While I was reading a case study for one of my other classes I stumbled upon the idea of different cultures, specifically the Chinese, and their code of ethics when in negotiations or dealings with us Americans. This sparked my interest and I learned a lot about ethics on an international stage.
China was, and still is, one of the world's fastest growing economies and this case study talks about the early to late 90's and the perception of China. Most American corporations wanted a slice of China's massive 1.2 billion person population and competition for market share was intense. As a foreigner traveling to another country you had to know in what ways were the people you were meeting wuth different and what went through their heads. Preparation is the key to almost anything in business and there are many things about the thought process of the Chinese businessman in regards to ethics that must be taken into consideration to consider yourself prepared.
Business meetings in China operate in a completely different manner than here in the states. The Chinese read into eye contact and react to certain phrases like, "Do we have a deal?" in unorthodox manners. The Chinese hate to have demands placed upon them and for the most part it is your responsibility to understand and respect your counterpart. With that said you cannot simply concede things and roll over just to please them. The case study says the Chinese try to take advantage of perceived weaknesses and "retreat" is one of them. The case continues to talk about the role of deception and its role in negotiations. "Bing Fa texts define victory as follows: Victory is to be achieved through any means, and deception of the opponent plays a vital role in the strategy of war." The Chinese are not afraid of using deception to get what they want, common forms are hiding the truth in which the company can address false strengths of weaknesses or a bait and switch tactic. Americans have to leave their sense of self-pride at the door and realize when these types of tactics are in play, if you don't the Chinese can simply take you to the cleaners.
When we think of a business deal we think of clean, truthful negotiations, granted every once in a while a bad apple gets thrown into the bunch. We see tactics like hiding the truth and bait and switch implemented all the time in our culture but the average person, like the savvy business person must know to realize it and not be taken advantage of. Sure in our minds the Chinese should be more upfront and try not to take advantage of their counterpart but in today's world sometimes you have to in order to survive in our capitalist market. Sure the Chinese don't display the most ethical tactics, according to the article, but if they can put themselves in a better position with these tactics, legally, and their counterpart agrees, is it bad ethics or good business?
Strutton, David, and Lou Pelton. Scaling The Great Wall: The Yin And Yang Of Resolving Business Conflicts In China. Rep. 1997.
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To answer CJ's question, I believe it is both, but I would primarily call deception and manipulation in any setting bad ethics. However, one has to take into consideration the norm for business ethics in each country, or on each continent in this case. The recent Toyota recall relates perfectly to this issue of business ethics. According to Michael Connor from Business-Ethics.com, Toyota's number one goal was to surpass General Motors as the world's number one car maker. So while attempting to achieve this goal, multiple cars from their company were recalled due to poor manufacturing. It is very likely that Toyota was aware that these cars weren't built to their full potential, but didn't mind since all they cared about was making money, growing quickly, and beating General Motors. This defends the bad ethics case. In this sense, bad ethics and good business don't even compete since this Toyota issue qualifies as bad ethics and as a result, bad business.
ReplyDeleteCJ,I agree with your point to an extent, i wouldn't call it bad business ethics though. Since competition is intense in China, people had to find a way around it. It's more of a forced tactics rather than bad ethics or deception. I agree with you because some of the strategies used may not seem optimal from the U.S. stand point, but one has to take the way business are done in another country into consideration. Most of my friends' parents are business personals, and they have told me many stories of how they conduct business in China. Apparently, it's not the "bad ethics" that's hindering foreign companies to work with Chinese companies, it's the network. A company has to work its way into the network, its executives have to know the right people, or the company won't even have any chance of entering the competition.
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