Worker Agency In Chinese Internet Companies

This paper examines the role that workers in Chinese internet companies play in relation to potential transformation of both online and offline China, by examining how workers in the organisations negotiate the gaze of the allegedly authoritarian state, and how they use the internet to create meaningful, expressive and resistant spaces. This paper outlines the complicated context of Chinese internet industries, in which Chinese state plays a significant role, and the difficulties that workers in internet companies face in their efforts to create alternative online spaces. The paper then discusses the various ways in which workers mobilise their agency, such as acts of negotiation and resistance, in order to respond to interference from the state. This paper also discusses how workers’ acts of negotiation and resistance in workplace, the internet companies in this research, contribute to creating a new online space which gives voice to diverse classes in contemporary Chinese society.  

    On the one hand, this paper contributes a valuable perspective to explore the shaping of the new and socio-cultural space of online China, by suggesting a focus on workers in internet companies. On the other hand, this paper also contributes to debates about workplace agency. I argue that the tradition of understanding worker agency as workplace resistance is limited. As an alternative, some forms of worker agency can be characterised as negotiation, which might open up possibilities for online China in different ways. Meanwhile, I also argue that the tradition of understanding worker agency in the context of workplace is limited; rather, it is necessary to discuss such worker agency in the socio-cultural context, such as the resistant space of offline China.