GLOBAL PARTNERS MBA
A Successful Balance
Before coming to China we learned about the cultural climate, the history of the country, and the varying laws and business practices—mostly through the eyes of Americans. Being here, speaking to different company executives and experiencing the culture, doesn’t seem as different as I first expected. The people may laugh at us for not understanding the language or for eating the vegetables raw instead of putting them in the stew pots, but they try just as hard to get us to like them as we do to acclimate. The Chinese want us to see their country as one of rich history, of innovative people, and of promising growth. As Lin Ran discussed today at UPS, the government wants to have national champions in every industry and wants Chinese companies to have the opportunity to expand around the world. Yuanfen Flow hopes to use these government motives to help entrepreneurs and start-up companies build successful foundations and sustainable life cycles. The difference is, however, that while the government wants to increase domestic consumption, it may be driving out the foreign companies that are bringing in capital and useful (and innovative!) technologies.
As we debated the Indigenous Innovation policy in our International Law class, we found many Chinese sources that felt they were justified in utilizing and/or modifying foreign technologies or ideas; having served as a platform for cheap manufacturing for so long, many Chinese feel like they deserve some type of “reimbursement”. Unfortunately, this deters many foreign companies from entering the Chinese market, partly because they don’t want to share their technologies, and partly because they are afraid of losing their competitive edge through piracy and copyright infringement. On the other hand, when thinking about is as Ford does, many Asians that want high quality, prestigious goods don’t want copies anyway—they want the real thing. Companies like UPS see more of an issue with the government’s preferential treatment of domestic companies, but Lin Ran also suggested that American and European governments also put restrictions on foreign companies. The line seems to be a little more blurry than what many of us originally expected. The domestic market needs time to mature, but how much time should they be given without putting foreign companies at a substantial disadvantage?
On a different note, another strong feature that foreign companies can bring to the Asian markets is one of corporate social responsibility. Companies like Starbucks, The Home Depot, and UPS set up programs to foster goodwill and volunteering and to provide monetary support for citizens in need. Countries like China have generally followed the notion that the government is solely responsible for taking care of its people, not each member of society individually. As the government facilitates the growth of domestic companies, and therefore the domestic economy, perhaps people will realize a new sense of social accountability—a way of helping the people help the people, so to speak. While this is something that may have stemmed from Western business practices, it can be just as useful as the Chinese practice of building relationships should Western companies begin adopting such principles. Learning from each other is an essential part of developing a successful global economy, which perhaps lead to the question: What features of each will lead to a balanced system?