During my readings on Focus on China and India I had couple assumptions made about China in terms of their reputation as a growing economic superpower as well as their business dealings. Generally, in possibly a naïve assumption as a person who has no real personal or experience level knowledge in the China or Asia, I have a couple broad thoughts on China’s economy labor and how workers are viewed individually. China in the news has a reputation for historically providing cheaper skilled labor such as the with manufacturing Apple I-phones as well their known communist government stifling entrepreneurship for skilled professions. The former also in the news reporting the cheaper labor goes hand in hand with difficult and in western eyes breaking of worker labor laws such as age restrictions as well as wage equality, the latter being a skilled profession for manufacturing such as an engineer cannot individualize their work for example into their own company, they must turn over their work to government controlled due to communism.
China has a Power distance rating of 80 but strangely has an individualism score of only 20. Recall that collectivistic cultures, such as China, tend to put group needs ahead of individual ones so that the group processes in place already will be very group focused. (PSU) As a result of my reading, I will say that I was very surprised to read many of my assumptions came to be true, but there is a mix of national pride and loyalty of China’s people to their government despite Western world influence towards communism, as well as a unity of corruption to growth that for me is difficult to understand but seems to be prevalent over the last 10 years in China. The main driver of Chinese optimism is the country’s consistently impressive economic development. The equation is simple; China gets richer, its people remain optimistic. As anyone with even cursory experience in mainland China knows, this economic development has nonetheless gone hand in hand with a range of challenges, none greater than dealing with endemic corruption. (Hough)
My further thoughts based on China’s skewed edge range for Power Distance and Individualism would lead me to believe, as well as seems to be the current media sentiment, that China cannot sustain their economic growth since entrepreneurship and individual innovation as tenets of Capitalism create a competitive growth that is handed down to newer and changing business in the long term. This opinion is marked by of course Western historical growth and sustainment but is creeped in doubt with the media displaying the sprawling modern cities that have sprung up in China in areas known such as Hong Kong as well as making other cities more known today such as major cities like Shanghai and Beijing. How is is this possible? Here we find the rise of areas of the people making up for areas of needs missing in such of model by means of corruption leaning into government wants. “It could certainly be the case that corruption abounds in places where rogue officials in public sectors simply find it lucrative to levy bribery… the heterogeneous effects of corruption on firm performance are best explained by the heavy-regulation nature of the Chinese economy and distinct reactions to government regulation from firms with different ownership types”(Jiang 2014) The thinking being bribery and bargaining are acceptable means towards the government to achieve goals.
China seems to have developed a culture of acceptance towards corruption, government corruption, individual growth economically against cultural inequality from that growth. As a whole it is a balance to nationalism as well as government checks and balances on the people. “Nevertheless, there is a deeply structural element beneath widespread corrupt practices in China which needs to be ultimately eliminated in the long-run: the “unruly” rule of the Communist Party over the economy and the alternative political hierarchies (factions) active within. It is clear that Chinese authorities need to appeal to political and institutional reforms, since administrative precautions cannot combat all kinds of corruption—as demonstrated by the current situation in China. There are no well-established checks-and-balances over the Communist Party’s authority” (Sakaoglu)
In conclusion, as a summary to my readings. China is a very large country which due to their Communism government, has a unique methodology that is successful and attractive to world investors. Being a “corrupt” country and “fast growing” country is right now being sustained. World investors are still attracted to the Chinese economy. The attraction is actually a part of my initial assumptions of cheap labor, diverse business and strangely does not affect the risk one may assume investors would not want to make on a world stage in China. A more deep dive into areas of growth may help answer more questions I have in terms of known technology companies such as Alibaba outside of just the Power distance and Individualism disparity question.
References
Sakaoglu, Emre Corruption and economic growth in China. Retrieved from
Jiang, Ting and Huihua Nie. (2014) “The Stained China Miracle: Corruption, Regulation, and Firm Performance.” Retrieved from https://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/44872735/2014_The_Stained_China_Miracle_Corruption__Regulation__and_Firm.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAIWOWYYGZ2Y53UL3A&Expires=1553509639&Signature=OJgfUakvoB3fr6MwIoW%2FWOw7kBY%3D&response-content-disposition=inline%3B%20filename%3DThe_stained_China_miracle_Corruption_reg.pdf
Hough, Dan (2017) “Can China curb endemic corruption before its economy slows and people lose faith? Retrieved from https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2110084/can-china-curb-endemic-corruption-its-economy-slows-and
Pennsylvania State University. (n.d.). Module 10: Cultural Comparison of China and India. In OLEAD 410: Leadership in a Global Context: Spring 2019 [Class module]. Retrieved from https://psu.instructure.com/courses/1964331/modules/items/25821723
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