Managing Chineseness

Book excerpt: This book explores the personal experiences of professionals who are a part of the post-colonial and late-industrializing reality in the global value chain in Singapore. Looking at Chinese Singaporean employees at a French multi-national firm, the author explores the evolving social constructions of ‘Chineseness’. Sociologist Manuel Castells once hailed Singapore as ‘the only true Leninist project that has survived’, and Lee revisits the Singapore ‘social laboratory’, addressing recent dialectics that transpire within the global political economy. Currently, professional actors need to address the demands of dual hegemony in response to China’s rise in the Western-dominated capitalist political economy. Underlying these constructions are enduring dispositions that mediate interpretations of professionalism. The author puts to test the potential for change, surveying a large cohort of teachers as makers of future professionals. The question is, does change occur in the domain of practice or the habitus, if it is possible in the first place? The book will be of interest to scholars and students with an interest in Sociology, Identity and Ethnicity, Business Management, Globalisation, Organizational Sociology and Sociology of Education.