How Do State-Owned Enterprises Interact with Local Communities Through Mega-Events?

A Case Study of Former Shougang Workers in the Beijing Winter Olympics

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-475-4_104How to use a DOI?

Keywords

State-Owned Enterprise Reform; Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics; Worker Reemployment; Semi-Structured Interviews

Abstract

This study investigates how state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in China reengage with local communities through state-led mega-events, focusing on the case of the Shougang Group’s transformation during the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics. Drawing on in-depth interviews with six current and former Shougang workers, the paper explores how individuals navigated shifting organizational landscapes, reconstructed occupational identities, and reembedded themselves into urban society through roles in Olympic preparation and operation.

Findings reveal multiple reentry pathways—ranging from secondment and informal network-based recruitment to voluntary participation—that highlight the elasticity of residual SOE structures. Participants experienced identity shifts, not merely returning to work but rediscovering meaning through emotional and spatial ties to the Shijingshan site. The study also demonstrates how legacy “danwei” systems enabled flexible mobilization of labor and symbolic resources, contributing to localized social regeneration.

By framing mega-events as catalysts for organizational and spatial reactivation, this research offers a China-specific model of social renewal rooted in emotional embeddedness and informal mobilization. It contributes to the literature on post-industrial urban redevelopment, SOE reform, and labor reembedding, while shedding light on the lived experiences behind state-driven transformations. The study suggests that beyond economic metrics, the social legacies of mega-events deserve critical attention as mechanisms for reconfiguring relationships between institutions, space, and identity in contemporary China.

Copyright

© 2025 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Ruoyu Zhai
PY  - 2025
DA  - 2025/11/11
TI  - How Do State-Owned Enterprises Interact with Local Communities Through Mega-Events?
BT  - Proceedings of the 2025 10th International Conference on Modern Management, Education and Social Sciences (MMET 2025)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 939
EP  - 947
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-475-4_104
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-475-4_104
ID  - Zhai2025
ER  -