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China is changing at a fast pace and it is reinventing itself along the way. Business schools are rapidly emerging in the country, and established schools from abroad are beginning to set up campuses with MBA programs catering to both the local population and foreign MBA students, with the University of Nottingham in Ningbo, China being a good example.
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Nuggets of traditional wisdom about China's unique business etiquettes gained from a management guide may serve as a quick-fix for short business trips. However, aspiring MBA students and alumni with ambitions to build successful long-term relations should invest time on the ground to understand the environment and the people of 21st century China.
Hawaiian Kerry Kennedy, CEO and executive producer of iTV Asia, visited Asia first as a high school student. He subsequently studied in Tokyo and Taipei and has worked and lived in the Asian region ever since. He currently lives and works in Shanghai where the China office of iTV Asia is based.
Alena Eckelmann talks to Kennedy for TopMBA.com to get his insider tips on doing business in the People's Republic of China.
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Cultural diversity
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"First of all, it is important to understand that there is no such thing as 'one' China but there is a multitude of 'actual' China's," Kennedy emphasizes, attempting to make clear the vast cultural differences that exist in the most populace country on earth.
There are more than 100 cities with a population of one million or more. Five to six of these cities are referred to as first tier cities; there are 15 to 20 second tier cities and numerous third tier cities. Their total population counted together is only a fraction of the more than 1.3 billion people who live in the country.
"Think of the European Union as an analogy to China. If you live in Paris you might not necessarily know how to market to someone in Hungary. Similarly, if you are based in Shanghai or Beijing, you do not really know about the needs and ways to satisfy the people who live in far away cities or in rural areas."
This means that there is no single rule to doing business in China, and instead foreign executives should get out of their 'expat bubble' in Shanghai or Beijing and carefully research their target markets.
"Individual cities and regions in China have unique cultures, sometimes even unique languages and, to some extent, unique business practices, which you have to understand in the context of your employees, vendors, business partners and customers," Kennedy adds.
Understanding what drives people
Foreign executives in China must understand the economics of 'more', and understand it in the context of doing business in a hugely diverse country.
"Like everywhere in the world people in China want 'more'; more success, more beauty, more health, and more friends. Everybody wants 'more', but what exactly the 'more' is greatly depends on who they are and where they live," Kennedy argues.
On the one end of the spectrum there are the nouveau rich and those Chinese who have lived and worked overseas. They typically live in first tier and second tier cities and their needs are very similar to those of people in any other big city of the world. On the other end of the spectrum are people living in the third tier cities and in rural areas. They are far away from Shanghai and Beijing, both literally and figuratively.
