title: An ethnographic study of Chinese business expatriates in Tanzania
Creators: name: Miao, Chengcheng
Publisher: name: University of Reading
Year: 2023

description: ‘China in Africa’ has generated significant debates in the media and academia. However, there 
is limited understanding of those individuals who choose to work and live in Africa. This 
ethnographic study was designed to explore the lived experience of Chinese expatriates in 
Tanzania from an emic perspective. By living and working in the Chinese community for 
seven-month, the researcher investigated the background of Chinese expatriates, their 
motivation for taking the international assignments, and most importantly the key issues that 
are relevant to their experience. 
The study shows that Chinese expatriates in Tanzania generally see their overseas experience 
as an 'investment' - an investment that above all seeks to maximise economic efficiency. They 
usually prioritise family-oriented well-being over individual-oriented well-being. It is to some 
extent associated with their less affluent family background and less educated background. 
Petty corruption is a major problem encountered by Chinese expatriates in Tanzania. Through 
a careful examination of the conditions and processes under which petty corruption occurs, the 
researcher discovered the complex power dynamics in the day-to-day interaction between 
Chinese expatriates and locals, showing that the economic privilege of Chinese expatriates is 
accompanied by political vulnerability, which leads them to trade economic advantage for 
political convenience. Language is another important issue that has influenced the daily 
interaction between Chinese expatriates and locals. When language was used as a resource 
(linguistic capital), it was invested and exploited by expatriates. When language was treated as 
an identity, its symbolic power served both as a protection for expatriates and a criterion for 
their segmentation to local clients. Moreover, Language differences put both expatriates and 
locals in a vulnerable position by increasing the power imbalance and causing trust issues. 
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This is the first ethnographic study to investigate the individual experience of Chinese 
expatriates in the African context from the perspective of international human resource 
management. It also explores an issue rarely discussed but relevant to expatriates in that context 
- petty corruption. This study expands our understanding of expatriates from emerging markets 
who work in less developed regions, extends and develops the push and pull theories in 
motivation by enriching each element and introducing throw and drag factors to understand 
repatriation, and challenges the conventional focus on high-status expatriates and shifts the 
attention to the middle-status and low-status expatriates. It also challenges the preconceived 
and untested assumption of ‘powerful’ or ‘bullying’ China that weakens the role of African 
agency in the interaction. Last but not the least, this study contributes to the existing literature 
by integrating Bourdieu's theory of habitus, field and capital with institutional theory to analyse
the interplay between social structures and institutional contexts in shaping expatriates’
behaviour in the context of Africa. This study has some practical implications for organisations 
operating in a similar context, and its findings can be applied to certain stages of the 
expatriation cycle. It also provides some real-world values for individual expatriates who 
decide to work and set up businesses in Africa.