2
To test this idea, I examine labor disputes in multinational companies (MNCs hereafter) in
mainland China during the mid-1990s. As will be shown later on, a key advantage of studying MNCs
in China relates to the nominal role of the labor union, which greatly reduces the complexity of
workplace dynamics while increasing its spontaneity (Kim 1993; Hodson 1997; Dixon et. al. 2004).
Two sets of worker perceptions are considered relevant: the expectations of fair treatments from
specific employers and the perception of how likely direct confrontations would lead to desirable
outcomes. I hypothesize that both sets of perceptions should be higher in large and capital-intensive
firms and firms located in more developed and industrialized cities. Consequently, other things being
equal, these firms should be more likely to experience labor disputes than others. Empirical analysis
of panel data from a national sample of ~900 Chinese MNCs in manufacturing industries provides
provisional support to these hypotheses.
WORKPLACE CONFLICTS: AN INSTITUTIONAL APPROACH
As one of the most influential perspectives in organizational analysis, the new institutional theory of
organizations emphasizes the role of normative understandings of organizational conducts.
Canonical formulations of this perspective focused on the effects of institutional processes on
formal structures and practices (Meyer & Rowan 1977; DiMaggio & Powell 1983), which later
became the topics of numerous empirical studies.
It is contended here that, while understandable, the existing literature’s focus on formal
organizational responses to institutional forces represents a rather limited scope of inquiry, and that
the core theoretical logic of the institutional perspective can be extended to help to understand a
variety of other organizational phenomena. In particular, institutional processes not only shape the
management’s conceptions of legitimate and effective governance (Fligstein 1990), but also influence
how the workers and unions perceive their employers and the employment relationship. While
Convention