Chinese edge US employees in career curiosity: Cross-national survey

Initiators and committee members of the global Curiosity Initiative attend the launch of 2016 Curiosity Report in Beijing, Nov 24, 2016. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Chinese employees are more curious than their US counterparts in workplace, according to a new report released in Beijing on Thursday.

The 2016 Curiosity Report, published by leading German science and technology company Merck, showed the overall curiosity index of Chinese employees is 60.2, slightly higher than the United State's 59.6. The Germans, however, grabbed the top place by a narrow margin, scoring 60.3.

The conclusion was reached after polling more than 3,000 full-time employees in China, the US and Germany.

The company invited renowned thought-leaders to help analyze the data through a cross-cultural lens. Factors taken into consideration included inquisitiveness, creativity, openness and distress tolerance.

Chinese employees scored highest in openness and inquisitiveness, but lowest in distress tolerance.

Data for Chinese employers are also optimistic. Chinese employers took the top spot in overall curiosity, followed by the US and Germany. Nearly half of the Chinese workers actually said that they were allowed flexibility to accomplish their work.

In 2015, Merck started its global Curiosity Initiative in order to examine and better understand the state and importance of curiosity in the workplace. It's the world's first comprehensive research on the subject. While this year's report is limited to three countries, project leader Christine Blum-Heuser, said more will be added next year, including the United Kingdom, India and Brazil.

Curiosity key to innovation

"Curiosity fuels business development and enables companies like ours to maintain competitiveness," Merck chairman Stefan Oschmann said. "Innovation and technological progress always develop out of a person's sense of curiosity about something new. Scientific curiosity and the joy of discovery are thus the most important resources when it comes to finding answers to global challenges such as the aging of our society," he explained. "That's why curiosity should be a key aspect of our everyday work."

China's younger generation most curious

"We've also found China's millennials (those born after 1981) are the most curious group in the country compared to the older generation," psychology scholar Wei Kunlin said.

The Peking University scholar added that it was the reverse in Germany. The report did not unveil the reasons behind the results.

Meanwhile, Wei said those more satisfied with their jobs were more curious at work.