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Ethnicity and Work Culture in Thailand: A Comparison of Thai and Thai-Chinese White-Collar Workers

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2011

Frederic C. Deyo
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Scholarly writings on the Chinese minority in Thailand have stressed the unique cultural values that traditionally have distinguished Thai from Thai-Chinese communities. Skinner and Coughlin, among others, have argued that the Chinese have traditionally been more diligent, ambitious, and materialistic than Thais, and that—while loyal and disciplined within the bounds of kinship and other narrow primordial affiliations—they act amorally in economic and other dealings with persons outside these affiliative structures. Thais, by contrast, are reputed to be more passive and fatalistic, less materialistic, and less likely to manifest social discipline or sustained commitment to others, even within the family. These value differences are held to be responsible, along with other factors pertaining to patterns of ethnic social organization and differential historical economic and political opportunities, for the relative success of ethnic Chinese in the non-agricultural sectors of the Thai economy.

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Articles
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The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 34 , Issue 4 , August 1975 , pp. 995 - 1015
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Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 1975

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References

The author is indebted to Bucknell University for providing 1972 Summer grant under which the data for this paper were collected, as well as to Professor Aline Wong for critical comments on an earlier draft of this paper. The author, of course, is solely responsible for its contents.

1 “Chinese” in this paper refers to ethnic background rather than to citizenship status. More specifically, all persons whose paternal grandfathers were born in China are referred to as Chinese.

2 Skinner, G. William, Chinese Society in Thailand (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1957), pp. 91–98Google Scholar.

3 Coughlin, Richard J., Double Identity (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1960), pp. 137, 197–8Google Scholar.

4 Mitchison, Lois, The Overseas Chinese (Chester Springs, Pa.: Dufour Editions, 1961)Google Scholar.

5 Purcell, Victor, The Chinese in Southeast Asia, 2nd ed. (London: Oxford University Press, 1965)Google Scholar.

6 See Skinner, op. cit., pp. 138–143, for discussion of the divisive influence of speech-groups.

7 For discussion of the tendency for overarching religious or ethnic identities to supplant narrower primordial identities among groups entering into new political and economic interaction with outsiders, see Herberg, Will, Protestant, Catholic, Jew (Garden City: Doubleday, 1960)Google Scholar; Geertz, Clifford, “The Integrative Revolution,” in Finkle, J. and Gable, R. (eds.), Political Development and Social Change, 2nd ed. (New York: Wiley, 1971)Google Scholar; and Nathan Glazer and Daniel Moynihan, Beyond the Melting Pot (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1963).

8 Skinner, op. cit., pp. 126–134, 254. 381–2.

9 Ayal, E., “Private Enterprise and Economic Progress in Thailand,” in journal of Asian Studies, vol. 26, No. 1, Nov. 1966CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 Coughlin, op. cit., pp. 199–202.

11 For a full presentation of the data collected on ethnic differences in both work values and personnel systems, see Frederic C. Deyo, “Ethnicity, Organization, and Work Values: A Comparison of Thais and Thai-Chinese in Thai Industrial Firms,” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Chicago, 1974.

12 Skinner, op. cit., p. 302.

13 Argyris, Chris, in Understanding Organizational Behavior (London: Tavistock Publications, 1960)Google Scholar, asserts that even within similar (‘modern,’ largescale, industrial) firms, differences in managerial practices may have profound consequences for the work-related “predispositions” of employees. This suggests the possibility that any ethnic work-value differences found here may simply reflect organizational differences between Thai and Chinese firms. While this possibility cannot entirely be eliminated, its probable impact is reduced by the fact that Chinese and Thai employees in the sample were each widely distributed among both Chinese and Thai firms.

14 Anderson, Dole, Marketing and Development: The Thailand Experience (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1970), p. 34Google Scholar, presents data showing only 16 industrial establishments with gross revenues in 1967 of U. S. $10 million or more. These include: petroleum refineries, beverage firms, soaps and detergents, auto assembly, cement, tobacco, tin refining, tires, glass, and steel. This study includes firms in 5 of these categories.

15 The conclusion that Chinese males placed less emphasis on job responsibility than did Thai males was weakened when a control for income was introduced. In no other case did controls for age, seniority, income, or education affect the condusions reached.

16 Again, the introduction of controls for age, seniority, and salary (education did not yield an interval scale and thus could not readily be included in the controls) did not substantially affect the conclusions reached, except in one case where a control for income weakened, though it did not eliminate, the high position of Chinese males on concern for respect from co-workers. Another possibly important factor, for which no control was possible, is marital status. Although data on this item were not obtained, it is possible to argue on a priori grounds that marital status differences do not explain the value differences found. For Chinese females, plans to marry and stop working would clearly be inconsistent with their strong desire for job advancement and greater responsibility. Similarly, such plans would be inconsistent with the conclusion reached by several researchers that, for Thai females, marital status has little effect on occupational involvement. Anderson (op. cit., p. 59) and Coughlin (op. cit., p. 79) discuss the important commercial role of women of all ages and regardless of marital status, while Herbert Phillips, in Thai Peasant Personality (Berkeley: University of Calif. Press, 1965), pp. 21–32 says that a Bang Chan marriage is often viewed by the husband and wife as a dissoluable business partnership, in which each person will share in both outside work and internal consumption decisions.

17 Adams, J. S., “Injustice in Social Exchange,” Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, Vol. II, ed. by Berkowitz, L. (New York: Academic Press, 1965)Google Scholar.

18 Vroom, Victor, Work and Motivation (New York: Wiley, 1964)Google Scholar.

19 Gross, Neal, McEachern, Alexander, and Mason, Ward, “Role Conflict and Its Resolution,” Basic Studies in Social Psychology, ed. Proshansky, H. and Seidenberg, B. (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1965)Google Scholar.

20 The question concerning the fairness of salary determination had to be discarded because it was misunderstood by many respondents as referring to the manner in which actual wage payments were handled.

21 It is dear, of course, that work behavior does not flow directly from work values. Rather, behavior is the result of the interaction between values and personality on the one hand, and work and social environment on the other. Insufficient space precludes our elaborating on this point here.

22 Solomon, Richard, Mao's Revolution and the Chinese Political Culture (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971)Google Scholar, Ch. VIII, “Friends and Peers.”

23 Blau, Peter, The Dynamics of Bureaucracy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963)Google Scholar.

24 The general conclusion that Chinese males most highly stress intimate peer association is consistent with Hu's discussion of the traditional Chinese idealization of brotherly affection and deep personal attachment among friends. Hu, Chang-tu Hu, China: Its People, Its Society, Its Culture (New Haven: HRAF Press, 1960) writes in this regard: The only social relationship that an individual could enjoy with little family interference was friendship, which was often cherished throughout life. Many Chinese poets have dealt with this theme, and popular fiction and drama have treated it with vividness and force.

25 Riggs, Fred, “Interest and Clientele Groups,” in Sutton, Joseph, ed., Problems of Politics and Administration in Thailand (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1962)Google Scholar; also see his Thailand: The Modernization of a Bureaucratic Policy (Honolulu : East-West Center Press, 1966); Siffin, William J., The Thai Bureaucracy (Honolulu: East-West Center Press, 1966)Google Scholar, and Wilson, David, Politics in Thailand (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1962)Google Scholar.

20 Phillips, op. cit., p. 76.

27 Phillips, ibid., pp. 88–89.

28 H. Joseph Reitz, Gene Graff, Sriprinya Ramakomud, and Lawrence McKibbin, “Needs, Attitudes, and Motives Among Workers in a Thai Factory,” Thai Journal of Development Administration, Vol. XI (October, 1971).

29 Steven Piker, “The Image of ‘Limited Good’: Comments on an Exercise in Description and Interpretation,” American Anthropologist, Vol. LXII (1966).

30 I use the term “supportive” advisedly. It is clear that culture, especially in its systematized Great Tradition aspect, is only loosely related, and in a dynamic interactive tension, with personality, behavior, and social organization. Thus, I am not suggesting in this section that religious belief determines behavior and personality, only that in the Thai case there appears to be a good fit between these elements, and that my findings on work orientation may therefore usefully, if only partially, be interpreted and understood in terms of a “supportive” Thai Buddhist tradition. I am indebted to Professor Steven Piker for bringing this general problem to my attention, although I realize my handling of the problem is less than fully adequate.

31 A similar argument, whose merits cannot be explored here, would be that employment in a large formal organization might, under some circumstances, affect personality change in the direction of greater stress on peer relations and lesser personal ambition. Conversely, self-employment may induce individualistic ambition.

32 Skinner, op. cit., pp. 181–212.

33 FitzGerald, C. P., The Southern Expansion of the Chinese People (London: Barrie and Jenkins, 1972), pp. 119 and 138Google Scholar.

34 Coughlin has documented the particularly important role of Chinese-language schools in this connection. Such schools grew quite rapidly between 1911 and 1938, at which point severe government controls under wartime conditions caused some decline. Subsequent to the war, school policy was liberalized until 1948 and Chinese school attendance again increased. But even during the periods of tightened controls between 1938 and 1944, and after 1948, Chinese education continued through tutoring and night schools, through the device of keeping classes very small and informal (so that legal registration as a “school” was not required), and by sending children out of the country for Chinese education in Malaya. It is the sons of middle-class and well-to-do businessmen, of course, who have most consistendy had access to such formal and informal Chinese instruction, and from whose ranks the clerks in my sample most likely come. See Coughlin, op. cit., Ch. VII.

35 Coughlin, op. dt., p. 73.

36 In fact, the family's influence over Chines e females may even extend into outside employment. 25% of the Chinese females had relatives in the firms they worked for, as compared with only 12–15% for the other groups. While male-domination in dialect, charitable, occupational and business associations is clear, I do not have relevant data on the extent of Chinese-school education. Inasmuch as Coughlin, Skinner, and Purcell all stress the importance of Chinese education for the transmission of traditional Chinese culture, it would be useful to know whether mere exist sex-differences in this area tha t might also be operative.

37 It should be noted that the educational attainment of these females was mainly in the Thai systern. Chinese females outstripped even the Thais in percent receiving a degree from one of the Thai universities.

38 There is the possibility that salary differentials may lead to differing levels of concern about advancement. The mean salaries obtained were:

1606 for Thai males

1582 for Thai females

1792 for Chinese males

1423 for Chinese females

Do low salaries among Chinese females lead to a strong desire for advancement? This is possible, although a correction for seniority (an important criterion in Chinese firms) narrows the salary difference between male and female Chinese. Chinese females reported they had worked in the firms studied for an average of approximately 2 years less than had Chinese males. Based on a median annual percentage salary increment of 9.26% (calculated from statistics on accounting clerks in Thailand in Compensation Survey for Resident Employees; American Chamber of Commerce, Bangkok, 1971), at a comparable level of seniority, Chinese females would earn 1698 baht. This is not substantially below the male level.