TY  - JOUR
AB  - Purpose The purpose of this paper is to apply a postcolonial perspective on the findings from ethnographic research in a multi-national corporation in Shanghai and shed light on the ways that western creativity narratives are deployed as a means to mobilise and transform workers into self-governing, obedient corporate subjects.Design/methodology/approach The research applied ethnographic approaches to understand how creativity narratives are enacted in cross-cultural settings.Findings Creativity discourses in China often provoke anxieties around national capacity, economic growth and indigenous innovation. Locally trained knowledge workers in China are often assessed as less creative than their western counterparts and the reason attributed to cultural, pedagogical and political differences. However, these factors are not static in China’s fluid economic landscape and neither do Chinese workers uniformly accept that they are less creative.Originality/value This paper sheds light on a previously unexamined aspect of dominant western creativity discourses, which may be useful in future work amongst practitioners in international business settings.
VL  - 13
IS  - 3
SN  - 1742-2043
DO  - 10.1108/cpoib-10-2015-0047
UR  - https://doi.org/10.1108/cpoib-10-2015-0047
AU  - Burris Andi
PY  - 2017
Y1  - 2017/01/01
TI  - Creativity discourses as a normative device in corporate offshoring
T2  - critical perspectives on international business
PB  - Emerald Publishing Limited
SP  - 263
EP  - 276
Y2  - 2024/04/25
ER  -