The Road to China: Fresh Insights into the World's Fastest-growing Economy From Wharton

Earlier this year, Harbir Singh, Wharton’s vice-dean for Global Initiatives, launched a series of trips to foreign countries as a way for faculty to gain a deeper understanding of international economies and then use this knowledge in their teaching and research. Six professors recently visited the Chinese cities of Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen, and met with executives from Lenovo, Haier and Huawei, among other companies. Knowledge@Wharton asked three of the participants – Singh, management professor Saikat Chaudhuri and health care management professor Lawton R. Burns – to share insights from their trip. Below is an edited transcript of the conversation.

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Think Like Chinese!!

The difficulty Westerners have doing business in China is in the cultural differences that affect the commercial realities. Westerners identify an opportunity; thinking revolves around making that opportunity work financially in order to do the deal. If the figures stack up the game then becomes getting the customer, regardless of who she/he is, to sign on the dotted line. A new book Think Like Chinese written by husband and wife team, Chinese born and educated Zhang Haihua (Helen Zhang) and Australian born and educated lawyer, Geoff Baker quickly exposes the folly of this thinking. Haihua and Geoff, a former investment banker, have their own management consultant business China Time Inc based in Shanghai and their purpose for writing this book is to offer a practical perspective on the vexed issue of business dealings from the Chinese perspective. Their proposition is that it is important to understand the cultural thinking of the Chinese in order to understand how a business negotiation plays out. They identify 5 core elements that drive Chinese cultural thinking and

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