction, intent to stay and evaluation of supervision in Hong Kong. Distributive and procedural justice each plays a role in determining work outcomes of Hong Kong employees. However, some effects of these justice variables differ from results of previous studies in the United States (U.S.). First, in previous U.S. studies, procedural justice moderates the relationship of distributive justice with evaluation of supervision, but not with job satisfaction or intent to stay. For Hong Kong employees, procedural justice moderates the effects of distributive justice on job satisfaction and intent to stay, but not on evaluation of supervision. Second, previous U.S. studies have shown that procedural justice has a larger effect on work outcomes for women, while distributive justice has larger effects on outcomes for men. For Hong Kong employees, the effects of procedural and distributive justice are about the same for men and women. Differences in the effects of distributive and procedural justice between Hong Kong and the U.S. may reflect cultural dimensions, such as collectivism/individualism and power distance, as well as the relative availability of rewards for women in the work force. Practical implications and future research directions are discussed. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

This paper explores the perceptions and experiences of racial discrimination of young Chinese adults in the British labour market, focusing on the barriers they face in obtaining employment. It is argued that perceived discrimination is as detrimental in its effects as real discrimination, since even the belief that discriminatory practices exist in British companies is sufficient to deter many Chinese young people from seeking employment outside the Chinese catering industry. The implications arising from the discussion emphasize that discrimination results in a waste of talent and potential, which companies can ill afford, especially at a time of demographic change and skill shortages.

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Chinese participation in the catering industry is conspicuous in Britain, but there also appears to be an emergence of young Chinese adults diversifying into other occupations and sectors in the British labour market. This paper seeks to gain an understanding of where young Chinese adults are positioned in the occupational structure, why they are situated there, and their attitudes towards their current jobs. The findings indicate that as a result of the interaction between structure and culture there is an emerging bimodal distribution of young Chinese adults in the British labour market with a tendency for young Chinese adults either to work in the professions and other white collar jobs or conversely to be employed in the service sector (that is, the Chinese catering industry). Circumscription in employment opportunities?To date there has been no research conducted on the transition of Chinese youth from school to work, nor have there been any major studies on the occupational choices and attainments of young Chinese adults who were born and/or grew up in Britain. A brief report dealt with the employment prospects of Chinese youth in Britain (Chan, 1986), its findings essentially highlighting the aspiration of the Chinese towards the professions, yet the reality being that those interviewed were or felt they were circumscribed to working in Chinese catering establishments, an environment in which most grew up.Indeed Chinese involvement in the service industry (particularly in catering) in Britain remains extremely high. A decade ago, a Select Committee report estimated that approximately 90 per cent of the Chinese population were connected to the catering trade (Home Affairs Committee, 1985), while recent Census statistics distinguish the Chinese in Britain as the group having the highest rates of entrepreneurship with "more than a quarter of Chinese in work [being] self-employed" (Owen, 1993, p. 6). Furthermore, it has been found that more than 60 per cent of Chinese men and more than 50 per cent of Chinese women in Britain work in "distribution" which includes restaurants, retailing and wholesaling (Owen, 1994).It has been argued that structural disadvantages have been largely responsible for the socio-economic isolation and segregation of the Chinese migrants to the catering/service industry. Fundamentally, the proposition is that it has been the implementation of racist immigration policies [1] and the Chinese response to circumvent these legal restrictions which have served to channel the migrants into this ethnic niche. As Baxter (1988) explained, it was

In the fast-changing and globally competitive business environment, organizations' efforts to appropriate knowledge from their workers will be increasingly resisted by those employees forced into more fragmented and uncertain careers. We interpret this contested scenario in terms of the apparently diametrically opposed ways in which knowledge is conceptualized. The organization sees knowledge as an asset which it seeks to appropriate through mechanisms designed to achieve employment flexibility. However, this process is not unidirectional, as we posit that the individual conceives of their knowledge as 'career capital' and, in building it up as a response to the uncertainties of reconstituted careers, pursues a strategy of employability. With reference to Foucault's genealogical approach, we argue that the above contest not only reflects the shifting employment relationship and economic turbulence, but is in fact a social phenomenon rooted in the knowledge−power dialectic and one which sheds light on individuals' efforts to free themselves from the effects of normalization, thus challenging organizational efforts to appropriate the knowledge inherent in careers.