Xuebing (Jack) Cao

Biography

I studied BA Sociology at Renmin University of China before working in China's post and telecom industry for a number of years. I then studied at Keele University for both MA and PhD in HRM and Industrial Relations before being employed by Middlesex University, London as Lecturer in HRM. In 2010 I returned to Keele University as a Lecturer in Human Resource Management. In 2019 I was promoted to Senior Lecturer in Human Resource Management. Currently I am the Deputy Director of Keele University’s Institute for Global Health and Wellbeing, and the programme director for the Senior People Professional (SPP) apprenticeship programme MSc HRM at Keele Business School.

I am an Academic Associate Member of CIPD (Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development), Fellow of Higher Education Academy, and Visiting Professor at Capital University of Economics and Business, China.

Research and scholarship

My main research interests include performance management in health services, decent work, work-life balance, migrant workers, employee misbehaviour, entrepreneurship, leadership, international strategic HRM, the emerging trade unionism and labour movement in China. My research also investigates the role of Chinese trade union organisations on collective wage consultation and strikes, alternative labour dispute resolution mechanisms, and the impact of China’s Belt and Road Initiative on the challenges of developing countries’ labour market, income and employment.

Currently I am the PI of the project “Midlands Good Work Charter: advancing employment policy and regional innovation in post-Covid Midlands”. The research is funded by Research England Policy Support Fund with a budget of £11,480, with the collaborators including Professor Tony Dobbins (University of Birmingham) and Professor Will Foster (Keele Business School).

In this research, we team up with key government partner ACAS (The Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service) on supporting the implementation and promotion of the first-ever Good Work Charter across the Midlands region. Its central aim is to facilitate the launch of the Charter and contribute towards a better understanding of good work initiative through knowledge exchange events and activities that advocate inclusive recovery and growth that will benefit the sustainable development of the region in the context of the Government’s Levelling Up agenda.

Supporting the Midlands Innovation, Keele Deal Recovery and Keele Deal Inclusion initiatives, the project will bring together government organisations, employers, trade unions, and universities within the region and beyond to facilitate the debates, dialogues and knowledge exchange on good work and employment. It will support a Charter launch event in May, the creation of a dedicated Charter website, and other related events and activities that will facilitate knowledge exchange on good work between policy making and implementation communities, businesses, civil society organisations and higher education institutions, improving the impact of Keele University’s public policy engagement. The outcome will include a report to government on good work policy measurement and recommendations, and academic output and disseminations.

In 2020-2021 I was the PI of a Research England project ‘Decent work in time of Covid: Policy implications and challenges for the Midlands’, exploring how the Covid-19 crisis has exposed gaps in the provision of fair working opportunities in the Midlands as the region looks to recover from the impacts of the pandemic. The research was collaborated between KBS and University of Birmingham, aimed at providing recommendations to government departments, organisations and community groups to increase the provision of ‘decent work’ - access to work that is productive, delivers a fair income, ensures security in the workplace, and provides social protection for families – for individuals across the region.

The ‘Decent work’ project brought together the perspectives of key stakeholders including the government, business societies, employee associations and other public organisations on the current decent work policies and will determine how these can be changed or refined to help with economic recovery and achieve sustained and inclusive economic growth across the region. The research supported the Keele Deal | Recovery for creating a powerful and wide-ranging programme of contributions aimed at achieving a major impact on the region’s recovery and building long-term resilience.

My previous projects include a Leverhulme project ‘Collective pay determination and the changing labour relations in globalised China’ (PI, 2015-17, £105,800), which looked at the recent development of wage consultation, trade unions and labour relations in foreign invested firms in a number of regions in China. This large scale, international, interdisciplinary research was collaborated by a team of academics based in four universities: Keele University (UK), SOAS University of London (UK), Capital University of Economics and Business (China), and Shandong University of Finance and Economics (China).

In 2018-2019, I was the PI of a GCRF (Research England Global Challenges Research Fund) project “Foreign investment, labour market and employment relations: the challenges of Kenya’s sustainable development”, with a budget of £25,750. Co-investigators include colleagues based in Keele, Kenyatta University, Kenya, and Sun Yat-Sen University, China.

I am a member of the editorial boards of:

• The International Journal of Human Resource Management
• Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources. 

I welcome potential research students whose projects are in the areas of people management and industrial relations focusing on employee resistance, workplace conflict and management practices. I am also interested in the development of the digital economy, the labour market, decent work and regulatory policy implications. Some of the projects that I have been engaging include:

• People management strategies
• Decent work, policy development and regional economy
• Impact of foreign investment on Kenya's labour market and decent work
• Employment relations and trade unionism in China

My current PhD students are:

• Chris Whitmore (August 2013-): Trade unionism in English schools. PhD, part-time
• Kejin Li (September 2018-): Payment system reform in public hospitals in Yuanna province in the context of China's healthcare reform: the impact on doctors' job satisfaction and performance. PhD, full-time
• Mary Wallin (May 2021-): The effect of tattoos on employability in the workplace. PhD, part-time

Past PhD students:

• Mengyi Xu, PhD (2015 - 2019): Work-life balance in China: perspectives of urban female white collar employees.
• Richard Gallagher (2016-2023): The mobilization of industrial action in British Airways: A case study of the 'mixed fleet' strike 2016-17. PhD, full-time
• Zhonglin Liu (2016-2022): Strategic integration, HRM, and cross-border mergers and acquisitions: A case study of a multinational corporation in China. PhD, full-time

Teaching

• Year 2 Employee Resourcing, Social Enterprise and Alternative Organising
  
• Year 3 Pay and Performance
  
• MA Employment Relations and Reward
• Senior Leader MBA Human Resource Management 
• MBA Human Resource Management
  
• Programme Director, MSc HRM SPP Apprenticeship programme (senior people professional)

Further information

Research groups:

• Employment Policies and Equality Group, Centre for Economic and Management 
• Institute for Social Inclusion 
• Network for Research into Chinese Education Mobilities (NRCEM)
• Institute for Global Health and Wellbeing