Chinese Journal of Sociology ›› 2010, Vol. 30 ›› Issue (2): 74-100.

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Organization, Work, and Emotional Alienation:A Study of Life Insurance Agents in Xiamen

Sheng Sixin,School of Organization and Management, The University of New South Wales,Australia   

  1. Sheng Sixin,School of Organization and Management, The University of New South Wales,Australia
  • Online:2010-03-20 Published:2010-03-20

Abstract:

 When following the marketing model of the Western life insurance industry, China’s life insurers have executed a more aggressive emotional management of their sales agents. Due to widespread social resistance, life insurance agents in China experience negative emotions quite often. The overly commercialized use of guanxi at work has not only violated the agents’ preexisting social networks but also is hindering their development of new nonbusiness relationships with others. The working ideology of “embedding insurance into life; embedding life into insurance” blurs the boundary between work and life, which has inevitably made the agents’ work full of emotional conflicts. Although the life insurance agents have been trying to manage these conflicts through various coping strategies, their efforts will probably aggravate individuals’ impersonal problems, and will finally result in emotional alienation as a consequence.

Key words: dominant elite, capital transformation., father-in-law, elite status attainment, capital inheritance, life insurance agents , coping strategies ,  emotional alienation ,  emotional conflicts