Western Conceptualizations 29
culture. However, this conception of Chinese culture was based on Western ideology. It
helped to perpetuate the Western-Eastern bifurcation and the myth of Western cultural
superiority. It also served the Western hegemonic discourse. Furthermore, the Western
conceptualization of Confucianism changed over time. The changes reflected the Western
mindset and mentality in dealing with the East. However, the objective was consistent in
that Confucianism was conceptualized such that it should help to best differentiate the
East from the West. This cultural sense of superiority by the Western researchers was
apparent in their research on Chinese culture and Chinese organizations. This ideological
supremacy identified in the research studies on Chinese organizations undermines the
validity and reliability of the findings of those studies.
Another major Western conception of Chinese culture was Chinese collectivism.
Although Chinese collectivism was very much related to Confucianism in affinity, the
Western conceptualization of China as a collectivistic culture was just embedded in a
broader attempt of Western scholars to differentiate the West from the rest of the world.
Western scholars, from a cultural perspective, have consistently constructed the West-
East bifurcation to divide the world along a cultural continuum. Part of the attempt was to
enhance the sense of Western cultural superiority. Under this rubric, China was
conceptualized as a collectivistic culture as opposed to the Western individualistic
culture. Moreover, China was chosen to be the representative of the Eastern culture.
Investigating these political or ideological orientations among Western scholars has
important implications for understanding scholarly research in the West on Chinese
culture and Chinese organizational communication practices. Based on the premise of the
West-developed-modern-individualistic culture and the East-developing-backward-
Convention