Statement of Purpose
Applied Program: Organizational Studies

Being a major of economics, I would like to ascend onto higher intellectual horizons by undertaking advanced studies in your Ph.D. program in Organization Studies, which will enable me to fulfill my ambition of being an outstanding expert in such a field. I hope I can contribute my knowledge and lifelong enthusiasm to the ongoing economic and management development of my homeland.

I love economics, because I do care about this changing world. The past twenty years during which I was brought up has been the most sensational and significant age of China‘s reform. This period witnessed the emergence of a prosperous new China, which I experienced personally and kept a close eye on, during which the occurrence and maturation of many new things in economy and management have stimulated my strong interest towards this area of study. I realized that the most challenging obstacle that China faces is the transformation of its various organizations.

After I entered university, I have been exposed systematically to abundant courses in many fields, which established a solid foundation for my major and helped me to become the top student in my school for four consecutive years. With strong academic knowledge gained gradually through the rigorous training from my department, I began to think profoundly about many newly engendered problems in my field of study, using a broad perspective. Never content with simply performing well in course work, I have been keen on hands-on experience. I completed four field trips, covering various social phenomena ranging from the most primitive production mode to the most advanced modern business, from agriculture to industry and from individual companies to large-scale national projects. Last summer, invited by the Hong Kong American Chamber, I took part in the Business Orientation Program 2000, enjoying the rare opportunity of communicating with college students from all over the world, from whom I gained constant inspiration and mutual stimulation. Especially, the internship in Xerox HK provided me a precious chance to have a close scrutiny on the complete human resources system of a transnational corporation. Moreover, my detailed evaluation, my suggestions for improvement on its Digital Training Program, and my potency in analyzing and solving practical problems were highly praised by the Training Manager. On the last day of our visit, at the top of the American Club Building, surveying the beautiful scenery of the Victoria Harbor under golden sunset, I felt the pulse of my beloved motherland not far away. However, in the bottom of my heart I understood clearly that the economic distance between Mainland China and the developed countries is not that short. Being a young man caring about the rise and fall of my home country, I know how heavy the responsibility is and how much we have to undertake.

With the knowledge I have acquired in my college studies and the practical experience I have derived from all my social investigations, my critical eye towards Chinese Economy has sharpened. Apparently, the reform campaign in China will be carried out with gathering momentum for an extended period and on a more expansive dimension in the future. When greater degree of liberty and reform as the macro orientation of the country‘s development become incontrovertible, the integration on the micro level that corresponds to the macro orientation should become our primary concern. Inspired by the research and investigations that I have undertaken so far, I have grown increasingly convinced that the success or the failure of the transformation of various organizations, whether the enterprise or the government, the private sector or the public sector, would become the primary challenge for China‘s economy in the decades to come. Take the reform of Chinese enterprises for example. Undoubtedly, this process of reform virtually has no frame of reference in international economic history. It can be inferred from this perspective that mere imitation of the organizational mode of Euro-American enterprises would render difficult and ineffective the organizational transformation of Chinese enterprises during the operational and the control stages. As a matter of fact, Chinese enterprises as a whole are going in the direction of recession as compared with the relatively vigorous economic growth. The management system in Chinese enterprises has remained ineffectual since the implementation of all existing approaches ranging from the contracting operation to modernized enterprise administration. Such mechanisms as merging and recombination that can otherwise revitalize foreign enterprises have proved to be more of a curse than a blessing for Chinese enterprises in the actual process of enterprise reform practice. I firmly believe that, on a broader and more objective academic level, China‘s enterprise reform is a subject of tremendous research value throughout the economic history of mankind. Organization Studies, particularly Organization Transformation, become the optimum tool for putting this issue into proper perspective.

My sense of mission to contribute to the future of my motherland and the tremendous potential academic value of Organization Transformation Study in China make Organization Study the inevitable choice for my prospective research. To be finally engaged in the study of this subject, I have already undertaken some tentative investigations in this field. My first academic paper entitled Study of the Entrepreneurial Human Resource Capital in China‘s State-Owned Enterprises was published in Socialism Study, a very authoritative and avant-garde academic journal especially devoted to the crucial issues of China‘s reform. In this paper, I conducted an in-depth compassion regarding the enterprise‘s human resource capital between the past and the most recent macro economic context. I proposed my criticisms with respect to the government‘s prevailing policy of "distribution according to labor" and presented relevant models for implementation. The publication of this paper produced its important academic effect. It was reprinted and much quoted by many other academic journals and received a very important academic award of first-class prize as Outstanding Academic Paper at the Symposium on the Economic and Cultural Development Strategy in China‘s Western Region. More valuably, the models of implementation that I proposed became opportune frame of reference for many enterprises when they conducted their reform in the field. The success of this academic paper gave me substantial encouragement and reinforced my determination to pursue further in the study of Organization Transformation. In the wake of the first academic paper, I published another two research findings in Business Study. In one of those two academic papers, I probed into the determining factors affecting the success and failure of an enterprise‘s fundamental transformation. I embarked on a case study concerning the transformation of Xerox Hong Kong. In this study, I proposed that the transformation of the mentality and the knowledge structure of both the enterprise‘s management and the employees is the most powerful force facilitating the enterprise‘s transformation as well as the most important guarantee for the stable process of transformation. I further elaborated that an enterprise bent on constant and conscientious acquisition of new knowledge is the most flexible and cost-effective enterprise to face a rapidly-changing external environment and to launch transformation in order to answer its internal need for development. Those serial achievements on my part helped me secure high evaluations from my teachers and advisor and aroused the attention of the China Academy of Social Sciences. At its invitation, I attended an academic conference in Hanoi, the capital of Viet Nam. As far as I am concerned, all those academic honors and awards are only of secondary importance. Some of my research findings might be proved by future researches to be flawed or even incorrect due to the insufficiency of currently available information and the limitations of research methodologies. For me, the most valuable thing is that those research activities have provided me with precious opportunities to come into contact with and develop an increasingly profound understanding of the discipline that has so deeply fascinated me. I feel as excited as Alibaba who has just finished speaking the magic words to the door of the treasure cave.

Finally, I would like to say that my four-year college study and practice have molded a strongly ambitious young man. Looking back on these hard-working days, I am so confident of myself. With anticipation and excitement, I am now applying for admission into your Ph.D. program in Organization Studies. I firmly believe that this specially designed program in your strict and inspirational graduate school will fulfill my academic ambitions. As Galileo once said " Give me a pivot, then I will pry up the Earth," I sincerely request you to endow me with that "pivot".