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China's Management Revolution

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China's Management Revolution

Spirit, Land, Energy

Palgrave Macmillan,

15 min read
10 take-aways
Audio & text

What's inside?

The riddle of Chinese business management revealed – for Westerners, by a Westerner

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Editorial Rating

7

Qualities

  • Applicable

Recommendation

To many Westerners, China represents the impenetrable East. From its diverse languages and its ancient philosophies to its modern-day economic boom, China simultaneously tantalizes and perplexes Westerners, particularly in the way it conducts business. The Chinese management model, with its emphasis on harmony and reciprocity, and its lack of long-range strategic planning, often makes little sense to Westerners. That’s all the more reason to send kudos to Shanghai-based business consultant Charles-Edouard Bouée for this outstanding job of explaining the Chinese system to Westerners. His informed analysis, though dry in parts and somewhat repetitive, provides an important context for understanding how the globe’s most populous nation will thrive in the future. China seems poised to set the world’s economic pace, and getAbstract believes Bouée’s book is a great place to start learning about how China does business.

Summary

Chinese Management for China

In 2008, the global financial crisis rocked China, shaking its faith in the United States and the American capitalist system. As markets and organizations crashed and burned, Chinese leaders, thinkers and businesspeople began to reconsider their long-held belief in the American Dream, reimagined for China. Today, China is increasingly looking to its own strengths as it maps out how to proceed economically. The nation is now “retrofitting” Western management methods to fit its customs, traditions, and spiritual and philosophical concepts, with profound implications for the way companies around the world do business.

Former leader Deng Xiaoping (1904-1997), who wanted to avoid a downfall similar to that of China’s former economic model, the Soviet Union, began modernizing China’s markets. Beginning in 1978, when it was clear the USSR was foundering, the pragmatic Deng refocused the nation’s sights on the US as its model for future financial progress. But 18 farmers in Xiaogang village, Anhui province, changed everything. In November 1978, they agreed among themselves to break up the village’s communal land into individual plots, a forbidden...

About the Author

Charles-Edouard Bouée is the president of Roland Berger Strategy Consultants Asia. He advises some of the most well-known organizations in China. In 2010, the Shanghai Municipal Government presented Bouée with its Magnolia Award for his civic contributions and leadership.


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