Investigating the job mobility of migrant workers in China

Tian, Ming; Xu, Lianhua

doi:10.1177/0961463x15595328

Cited by 11 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…Consequently, although social ties remain important for riders (e.g., in Cai's experience), riders demonstrate and exert a certain level of agency to mitigate against their precarious socio-economic status by taking advantage of the information and their knowledge about the workings of the algorithms. This points to the increasing significance of market information, as opposed to the "trial and error" method (Tian and Xu 2015), in platform workers' decisions to change jobs. Secondly, studies show that migrant workers change their jobs to accumulate human and social capital (e.g., knowledge and skills) so that after several job changes, some workers are able to climb the occupational ladder or land a better paid job (Wang and Wu 2010;Tian and Xu 2015).…”

Section: Workaround Strategies To Wrestle With Capitalistic Logicmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This points to the increasing significance of market information, as opposed to the "trial and error" method (Tian and Xu 2015), in platform workers' decisions to change jobs. Secondly, studies show that migrant workers change their jobs to accumulate human and social capital (e.g., knowledge and skills) so that after several job changes, some workers are able to climb the occupational ladder or land a better paid job (Wang and Wu 2010;Tian and Xu 2015). It would be premature to determine the accumulation of human and social capital in riders' job change patterns, but economic benefit seems to become the sole motivation for their job mobility, while the foundation for knowledge and skills accumulation is undermined in platform capitalism.…”

Section: Workaround Strategies To Wrestle With Capitalistic Logicmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Platform Labour and Contingent Agency in China

Sun¹,

Chen²

2021

chinaperspectives

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The impact of digital platforms upon the employment structure and work conditions has attracted widespread scholarly attention. However, research on workers' agency and subjectivity in the platform economy is relatively under-explored. Using fooddelivery workers in China as a point of departure, this article provides an empirically grounded and theoretically informed account of delivery workers' agentic performances. We utilise the notion of contingent agency to capture the expedient, ongoing, and variegated measures developed and manoeuvred by workers to exercise agency from their structurally vulnerable position in the labour process and employment relations. While agency in practice is always contingent and never static, we conceptualise the notion by unpacking the multiple factors that have shifted the ground for workers and hence contributed to the contingency, to shed light on the interplay between workers' agency and the unstable and elusive character of platform capitalism. The article concludes with a discussion on the implications of workers' contingent agency for labour politics.

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Section: Workaround Strategies To Wrestle With Capitalistic Logicmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Workaround Strategies To Wrestle With Capitalistic Logicmentioning

confidence: 99%

Platform Labour and Contingent Agency in China

Sun¹,

Chen²

2021

chinaperspectives

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“…Nevertheless, we expect manual manufacturing work undertaken by migrant workers to have specific effects. In addition, SSG is likely to exert a stronger influence on the job resources and performance among these employees who are less socially integrated into the workplace and local community (Frenkel and Yu, 2015;Tian and Xu, 2015).…”

Section: Theoretical Background and Hypothesesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Explaining supervisor–subordinate guanxi and subordinate performance through a conservation of resources lens

Guan

Frenkel

2018

Human Relations

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Relationships outside of work impact employee effectiveness at work. But how do we explain this? Our study focuses on the guanxi relationship in China. This is based on close personal ties between supervisors and subordinates initiated outside the workplace. Drawing on conservation of resources theory, we develop a model that explains how supervisor–subordinate guanxi constitutes a social resource that spills over into the workplace and impacts subordinates’ job resources (including autonomy, support and development at work), job crafting (proactive behaviors aimed at increasing resources and reducing demands) and job performance (task performance and organizational citizenship behavior). Our model was tested on a sample of 406 subordinates and their supervisors from seven manufacturing organizations in China. The results of a multilevel path analysis indicate that high-quality guanxi relations with supervisors facilitate subordinates’ job resources, job crafting behaviors and organizational citizenship behavior at work. In addition, job resources mediate the relationship between supervisor–subordinate guanxi and job crafting, and job crafting mediates the relationship between supervisor–subordinate guanxi and subordinate task performance and organizational citizenship behavior. Overall, our research highlights the importance of externally-generated guanxi between subordinates and supervisors and the mechanisms that contribute to improving employee performance in the workplace.

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“…Moving from a rural to an urban area can be life-changing and problematic for migrants. Most previous studies on Chinese rural migrant workers have been focused mainly on living conditions, working conditions, income and class mobility (Tian and Xu, 2015; Wang et al., 2015; Zhang and Xie, 2016). However, there has been growing concern about migrant workers’ mental condition and psychological well-being (He and Wong, 2013; Lau et al., 2012; Li et al., 2007; Wong et al., 2010).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Psychological strains and psychological distress among Chinese rural migrant workers

Ren

Zhang

Hennessy

2018

Asian and Pacific Migration Journal

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This research note reports on a study that examined the psychological strains among migrant workers in China, and the potential negative life impact of these strains. It was hypothesized that psychological strains, resulting from social and psychological conflicts (value strain, aspiration strain, deprivation strain and coping strain), would be associated with greater psychological distress. Most of the sampled migrant workers experienced at least one of four types of strain. Independently, greater levels of all four types of strain were related to elevated self-reported psychological distress. Regression analyses showed that coping strain was the strongest predictor of psychological distress, whereas deprivation strain was not predictive when other types of strain were simultaneously considered. It is concluded that further research regarding the combined impact of social and personal factors in impacting both healthy and unhealthy psychological outcomes within the population of migrant workers in China is needed.

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Investigating the job mobility of migrant workers in China

Cited by 11 publications

References 18 publications

Platform Labour and Contingent Agency in China

Platform Labour and Contingent Agency in China

Explaining supervisor–subordinate guanxi and subordinate performance through a conservation of resources lens

Psychological strains and psychological distress among Chinese rural migrant workers

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