Differences, but Never Generalizations

Several helpful books have been written about the cultural differences—some of them subtle, some of them with enormous implications—encountered by Westerners conducting business in China.

Those seeking a guidebook to some of the unique cultural aspects of doing business in China can consider Sam Goodman’s 2009 book, “Where East Eats West: The Street-Smarts Guide to Business in China.” Goodman writes (with humor) from the viewpoint of someone who spent several years in China and learned from his mistakes as much as he did from the lessons of others.

My own experience living and working in Hong Kong for two years has not provided anywhere near the breadth and depth of lessons upon which to base a book. Nonetheless, even a business visitor to China will pick up on some of the cultural distinctions, both profound and subtle, found in the business community in China.

On the subtle side of the ledger, in China, business cards are respectfully presented using both hands; and pointing directly at someone is generally considered disrespectful. Who should pay for dinner or lunch and under what pretext can be tricky in any nation. In China, however, it takes on a series of offers, convincing bluffs, and insistence on paying that often renders the overseas visitor completely baffled as to what has just transpired.

A potentially more meaningful cultural phenomenon in China, which traces back to centuries of Confucianism and imperial deference, involves the difficulty of communicating upward from the lower levels of organizations. The risk of a lower-level employee providing feedback that may ultimately harm his or her career is perhaps best captured in the Chinese proverb translated to English as “the shot hits the bird that pokes its head out.”

China’s wider contact with the rest of the world in the past 30 years has exposed managers and employees alike to more open communication methods with supervisors. The era of Imperial China is long past, and globally practiced management techniques are as evident in China as they are in North America. However, centuries of culture and tradition are not easily eroded.

The hazards of self-censored dialogue with those of superior rank were portrayed by Malcolm Gladwell in a chapter of his 2007 book “Outliers.” Gladwell summarized research performed by airline crash investigators who, when studying pre-crash cockpit transcripts, recognized a pattern of second officers and navigators refraining from communicating directly and strongly to first officers that the plane may be headed for trouble.

Such incidents involving muted warnings were largely absent at U.S. and Western European-based airlines but more common in cockpits from airlines based in nations where maintaining respect for people of higher rank is considered sacrosanct.

I am an outsider to the food and beverage quality assurance industry, but my perception is that it involves life-and-death considerations at least in equal proportion to air travel. Likewise, there would seem to be infinite scenarios where an employee on the lowest level of an organizational chart may well be the one in the best position to sound the alarm to prevent a disaster.

Establishing protocols where all workers from top to bottom understand that health and safety take precedence over productivity likely involves non-stop communication at food processing plants around the world. In China, it also may involve reassurances that production workers are empowered to raise a question when appropriate.

Although understanding cultural differences is a critical part of engaging in international business, my experience living and working in south China for the past two years has led to another important reminder: Always beware of generalizing.

American business theoreticians and managers may pride themselves on their ability to adjust to “creative destruction” and “disruptive technologies,” or to create flat orgcharts. However, business owners and managers in the U.S. hardly move in lock-step.

While many production facilities in the U.S. can pride themselves on the spirit of teamwork and cooperation evidenced daily, there is a broad range of employee morale levels in the food processing sector, just as in any industry. There are likely facilities in North America where production workers, even without the cultural conditioning, do not feel empowered to take the risk to halt output in order to ask a safety or health-related question.

Likewise, business managers in China are far from captive to their history and culture. In the past three-and-a-half decades, Chinese students have cultivated a growing presence at university science departments and management schools around the world—particularly the English-speaking world. A plant manager in China is as likely to be familiar with the most recent studies in U.S. science or business management journals as his or her counterpart in North America.

In the industries I write about (scrap recycling, metals production and papermaking), I have had the good fortune to visit dozens of production facilities in North America, several in Europe and perhaps two dozen in China, Hong Kong, and Singapore.

While the language being spoken and printed on the workplace signs serves to remind visitors where they are geographically, it soon becomes evident that each facility reflects the priorities of the people who own and manage that workplace.

Ultimately, it is corporate or workplace culture that has the greatest impact on a facility’s priorities, more so than national or regional culture.

The author is an editor with the Recycling Today Media Group and can be contacted at btaylor@gie.net.