Transient, unsettling and creative space: Experiences of liminality through the accounts of Chinese students on a UK-based MBA
基于20名在英国读完MBA后回国的中国毕业生的访谈，研究他们在西方价值观主导的课程中作为国际学生的阈限体验，发现这种“中间”状态既令人不安又富有创造性，并影响其职业身份和回国后的就业。
This article explores the experiences of liminality through the accounts of Chinese students on a UK-based MBA programme. The transient nature of the MBA experience, as well as the international status of the Chinese student, is resonant with conceptualizations of liminality as ‘in between’ space. Based on semi-structured interviews with 20 MBA graduates who had subsequently returned to China with their qualification, we explored their perceptions of outcomes from the course and their experiences as international students on a programme imbued with western norms and values. Results support the unsettling yet creative implications of liminality, as well as the fragmented insecure nature of identities, as individuals pass through the MBA ‘rite of passage’ in terms of ‘becoming’ a manager and entering a new phase of career. Accounts suggest the creation of hierarchical structures within liminal space whereby Chinese students, through their positioning at the margin, have uncomfortable yet illuminating encounters with alterity. At the same time, they experience levels of ambiguity and uncertainty in the post-liminal phase of China-located employments, as new western-based managerial identities collide with dominant discourses of Chinese organization.