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The purpose of this paper is to critically evaluate the extant literature on ethics of employment relations in China. Toward that goal, a meta‐analytic approach is employed to conclude the business ethical issues from different results and lay foundation for further research by deeply understanding ethics of employment relation in China.

A systematic literature review procedure is developed to identify all relevant articles and meta‐analytic procedures are used to identify issues related to ethics of employment relations in China.

The results suggest there are not many researches on business ethics, especially ethics of employment relations in China. The authors examine the researches about business ethics in research methodology, research perspective, ethical dimensions of employment relations and relationship between variables and find some disadvantages. The authors feel ethics of employment relations in China should cause more concern, in both the theoretical and practical areas.

The paper explores academics’ perceptions towards ethical issues related to employment relations and shows the importance of ethics during the development of Chinese companies.

This paper examines the challenges facing China's employment relations after its WTO accession and consequently, the implications for further reform.

Theoretical questions are considered in relation to the debate on globalization vs the nation‐state over political, economic and social issues. By examining the challenges from both internal and external sources, the paper investigates the impact on the employment relations system at both macro‐ and micro‐levels.

The major finding of this paper is that the current system of employment relations system in China is in the process of transformation towards a “hybrid” model combining authoritarianism and neo‐corporatism.

This paper provides the most recent analysis on the impact of WTO accession on the changing pattern of employment relations in China. It helps people who are interested in transitional economy in general and in China in particular to have a better understanding about the transformation of employment relations system under the influence of different forces.

The missing employee voice has become a salient topic in China. This paper aims to document the newest developments relating to the topic by reviewing the recent literature on employment relations and employee voice. The findings of this paper suggest that the purposes of and channels for the employee voice in China have been undergoing significant changes. Different stakeholder groups have approached the issue. ‘Democratic management’ in China, the country’s home-grown concept of employee voice, has been resurrected to encourage more effective employee representation. Apart from this top-down influence from the government and All-China Federation of Trade Unions, this paper also identifies the bottom-up approach driven by the workers, and the external influence from the global corporate social responsibility campaign and nongovernmental labour organizations. Based on the review of the newest developments in workplace democracy and the employee voice in China, this paper proposes a stakeholder framework incorporating these developments. The authors also suggest some directions for future research.

The purpose of this paper is to explore employers' perceptions of China's Labour Contract Law (LCL) and its influence on employment relations and human resource management practices in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

This paper adopts a qualitative approach based on 24 interviews with owners and human resource managers of 23 privately owned SMEs in eastern and western China.

Mixed levels of reported compliance with the provisions of the LCL legislation indicate that the regulatory adoptive behaviours of SME employers are partially explained by the coercive mechanism. Various strategies adopted by employers suggest that when under the pressure of law, SMEs are formalising their employment practices while simultaneously seeking to maintain a degree of informality in respect these practices.

The adopted qualitative approach may limit the findings to be explorative within broader national contexts.

The move towards more formalised practices helps to address issues such as high turnover and widespread labour shortage in SMEs. The paper is likely to be of interest to policymakers seeking to gain insights into employers' perceptions as a means to develop more effective labour regulations.

Unlike most of existing literature examining the general compliance to the LCL and workers' perspectives, this paper reports the views of SME employers; as such, it offers an original contribution to understanding of the role and behaviours of SME employers in regulatory responses in the studied context.

The purpose of this paper is to chart the sharp rise of informal employment in urban China in the last decade. It investigates the role of labour market regulations in shaping employment relations for those engaged in this form of employment and their employment outcome. It also examines various forms of organization and representation of these workers and the extent to which these mechanisms meet their needs.

This paper draws on secondary and first‐hand empirical data. The secondary data come mainly from media sources and academic publications in China. The empirical data from interviews that the author has conducted with the labour authorities, trade union officials, workers, senior managers and owner CEOs of private firms in several cities.

The paper concludes that the inadequacy of the function of employment agencies, the absence of a functioning social security system for workers in informal employment, and the lack of effective enforcement of employment‐related regulations mean that the majority of the growing force of workers in this category will continue to be under‐protected and disadvantaged.

This paper draws information from secondary data and a small number of interviews with key stakeholders in employment relations. Future research should conduct a larger study focusing on the views and experience of workers in the informal sector.

This study reveals some skills gaps and training needs for trade union officials. It also brings to the policy makers' attention some loopholes in the labour regulations and their implementation.

The paper argues that providing decent employment conditions and work environment remains a key challenge to all concerned but is crucial to the well‐being of workers and their families.

The paper examines the efficacy of labour regulations in protecting workers in the informal sector in China by investigating the roles of different institutional actors. It adopts a relational and institutional approach to study the issue.

This paper aims to bring to the fore some neglected implications of the dual employment systems in China, especially for the public sector.

This paper reinterprets some recent developments in understanding Chinese employments and incorporates the relevant research in arguing for a dualistic view of employment in China[1].

In highlighting the unique dualistic employment contexts in China and an indigenous phenomenon of “unequal pay for equal work”, this paper finds public management studies in China to deserve a separate platform for future research.

Future Chinese management studies on public sector should contextualise their findings and conclusions, taking into account the employment structure at their research settings. More studies on the public sector are needed to better understand the dualistic Chinese employment relationships, especially for better public management policies and practices in China.

It calls for more scholarly attention on the social injustice embedded in the dualistic employment in China.

It extends the ongoing discussions of Chinese employment reform and its implications on organising work and employment in China, while unveils important implications of the dualistic employment for future Chinese management research, especially in the public sector.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the historical development and characteristics of labour disputes in China, including their growth, collective disputes, regional differences, direct causes and the impact of economic ownership on labour disputes.

This paper critically reviews the existing literature and analyses official government statistics.

Individual and collective labour disputes have been on the rise since 1978 when China embarked on market‐oriented economic reforms. The considerable regional variations in labour disputes are closely associated with regional economic growth, the restructuring of state‐owned enterprises (SOEs) and development of non‐SOEs. While non‐payment or delayed payment, job losses and industrial accidents resulting from poor labour protection are the three major causes of labour disputes, management corruption and mismanagement sometimes fuel the anger of already disgruntled workers. The nature of economic ownership also impacts on how labour conflicts occur.

This paper investigates labour disputes in China, an important phenomenon which is currently increasing but has not been much studied. It therefore develops a better understanding of their historical development and characteristics. Such an understanding is critical to resolving labour disputes and preventing them from occurring in the future.

China has, apparently, more trade union members than the rest of the world put together, but the unions are subservient to the Party-state. The theme of the paper is the gap between rhetoric and reality. Issues analysed include union structure, membership, representation, and the interaction between unions and the Party-state. We suggest that Chinese unions inhabit an Alice in Wonderland dream world and that they are virtually impotent when it comes to representing workers. Because the Party-state recognises that such frailty may lead to instability it has passed new laws promoting collective contracts and established new tripartite institutions to mediate and arbitrate disputes. While such laws are welcome they are largely hollow: collective contracts are very different from collective bargaining and the incidence of cases dealt with by the tripartite institutions is tiny. Much supporting evidence is presented drawing on detailed case studies undertaken in Hainan Province (the largest and one of the oldest special economic zones) in 2004 and 2005. The need for more effective representation is appreciated by some All China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) officials, but it seems a long way off, so unions in China will continue to echo the White Queen: “The rule is, jam tomorrow and jam yesterday – but never jam today” and, alas, tomorrow never comes.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate recent labor unrest in China's automobile industry and the implications for the debate on the future of the country's labor relations and cost competitiveness.

Using data between 1999 and 2007, the authors examine how differences in work organizations in China, Germany, Japan and the USA affect wages in the automobile industry.

It is found that market forces play a more prominent role in Germany and the USA than in China and Japan and the difference is attributed to cultural, economic, political, and regulatory factors in each country.

This paper is one of the first that uses systematic data to conduct comparative analysis of labor relations in the automobile industry.

The purpose of this paper is to shed light on the unexplored characteristics of labor relations in Nepal against the backdrop of social exchange theory as it relates to labor relations.

The paper considers the psychological contract of promises and expectations from the social exchange theory on the ground in Nepal. To do so, the paper adopts an inductive method of investigation and reviews dispersed and unstructured archival data.

In terms of the psychological contract of promises and expectations, Nepalese workers and trade unions appear to have constituted a pressure group since they aligned themselves with Nepal's political parties. Consequently, the legal labor framework and behaviors of trade unions have produced highly politicized labor relations; very high and dense union memberships; vocal unions; a labor-supportive legal framework; union-influenced government and union-driven enterprise-level collective bargaining and collective dispute settlement.

The paper claims that although the system framework has flimsy prospects elsewhere in the world, it is strong in Nepal as a result of the recent Labor Act of 2017. For this very reason, the paper argues that Nepal's trade unions are in their sturdiest position ever and, therefore, that the country has evaded the crisis experienced in advanced and emerging economies in other parts of world. In theoretical terms, the article contributes from the social exchange theoretical perspective to the literature on the psychological contract of promises and expectations. It also has a bearing on emerging discourses and debates about the revitalization or reshaping of traditional industrial relations.