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4971Against the background of new mixed labor trends such as “replacing humans with machines”, flexible employment, and labor of prosumer, the Shamrock Organization theory proposed by Charles Handy no longer seems to be a perfect interpretation of the new trend of employment patterns in today’s enterprises. This paper innovatively puts forward the Four-Leaf Clover Organization theory in the context of the new era for the first time, and this mixed labor force, which is composed of professional core labor force, flexible labor force, intelligent machine labor force, and prosumer labor force, has become a new form of enterprise employment. This study systematically discusses the connotation mechanism of Four-Leaf Clover Organization from the aspects of basic definition, basic elements, basic characteristics, operation mechanism and organization mechanism, and discusses its action framework from the aspects of opportunities, challenges and strategies. The core viewpoints of this study are as follows: （1） The professional core labor force is the core element and “central system” of Four-Leaf Clover Organization, and the four forms of labor force cooperate and coexist with each other to form “the community of shared future” of enterprise organization. Meanwhile, as the “amplifier” of the human labor force, the intelligent machine labor force exhibits a multiplier effect and even an exponential effect, and it has a significant empowering and expanding effect on the other three types of labor force. （2） Four-Leaf Clover Organization has basic characteristics such as human-centricity, multiple symbiosis, sensitivity and flexibility, virtual digital intelligence, flat unboundedness, and ecological connection, and it also has “4S” organizational mechanisms, such as suitable pattern mechanism, separation-by-dynamic mechanism, synergistic symbiosis mechanism and shared distributed mechanism. （3） The specific forms of Four-Leaf Clover Organization can be Internet enterprises, modern manufacturing enterprises, modern logistics enterprises and other enterprise forms, as well as public organizations such as smart government and intelligent social organizations, and they all need to meet the basic conditions such as low threshold for labor participation of prosumers and the connected media of prosumers. （4）The organizational relationship of Four-leaf Clover Organization tends to become diversified and complex, and intelligent machine will be added as a new member to both the subject and object of organization management, which will systematically transform and upgrade the organizational management system. As a result, the form, definition, scope and boundary of “employee” and “talent” will be reconstructed, and the traditional two-dimensional relationship between human and organization will be upgraded to a three-dimensional relationship of “human-robot-organization”, and traditional human resource management （i.e. HRM1.0） is evolving to a new era of human-robot management （i.e. HRM2.0）. （5） The reform of Four-Leaf Clover Organization mainly focuses on “human” and “culture” instead of digital intelligence technology, and the so-called “replacing humans with machines” is more about “changing of jobs” rather than simply “replacing humans”. In addition, the government, society, enterprises and individuals should work together to deal with the new challenges of employment pattern change in the era of Four-Leaf Clover Organization, and promote the industry 4.0 era of “replacing humans with machines” into the work 4.0 era of human-robot symbiosis. On this basis, the future research trends of Four-Leaf Clover Organization theory is put forward from the aspects of exploration and validation case study, structural adaptability, labor division, influencing factors and case experience. As a new theory of organizational labor force form in the era of digital intelligence, the Four-Leaf Clover Organization theory not only provides a more interpretive new theoretical perspective for revealing the diversified and complex transformation of organizational employment patterns, but also provides a new theoretical framework for leading the practice of digital intelligence transformation of enterprise labor force.
/ Journals / Foreign Economics & Management
Foreign Economics & Management
LiZengquan, Editor-in-Chief
ZhengChunrong, Vice Executive Editor-in-Chief
YinHuifang HeXiaogang LiuJianguo, Vice Editor-in-Chief
Four-Leaf Clover Organization: A New Type of Mixed Labor Force Organization
Foreign Economics & Management Vol. 43, Issue 02, pp. 103 - 122 (2021) DOI:10.16538/j.cnki.fem.20201028.102
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Cite this article
He Jiang, Yan Shumin, Guan Jiao. Four-Leaf Clover Organization: A New Type of Mixed Labor Force Organization[J]. Foreign Economics & Management, 2021, 43(2): 103-122.
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