...MIB Subject: INTRODUCTION TO CHINESE CULTURE Title: THE INFLUENCE OF CULTURE ON BUSINESS ACTIVITIES: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF CHINA AND NIGERIA Name: Afouda Dotun Ehizojie Student’s ID number: 31540020 Date: 2015-11-27 Grade: Teacher’s signature: Abstract According to Zimmerman (2015), culture is the characteristics and knowledge of a particular group of people, defined by everything from language, religion, cuisine, social habits, music and arts. It was also described by Murphy (1986) as that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, customs, and many other capabilities and habits acquired by members of society, which gives them their sense of identity. From this we understand that the influence of culture on individuals cuts across every aspect of their lives including business practices. This paper seeks to analyse the influence of culture on the business practices of these two different countries; China and Nigeria, and also comparatively analyse the influence of the traditional culture of these two countries in other to better understand their business practices to foster smooth business relations. Keywords: Culture, Business practices, China, Nigeria, Society. INTRODUCTION Culture which is widely referred to as the total...
Words: 2838 - Pages: 12
...Case Study: China Myths, China Facts Julliana Schlemper Embry-Riddle Aeronautic University Organizational Behavior & Change MGMT520 Fernando Muniz April 27, 2016 Case Study: China Myths, China Facts Introduction Considered the second-largest economy in the world, that should surpass the US in the next decade, China has a very unique culture. When I think about China, in a business way, I think about very serious people that know what they want and go get it. Chinese people like to know you more than what other people from other nationalities would. This way, Chinese can learn more about the person and know if they can trust you or not. Most of what Chinese do in business has to do with trust and how it’s built. The biggest difference between the West people and the Chinese people is we work on building a trust relationship (Harvard Business Review, 2015). In this case study, I will comment about three myths that surround China’s culture, work ethic and management techniques. The three myths are collectivism, long-term deliberations and risk aversion. Discussion Questions 1. Has this presentation challenged any assumptions you had about China and the Chinese people? Yes. Movies, News, the media in general, have pictured China as a culture that is more inclined to the individualism more than collectivism. It was new to me to know that workers in China are more inclined to self-interest than their communities and the companies they work for. 2. Using your...
Words: 735 - Pages: 3
...China has more than 4000 year’s history, and this long history has made China a unique culture that deeply impacts on China today. According to Brand China and “Harmonious and Integrated Culture” and the Building and Communication of China’s National Image, the authors both claim that Chinese traditional culture has shaped China’s national image. On the other hand, based on Neo-Confucianism and Chinese Business Culture, Chinese traditional culture also has impacted on Chinese business culture. Generally, Chinese traditional culture has impacted on current Chinese business practices, such as guanxi, face saving and so on. Moreover, as a result of influencing by Chinese traditional culture, negotiating process in China and related behaviors must be different from that of the rest of the world. Hence, knowing more about these special knowledge of negotiating in China would help people easier do business in China. As a Chinese student, those business practices that are influenced by Chinese traditional culture are very familiar for me. For face saving, it is exactly the same as the film The Interview by Sony shows that a few Chinese local governments might build a fake everyday-low-price grocery store which looks even better than Wholefoods to make higher level government officer think that the local people are very happy. On the other hand, during my daily life when I was in China, everyone are working on obtaining more guanxi. Guanxi seems like network in American, but it is more...
Words: 1142 - Pages: 5
...Department, Supervisor From: Team C, Research Department Subject: Cultural aspect of China Business Communication in China As requested “Team C” has researched the required information needed to successfully penetrate the market for temporary staffing service opportunities in China businesses per our conversation June 5, 2010. Although the current wide success of Kelly Services Management here in the United States to understand the diversity of cultures in every business and capitalize on it, the opportunity to have the same success in China would require a different operational approach. Potential growth in this new market would greatly increase our reputation here at Kelly Services Management as well as our revenue growth. During our research on how to successfully penetrate the Chinese businesses for staffing services the main focus of the research was to logically acknowledge and understand the cultural aspects of China’s business practices. The purpose for this research was to understand the challenges in working within the Chinese business culture. The following research covers high and low context communication style indicating what is acceptable to the Chinese people. This research covers the meanings associated with the Chinese people commonly used communication style in business practices. This research covers the aspects of the gender roles within the Chinese business culture and gives perspective to their employee structures. This report recognizes the dominant...
Words: 1392 - Pages: 6
...In today’s economy China has become a big player. If you look at many of the products in your house, most of them probably say made in China. With China being a partner to a lot of US businesses we have to be sensitive to the culture and traditions in China. To put this simple China has a different way of doing business than we do and in order to become successful when expanding into China we need to understand and accommodate those differences. While there are many cross-cultural differences between the US and China I will look at three of them. Three of those cross-cultural differences you need to understand and accommodate before you expand into China are ethnic culture, priorities, and decision making. The ethnic culture of China varies greatly from that of the US. Chinese people are more focused on relationships and group work while Americans are more individuals. Chinese tend to be more courteous and create personal relationships with their co-workers. Americans tend to be more direct and put business above personal relationships. Because of these differences, Americans tend to put conflicts behind them quicker for the betterment of the business and Chinese tend to take things more personally and it takes them longer to put conflicts in the past. Chinese also respect people based on age and wisdom whereas Americans tend to respect success and achievement. When expanding into China you need to address the ethnic culture in order to build a strong team and work...
Words: 1647 - Pages: 7
...How To Do Business In China Now that business is becoming global, it combined the whole economic, no matter you will accept or not, any countries, corporations and individuals can not stop this trend, what we can do is change ourselves to suit the globalization. As a multinational company, develop different markets have its necessity, and market development can be helpful for the development of the company. In this report ,as the people working in this company, will analyze the differences between home country market and target country market, and help to choose the suitable market when company have willing to investing in a foreign country, the decision of the country which the company can invest in is China. In this report, will make analysis for Chinese market in economic environment, culture, marketing and human resource management, to prove its accessibility, and what risks the company will meet, then give some recommendations to escape or solve the problems. For the decision of target market, will based on its profitability and expansibility, China is a country that has the number of population as 1.3 billion, which means it has great predominance in consumption, now Chinese people’s consumption in household goods and home furnishings less 100 Yuan per capita, below the standard of world average as 200 dollars. But with the development of Chinese economic, there are 20 million people will enter the middle class per year, and with the increasing of people’s income...
Words: 1812 - Pages: 8
...How Cultural Issues Affect the Processes of Joint Ventures in China Since 2000 Nicolas Francisco Herrera Giraldo Abstract: This paper purpose is to identify which are the more remarkable cultural facts at the moment of doing joint ventures with china. Taking in consideration that this country has presented a representative economical growth and that many western and occidental countries have decided to execute strategically movements to improve their processes with tools as joint ventures. Different cultural issues that distant the normal develop and pace of activities between China and other different countries when doing international joint ventures were defined. This paper may be helpful for managers and companies whiling to start doing business with China Key Words: China, businesses, joint venture, cultural issues, processes 1. National cultural issues 1.1Power distance disparity among China and other countries. This dimension deals with the fact that all individuals in societies are not equal, it expresses the attitude of the culture towards these inequalities amongst us. Power Distance is defined as the extent to which the less powerful members of institutions and organizations within a country expect and accept that power is distributed unequally. It has to do with the fact that the followers endorse a society’s inequality as much as by the leaders. Small power distances cultures believe in the importance of minimizing social or class inequalities...
Words: 2331 - Pages: 10
...| | |[pic] | |United Business Institutes | |Full Name | | |Student ID | | |Program |BBM | |Module Code |MGT 402 | |Module Name |International Business Management | | | | |Submission Date | | |Total Pages (Including Cover Page) |19 | | | | |Face-to-Face...
Words: 3722 - Pages: 15
...investment projects Acme is considering doing in China. Acme is a US firm that plans to focus on investing in and penetrating markets in China. It will discuss the potential profits as well as the policies that are currently in effect in China. It will give the information on the factors that would be used to consider doing business in China such as import/export restrictions, labor relations, supplier financing, tax rules, etc. Global Financial Management Introduction A long-term investment, which includes stocks, bonds, real estate, and cash, is an account on a company’s asset side of the balance sheet that represents an investment the company intends to hold on to for more than a year (Definition, 2013). The US firm, Acme, wants to focus on investing in markets in China. There are many factors to consider when doing business in any foreign country, China is no different. The first bit of information to look at is the back ground of China. China, whose capital and focal point is Beijing, with over 4,000 years of verifiable history, is believed to have the oldest continuous civilization. The official language of China, which is derived from a Mandarin dialect, is Chinese. China is a Communist country that promotes atheism and a constitution that guarantees freedom of religion (China Introduction, 2013). Culture The second bit of information to look at is the appearance, behaviors, manners, and communications that China businessmen expect to see. The appearance of...
Words: 913 - Pages: 4
...The different cultures between Hong Kong and Mainland China Hong Kong: Hong Kong was a part of China thousands years ago, so that Hong Kong has a deep foundation of traditional Chinese culture, like food habit, traditional festival, and so on. Also, Hong Kong was influenced deeply by the western culture, because after 1840, Hong Kong was under the British rules, it was kind of like England, like students in school, from primary school to university use English very often, even as often as their first language, Cantonese. And many kinds of Western food came in Hong Kong; some important traditional Western festival became people’s important festival too, like Christmas, Thanksgiving Day, Halloween, and so on. All of above, the modern Hong Kong is the result of the combination of Eastern and Western cultures. The next part, I want to talk about the business culture in Hong Kong. Business is the most important part of Hong Kong, because Hong Kong is one of the centers of world business, world economic and world finance. But why Hong Kong could become some successful in business, which because its good business culture: Compliance with covenants, compliance with rules. Business people respect the spirit of the law; comply with legal requirements. Mainland China: Traditional Chinese culture has controlled the country for thousands years, people have a very strong cultural background, that means Chinese people do not accept the foreign culture easily. Confucianism influences traditional...
Words: 519 - Pages: 3
...Values and Cultural Assumption in China The people in China are rich in culture just like other Asian countries. Therefore, to be involve with Chinese people in China for business, undertsanding their values and culture are very important. The first important thing to understand about Chinese is their devotion to collectivism. Chinese is trained from very early to consider himself as a dependent segment of a group, which is also called totalitarianism. It is helpful to think of the notion of family in China as a template applied to many networks of relationships that hold the society together. In the Chinese business context, the notion of family is about more than the emotional support and ties of a nuclear family. Family members, for example, rely on each other for very instrumental needs such as loans or help in finding jobs. As such, family relationships intermingle trust from the head and trust from the heart. Given that the concept of family is a template for a broader range of Chinese social relationships, it reveals how Chinese business culture can comfortably combine these two types of trust. In fact, the Chinese word for trust, xin-ren, refers to both trust from the heart (xin) and an assessment of the other’s reliability and capability (ren). But the underlying concept also helps zero in on the essence of building successful business relationships in China: knowing how and when to build both types of trust. Because the Chinese emphasize on “the common good” for a...
Words: 1224 - Pages: 5
...Business Strategy Lois Griffin Leading in China Liberty University LDR 520 Dr. Barrett December 2, 2013 An Integration Strategy for Business in China Cross cultural differences is identified as the greatest challenge in doing business, ranking first in the world market when considering: “law, price competition, language, and delivery,” Boontanapibul (2010). An entrance strategy within China will be planned considering its cultural differences and how its difference in market might affect its potential employees. Also to be considered is how to prepare for these differences and if the best practice would be to hire locally or expatriate. As practices of management vary across countries the desire and ability to become and remain successful involve companies to always consider the differences and affects that come with each culture (Boontanapibul, 2010). Hiring Expats vs. China local talent When deciding how to enter the China market one must first decide its best practice for hiring. The options to be considered are hiring locally and expatriate. There could be issues in obtaining expat employees as the hardest issue for expatriate’s success in China is the time required to adjusting within its foreign country making hiring locally most feasible. Finances could be another reason why hiring locally would be in the greatest interest of the company. Selmer explains that the expense of the assignments for several expats could exceed the budgets as risk of failure...
Words: 1904 - Pages: 8
...mid-2011, estimated at 6,928,198,253 people around the world (Rosenberg, World Population - The Current World Population, 2011). From the 7 billion populations in the world, they certainly have a different background, such as country, language, race, culture, religion, customs etc. People as a human being cannot live alone without others people. They must communicate with each other. Language is the way of communication. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to show to the people how to communicate with each other in different background especially in Global Business Communication. The expectation is the readers will learn how to using and understand the way people communicate, base on every aspect of their background. Business definition itself is a commercial activity engaged in as a means of livelihood or profit, or an entity which engages in such activities (WebFinance, 2012). In this paper, there will be the research and analyzing personal behavior and attitudes in a country and the relationship with others country. The countries that will be research and analyze are: Indonesia-Malaysia, Indonesia-China, Indonesia Singapore. Chapter II: Research The research divided into three groups: Indonesia-Malaysia, Indonesia-China, Indonesia-Singapore. Because those countries located in the same area that is Asia and also because those countries is Relationship-Focused Country, and there’s so much interesting about issue that happened in those countries, so that will be more challenge...
Words: 2537 - Pages: 11
...Case study on NES China – Business ethics 1.Problem Statement The case about a company NES which is a Germany-headquartered multinational company that builds heavy machinery, automotive systems, electrical drives and steel tubes and pipes It began business in China since 1889, with 20 representative offices, 6 equity joint ventures, and 3 wholly owned enterprises. Now The Company wants to set up a holding company to facilitate its manufacturing activities in China. The case brings about the conflict between Western and Chinese business practices and protocols resulting in ethical dilemma. 2.Central issues of the case (2x2 matrixes) | | Importance | | | High | Low | Urgency | High | Obtaining approval for the holding company within a month | Uphold strong ethical culture and good corporate image as a publicly traded company | | Low | Develop a special ethical code to recognize Chinese business culture | Career development of people responsible for the approval | 3.Case problems The core issue around this case is the major differences between Chinese and western ethical values. It is common, in most developed Western countries, for businesses and government officials to closely follow business rules and regulations that are straightforward and by the books. There is absolutely no room for working around any of them, without risking your reputation and ultimately your career. It is common for Western cultures to implement internal audits to...
Words: 1445 - Pages: 6
...globalization on native non-Western cultures Michele Schoolmeesters Western Governor’s December 1, 2014 Examples of globalization on native non-Western cultures Part A and A1 One of the examples of globalization I would like to highlight that impacted a native non-western culture is the growth of outsourced IT and business outsourcing (BPO) services in Indian. The event has resulted in new and expanded employment opportunities for young college graduates. India has about half of the market share for business outsourcing. Before the event (the expansion of outsourcing) the new college graduate would have had a difficult time finding a job that pays as well as a typical BPO firm. (Kuruvilla & Ranganathan, 2007) Another example of globalization I would like to highlight is the growth of the western fast food business/restaurants into China. Before the event (growth of fast-food business/restaurants) the Chinese population was healthier and had limited options for eating out which included your typical Chinese restaurant, wontons sold on the side of the street and local food merchants. After the event (growth of fast food restaurants) the Chinese society/culture has had many changes, including obesity, change in types of food choices which in turn affected the Chinese overall health and economy (Cheng, T, 2003) Part B The growth of the fast food business/restaurants into China is a great example of globalization on a native non-Western culture. Fast food restaurants found...
Words: 684 - Pages: 3
