10 July 2008

Making Sense of China

An expert in Chinese management explains why the country isn’t as foreign as it seems to Western businesspeople

A GMJ Q&A with Zhang Zhixue, Associate Professor of Organization Management at Guanghua School of Management, Peking University
The factors that motivate China’s executives and workers are no different from those that motivate any executive or any worker. So says Zhang Zhixue, an expert on Chinese business, who thinks Westerners are needlessly perplexed by China.

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Reader Comments
bruse lee on 8/6/2008 7:00:57 AM

GOOD POINTS

adedeji balogun on 8/8/2008 2:16:17 PM

a great read, and quit an insight.the western world have created big companies that have lasted three generations,but with out a dout i still belive that they still lack identity, and thats what chinesse company have. my stand would be to keep what makes you unique and adopt the western worlds best practices at runinig a business thanks

Gregory Starr on 8/21/2008 1:38:24 AM

This enlightening article puts a great deal of Chinese buisness in perspective for me. There's the idea that China is a big country with inherently greater ability to adapt now that it has assumed some of the western buisness practices. Not to get too theoretical here. If each person in China represents another degree of freedom, then compared to the United States you would have to follow a 1 with a page or even a book of zero's in comparing the likelihood of change of China over less productive countries like, say, the United States. In the application of the more positive concept in Western management, Dr Zhang stated that these turned out to be only short term factors (perhaps he was using the term "proximal" to be polite or to avoid appearing racist), but he(perhaps providing a few chuckles for some) clearly the Chinese Culture that was the major factor in the long run. Let me be quick to defend our way of life by asking what his comparison group was. So what he is really saying is the Chinese improve under now unpopular Western Management principle of goals, structure, leadership style, and other organizational practices give them a good start, we all know that it only take an instant to own an idea that passes the test of being good, but he postulates that it is their culture that is going to turn the United States into a third world country in the long run. Of course, we can change or image fairly quickly, but it has taken thousands of years for the Chinese culture to espouse harmony.

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