146
he decided to adopt less stringent criteria to include respondents in the social responsibility and laissez-faire categories. To qualify for the long range interest category, an individual must choose either all four interest items or three interest items with one from the social responsibility set. For the social responsibility category, individuals who chose either three responsibility items with one interest item, or two responsibility and two interest items are included. Laxer still is the laissez-faire category which includes all those who chose one or more of the laissez-faire items. (Nichols, 1969; 189-190) Therefore Table 4 should be interpreted with an awareness that the categories do not constitute 'pure types'. The contrast as revealed in Table 4 is striking. While businessmen advocating social responsibility formed the largest contingent in Nichols' sample, they were the smallest group among the spinners of Hong Kong. Since Nichols has found that "the 'professional manager' is more inclined to find statements about business social responsibility attractive' (1969: 198), the relative lack of enthusiasm for the social responsibility doctrine among the cotton spinners is probably an indication of the low degree of managerial professionalism in Hong Kong's textile industry.
One interesting feature of the industrialists' responses is that they did not see a clear distinction between long range interests and social responsibility items. This is most apparent on the
Hong Kong Spinners British Industrialists Ideological Categories No. Percentage No. Percentage Laissez-faire 19 56 9 26 Interest 6 18 16 23 Responsibility ... ... 26 35 TOTAL 34* 100 65 100Note: * One respondent had responded to only two groups of statements and he cannot be placed in any of these categories.
Source: Interviews, 1978; Nichols 1969:191.