Footage of a group of besuited Chinese company executives crawling on the floor in a queue in front of their staff has gone viral.
The managers and directors had to get on all fours because they had failed to hit their sales targets, according to a source.
The video is said to be filmed in Jilin Province in north-eastern China during the year-end gala of a restaurant company. An employee of the firm told local media that all of the supervisors had volunteered to be punished in this way.
According to the blogger, who has nearly 450,000 followers, the footage had been sent in by an anonymous web user who claimed to work for the company in Changchun.
The unnamed contributor revealed that the executives had to move forward on their hands and knees around the venue for three laps after failing to reach the business targets they had set in the middle of the year.
Footage released by the insider shows the leaders standing in a line to walk off a stage.
One by one, they got down on their knees and started crawling.
A group of people thought to be staff from the firm stood on the stage, with a few of them holding flags.
A slogan 'I swear, I am responsible' was blasted from a loudspeaker as the group were subjected to the humiliating treatment.
One of the company's staff told Chinese video news site Pear that the executives had volunteered to be penalised.
'They crawled out of their own will. If not, who could possibly make them crawl?' the anonymous worker argued.
'They were voluntary and no one could stop them,' he added.
The worker said he did not know what had prompted the bosses to do so.
The video has sparked waves criticism on Weibo.
One top-rated comment suspected that the executives had agreed to undergo the punishment because they had elderly parents to look after, children to raise and a mortgage to pay, therefore could not lose the job.
Another viewers criticised: 'Annual galas are where you see the darkest side of humanity.'
Severe company punishment like this is not uncommon in China, but can sometimes be used by firms as a publicity stunt.
Last January, workers from a company in the Chinese city of Tengzhou were seen being forced to crawl on the street.
It was claimed at the time that the employees had not be able to reach their sales target.
The video sparked an outcry across the country, but later turned out to be a PR campaign.
Tengzhou police said the company had organised the event to attraction attention. The company also apologised to the public for the stunt.
This article has been adapted from its original source.
