Managers and Mandarins in Contemporary China

Jie Tang

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781134226696
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Negocios y empresa
• Subtopic: Negocios internacionales

This study explores the question as to whether the way in which Chinese management handles conflict is fundamentally different from elsewhere or much the same. It does so by examining in detail an international joint venture construction project, where managers rooted in contrasting business systems were brought together, and by showing how the project progressed over time, how various conflict situations arose, and how they were handled. In addition, the book provides an in-depth account of the inner workings of the Chinese business world, touching on issues such as:

• differing international standards and management procedures
• the peculiarities of Chinese red tape
• paternalism and nepotism
• the limits on contract in contemporary China
• the involvement of local officials.

Of interest to scholars and managers alike, this study benefits from the unparalleled access the author secured to all the parties involved. Working alongside managers as a participant observer, Jie Tang uses the fine detail of ethnography to convey a vivid impression of the lives of managers in China today and the forces with which they have to contend.

Part I

1 Introduction

DOI: 10.4324/9780203014783-1

This book grew out of a question that is easily posed: does the way Chinese managers handle conflict differ fundamentally from elsewhere or is it much the same? Finding the answer proves not quite so simple. At present, we just do not know enough about how conflict is managed within business in China. Even evidence from the West, where research on such matters is more plentiful, is far from adequate for purposes of comparison. Given such a starting point the present work does not pretend to offer a complete answer. Nevertheless, it does aim to throw fresh light on the problem, and a particularly intense light at that.

There are a number of ways one might set about finding answers to whether Chinese management has its own approach to conflict. One might compare the operation of Chinese companies with the operation of firms elsewhere in the world. Alternatively, one might study a situation where managers from China and overseas work together. This is the path I chose to follow. It led to my involvement in an international construction project in China, following its progress over the course of a year through an in-depth study based on participant observation.

Concentrating so intensively on one case yields rich results, but is not without its dangers. From a purely practical point of view, finding oneself with all one's eggs in one basket can at times be alarming. This I found at the very outset, when the first lesson I learned about the behaviour of multinational companies is that information fed in on one side of the globe may well not end up where it was hoped on the other. I had approached the London office of Moreland,^* an international project management company, seeking permission to observe one of its construction projects in China. The human resources director was sympathetic, but as China came under the authority of another region administered from Australia, he promised to forward my request to his counterpart there, adding his recommendation. Despite waiting several weeks, no reply came, and I eventually set out for China still without a project to study. Given my intention of undertaking a detailed study of one case, this caused me no little degree of nervousness. Barley's description of how his anthropological fieldtrip to Africa to study a particular ceremony came to nothing when a plague of caterpillars infesting the local crops was taken as a bad omen and led to the ritual being called off, came to mind (Barley 1987). In my case, the local fauna were unlikely to prove a problem (although, as we shall see, a dog was to feature), but was I nonetheless to travel all the way to China only to find myself with no project to study?

^* A list of the organizations and individuals involved in my research can be found in the Appendix. Their names have been changed throughout this account in order to preserve anonymity.

Initial enquiries on arrival only served to increase my anxiety. Unable to make contact with Moreland on arrival, I asked around among managers known to me who were working for Chinese state-owned enterprises engaged in construction. One was involved in negotiating with several foreign companies. Could I observe the negotiations or the operation of the subsequent project? ‘Impossible,’ came the reply. The negotiations were secret and no state enterprise would allow an independent scholar to observe their workings at close hand. Suitably downhearted I eventually made contact with the manager at Moreland to whom I needed to speak. He had not had my proposal passed on to him by the Australia office, but was prepared to see me. I went along and explained my interest in studying an international construction project at first hand, and my background in the industry. To my relief, he showed no surprise at what I had in mind and, subject to checking my bona fides with my Moreland contact in London and with Cambridge, he was happy to let me start on the site the following Monday. I was greatly relieved. The project was just what I was looking for. It was in construction, an area with which I was familiar, it brought together partners from diverse national backgrounds, and tendering had just commenced. I was to be on the site from Monday to Thursday from nine to five every week, leaving Fridays free to conduct further research offsite. In the event, I was also to find myself attending the site on Fridays and at weekends when important meetings were scheduled. The observation went on to span eleven months, from August 2000 to July 2001, supplemented by three follow-up visits.

The different reception from Moreland and Chinese state enterprises to the notion of allowing outside observers to monitor projects is instructive and reflects differing attitudes to transparency and experience with independent research. The manager I had originally approached at Moreland in London was at ease with the idea, mentioning how there were already two PhD students studying project management on Moreland's sites in the UK. Similarly, their project manager in China found the prospect of the project being studied perfectly natural and unobjectionable. For Chinese managers in state enterprises, however, the notion was new and suspect. Study by a current employee might be possible, but not by someone turning up from outside except in the unlikely event of being imposed from above.

A number of influences appear to be at work here. First, there is the greater suspicion of outsiders one would expect of the more collectivist outlook prevailing in China in comparison with many Western countries. The cultural climate will shape the ease with which certain methods can be employed. Politically and, given the dominance of the state in industry, economically, China is a far less open society than many in the West. Journalists from Hong Kong have found themselves facing espionage charges for publishing details of state enterprises that elsewhere would be regarded as uncontroversial and as lying within the public domain. At the level of the workplace, sensitivity by insiders to what they perceive as criticism by an outsider means the observer has to exercise considerable tact to avoid causing offence.

Observation of a local court, undertaken during my fieldwork to provide me with background material on dispute resolution, provided further illustration of the official attitude towards openness. According to government announcements, any citizen is entitled to attend court other than in cases involving state secrets or certain matters bearing on individual privacy. Nonetheless, I took the precaution of securing through family friends an invitation to meet with one of the judges. Connections in China, direct or through family and friends, play a large part in facilitating access that is otherwise routinely denied. On arrival, a bailiff asked me where I was going. When I replied that I was going to attend court, he told me there were guards stationed outside each courtroom to stop people getting in. What about the right to attend, I asked. ‘It's no good telling them that’, he told me. ‘They earn 600 yuan [about £48] a month, they don't know what the law is, all they know is to stop people getting in.’ Fortunately, there was my contact to fall back on and I was finally able to gain entry.

To a lack of familiarity with independent academic research, a suspicion of outsiders and a general lack of openness may be added fears related to the uncovering of hidden interests. As we shall see, there was a widespread caution among Chinese staff on the project against saying or doing anything that might unwittingly impinge upon the hidden interests and intrigues of others, especially those of their superiors. Such an atmosphere is hardly conducive to welcoming the prying eye of an inquisitive outsider.

Trust, suspicion and the importance of being earnest

The barriers to trust just touched upon did not evaporate on entry to the project. Rifts between the various parties involved further complicated the situation. Prominent among these were tensions between the joint venture partners commissioning the project. These were a consortium of German exhibition firms and a Chinese state-owned land development corporation. Wariness on both sides had led to the establishment of a project management team internally divided along parallel lines, with Moreland being nominated by the German side to safeguard its interests. The Chinese partners nominated their own members of the project management team. Entering into the project under the aegis of Moreland thus entailed an initial identification with one side that aroused suspicion about my role on the part of some, at least, of the other.

Fortunately, I eventually overcame this in most cases, although not all. Where suspicion persisted, the barriers it presented were often overcome by having established rapport with other members of the project. I was excluded, for example, from certain meetings held exclusively for the Chinese staff of the joint venture. The first time I encountered this the Chinese staff returning from the meeting said that they had been instructed not to talk about what had transpired, although gossip was to ensure that I was soon to hear. Subsequently such meetings took place after rapport had been established with those called upon to attend and information flowed more freely. Chinese staff sharing my office returned from one such meeting that had evidently been intended to inspire ideological commitment to meeting project targets. ‘Tang Jie, you should have been there to see what the real management style in China is like. It was just like going back to the Cultural Revolution,’ said one, before everyone went on to recall the tone and message of the meeting, telling me to ‘write it down in your book.’

Indeed, a number of the staff with whom I established close relationships took an increasingly active interest in my work as we got to know one another, and proved most helpful in making notes for me of meetings that took place while I was elsewhere. This was partly a matter of establishing good relations, partly a matter of proving my serious intent. Although frequent comments could be heard poking fun at those who put their heart and soul into their work, at a deeper level those who displayed competence and diligence attracted respect. There was initially an expectation among some of the staff that I might be there purely as a matter of form, with whatever observation I had in mind being superficial at best. However, my regular hours of work and odd appetite for attending endless meetings, soon disabused them of this notion. Similarly, going out to tour the construction site was viewed by those members of the project team who preferred to manage at arms length and not to stray from the office more than was necessary as going beyond the call of duty. My talking to the ordinary workers, however, was viewed by many of the staff with a certain amount of bemusement. Direct conversation with workers was rare even among members of the project management team who did venture out onto the site. For all its communist ideology, China remains deeply hierarchical in outlook, and construction workers are commonly looked down upon as of little worth or understanding. Furthermore, it quite simply meant getting mud on one's boots, something not to the taste of the aspiring mandarin. As we shall see later, there was a preoccupation with preserving the ‘civilized’ status of the site, one which often boiled down to a pressing concern that visiting dignitaries would have properly paved and swept surfaces to drive over and to walk upon.

With time, I was also able to extend the boundaries of trust. Later in the project I was to attend many meetings held by the general contractor and came to be regarded as an insider in front of whom sensitive information that was not for general consumption could be discussed. Speaking of a letter from the project management that construction should cease on a certain part of the building until a problem had been redressed, the chair of the meeting remarked: ‘I can say this because Ms Tang is one of us, we do not need to pay any attention to these letters.’

Attempts to include me within one circle or another did at times pose a dilemma. I was frequently asked to assist as an interpreter, a role I welcomed as offering some repayment for the hospitality extended to me by the project and as an opportunity to be better integrated into the work of the organization. The language divide when the different nationalities met was, methodologically, most helpful, as it often meant that comments that in other meetings would be made behind the scenes and thus might escape observation, were made there and then, sometimes with the injunction: ‘Don't translate this.’

My policy here was to comply, but to preserve my neutrality, to explain my silence by passing on my instructions to the foreign manager. In all cases but one, they understood, finding the situation wryly amusing. However, a newly arrived American member of the project management team took offence and wrote to the owners complaining that the ‘interpreter’ had been told to stop translating at one point. Fortunately, the matter blew over, as more important problems were by then plaguing the project.

In many ways, my peculiar position made it impossible for me to act as many interpreters, who are expected by the side employing them to edit what is being said to advance the interests of one side over the other. The demands of my other role as an observer struggling to maintain her independence made this impossible in my case. This often led to frustration on the part of the Chinese participants. On one occasion, I translated an instruction given in English by the German owner that construction should be halted so that a structural fault could be addressed. This was in the presence of government officials. The Chinese manager from the general contractor, who does not speak English, immediately announced to the meeting that I had misunderstood and that the German manager had not said anything of the kind. However, my neutrality did have unexpected benefits. It was to lead to me being invited to attend meetings where important business decisions had to be made on the basis that I could be relied upon by all sides to get matters straight, however annoying this might prove on other occasions.

One cannot participate over an extended period without taking part in the give-and-take of information and gossip; an observer who silently observed without contributing to the ongoing stream of discussion would be the opposite of unobtrusive. This is particularly pertinent in a collectivist culture. Chinese managers are more suspicious than many of their Western counterparts when it comes to answering questions from an outsider. One way to break the ice is to prompt them by indicating that you have talked with their boss and colleagues. They then feel safer and more relaxed and talk without inhibition. This must be balanced, of course, with preserving confidences. I generally succeeded in this difficult balancing act, but on one occasion I inadvertently threw one Chinese manager into a fury with his junior managers when I mentioned an agreement I had seen them reach of which they had failed to inform him.

Apart from odd instances such as that, my presence as an outside observer did not seem to disturb the natural course of events. Partly this was because I was just one among many. People may have adjusted their behaviour when addressing me directly, but in general, their attention was fixed elsewhere, on their colleagues or the problem at hand. My presence on the project was soon accepted as everyday by the Chinese staff with whom I shared an office. I was soon regarded as an insider, a not entirely unmixed blessing as my taste in clothes and more or less everything else became the target of frank and forthright attempts to bring me into line with group norms and sensibilities. I was even cajo...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half-title Page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table Of Contents
• List of illustrations
• Preface
• PART I
• PART II
• PART III
• Appendix: organizations and individuals mentioned in the text
• Bibliography
• Index