Well, i have been in China for 1 year now.
i did 4 different internships in multinational companies.
In some companies you can barely feel a difference from home, but there are others, where you do not understand why the Chinese staff acts like this and that. Well, i attended a Cross Cultural communication training with a company in Shanghai, and its then when I found out that there are multinational companies that found their way and are actually working in a great harmony with Chinese staff.
i just wanted to ask if any of you, who has been here for several years, has any experience to share on that point?
Cheers
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Calvin,
I'm not clear what you're asking. Do you want to understand the differences, or the reasons why some companies communicate better than others? Your posting is a little bit open ended...
Well, what I mean, is the
Well, what I mean, is the differences between the two cultures:
Western learning culture: (thats what western people do/ask when we get a task from our managers)
-Why should i do this work?
-what exactly do you want me to do?
-When should it be finished?
-Who is responsible for the result?
-How do you want me to do it?
Chinese Learning Culture:
-Listen:listen what the manager says, but they do not ask any questions if the manager forgot to mention smth.
-Look: observe how the "master" does it, and do it the same way.
Chinese will never confront their superior,therefor many western companies do fail in china, because they do not know how they should lead chinese staff.
Ex.: If I ask you to print a picture 100 times, you are going to ask me : With normal paper or photopaper, what size, what quality etc.
If you tell a Chinese to print a picture 100 times and you do not specify the details, they will (usually) not ask you the details(because in their culture, asking is not knowing, and not knowing is beeing unprofessional). There are 3 possibilities as result:
a) 3 weeks later the picture is still not printed
b) the picture is not printed in the way that you wanted it
c) the result is what you wanted ; because you were lucky or he or a collegue had to do this task before.
depends
I hate to say this, but it really varies by person to person. There is no one-size-fits-all answer as Chinese attitudes vary widely, and this is increasingly true as more students get influenced by western institutes and jobs.
One of the great mistakes that people make is that they don't hire quality people in China. Many employees are not worth their cheap wages, and a competent person is worth much more than the going rate.
That having been said, you may need to train person yourself. If you need person to ask pertinent questions you may need to bang this into them when they start and make it clear what you expect..
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