ABSTRACT

Enterprise-level employment practices were developed in postwar Hong Kong in the context of an open competitive market economy, a colonial regime disinclined to interfere in business decisions or the labour market, and a trade union movement with minimal economic and political clout. We review briefly the principal types of employment systems that emerged within this environment and how changes in the economy, the polity and the labour market impacted on these systems from the late 1970s to the mid-1990s. We then examine how HRM practices in both the private and public sectors1 have changed since 1997 in response to two critical events occurring that year: the onset of the Asian Financial Crisis and the change of sovereignty over Hong Kong when, after 150 years of British colonial rule, Hong Kong became a Special Administrative Region (SAR) of the Peoples’ Republic of China (PRC) in July, 1997. Our discussion section summarizes changes in HRM practices and takes up the issue of convergence in these practices. We consider in the concluding section whether the claim that Hong Kong represents a hybrid case of HRM practices is as applicable today as it was five years ago (Ng and Poon, 1997:55).