Japanese takeaways from Chinese takeovers

Citation

Foo, C.-T. (2010), "Japanese takeaways from Chinese takeovers", Chinese Management Studies, Vol. 4 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/cms.2010.32304caa.001

Japanese takeaways from Chinese takeovers

Article Type: Editorial From: Chinese Management Studies, Volume 4, Issue 3

What surprises me most on reading about Chinese management by authors – a major preoccupation given my role as Editor-in-Chief of this journal – is to be found in Vol. 395 No. 8680, p. 61 of The Economist. I ask, “Are the Japanese salarymen indeed so easily scared?” I do not think so. After all, they remain the inheritors of the fearless Japanese Samurai, followers of the Bushido Code. Not so long ago, in 1984, I was sent by the Singapore government in a team as a productivity development fellow to learn productivity management from the Japanese. That year, Volkswagen had their first ever joint venture agreement in China: Shanghai Volkswagen Automotive Co. Ltd ().

Now, this year, 2010, Geely () in China is taking over from the Ford Motors, a pioneer in car manufacturing, the Swedish Volvo. If you want an anecdotal indexation of just how fast the Chinese had caught up, this must be it. Despite their renown for manufacturing, inventing techniques like JIT, with Toyota irretrievably (or it seems) entangled in safety problems, it too may not be long before Chinese Volvo will overtake Toyota. By buying Volvo, the Chinese are telling the world, we too are putting a priority on safety.

Why were the Japanese in the past, so ahead of the others? It just struck me that I should be sharing this insight. Several months living in Shinjuku – the train station is the busiest in the world and still is – awoke us to a reality: the Japanese are so more immersed in Chinese culture than us, the Singaporeans. Japanese clubs are all over Tokyo fostering Go (Wei-Qi), a game underpinning Chinese strategic thinking. Just play Wei Qi and you grasp deeply the working of the Chinese strategic mind. Calligraphy, the Shinto (Tao)-Buddhism-Confucianism synthesis as living philosophy and even abacus stay on as integral to Japanese society. There are even clubs for promoting the study of the Chinese historical novel, Romance of the Three Kingdoms. I was invited by Professor Matsumoto to lunch in Tokyo with a group of Japanese Art of War enthusiasts (Plate 1). From such discussions, I felt maybe cultural knowledge originating from China is behind the prowess of the Japanese in their surging ahead of others in post-war economic development.

Plate 1. Art of war scholars

For the last 2,500 years Japan had learned immensely from China and whilst there are distinctively Japanese traits, the overall fabric of the society is woven on Chinese threads. Now, China by her takeovers will soon be over-shadowing Japan in businesses related to high technology. Perhaps, the 5,000 years of Chinese culture may now be raised as a hypothesis to at least partially account for why China is making such unprecedented rapid progress. If so, it is understandable why one of the Japanese takeaways from the analysis of Chinese takeovers is: “Fear of foreign (read Chinese and Chinese only) takeovers may spur change in corporate Japan” italics added and insertions by author. For the Japanese must know, unlike Western buyers, a Chinese takeover is forever. The Chinese mindset is so unlike the American: they prize knowledge above everything else, especially high technology, above money. Simply put, a system of patents, making technical knowledge so publicly available, is very unlikely to originate from a predominantly Chinese society.

With the growing trend of the rising Yuan versus Yen, there will be in coming days, many more Chinese takeovers of small, intense technology Japanese firms. For with the Chinese markets just across the Sea of Japan, they are far better positioned to exploit these. Owing to the memory of Japanese atrocities, Chinese firms, for example, in Shanghai still prefer Western to Japanese technology. It will, however, be different, if these firms become Chinese owned through such takeovers.

For the Japanese salary man, I have some “takeaways” to share on these up and coming series of even more Chinese takeovers. There is a very popular saying, “” (gong zi bu chu tuo) among the Chinese. Though well known among Chinese yet it is little known in the West. It reflects a prevalent cultural attitude of the Chinese towards salary men whether Japanese or Chinese. The phrase literally describes that visually, the vertical line in Chinese character of gong does extend beyond the horizontal upper or lower lines (Figure 1). In other words, the meaning is if you are a salaried ( gong zi) man, then your growth in the future will be very much constrained or limited.

Figure 1. Gong

Thus, as a living philosophy, Chinese culture inherently encourages – whenever an opportunity presents itself – to take on entrepreneurial risks. The fundamental idea is for Chinese to exert themselves and go beyond limitations as symbolized in two horizontal lines. Thus, socially, the Chinese entrepreneur is seen in a better light than the salary man. Analogously, Chinese takeovers of Japanese enterprises reflect a strategic breaking through of limitations. In so doing, Chinese entrepreneurs seek relentlessly yet in progressive steps to be their own true bosses. I remember on my flight to University of Umea, Sweden a conversation I had with a Swedish expatriate who had worked many years in Hong Kong. His remark is most pertinent:

The Hong Kong Chinese, my colleagues they are by far more enterprising than we Swedish. Unlike Swedish who rather than hang on as managers, the Hong Kong Chinese will not let go of an opportunity to start up their own firm.

There is one feature of Japanese society that is quite like the Chinese and it concerns me as an Editor-in-Chief of this journal. It is in returning home, Japanese as well as Chinese academics begin to lose their prowess in the English language. Yes, I had noticed even those academics with doctoral degrees from top American or English universities. Despite their years of working out for their doctorates, these academics once back home for some years will lose their facility with English.

In Guangzhou, I realized, for example, the preferences of the Chinese academics to converse in Chinese language. I discovered too for one co-authored paper, only one of the authors in the team is able to present their findings orally in English. Given this social reality, the journal of Chinese Management Studies must continue to look towards English-speaking countries for contributions. Yet the journal must have papers that capture the processes of the rapid changes inside China as well. For as the cover of April 17 issue of The Economist heralds the arrival of “The new masters of management” through innovation in the emerging markets.

In my role as the Editor-in-Chief I will continue to foster an interest among Chinese academics to be publishing their best papers in the journal and this round, we have a pretty good catch of papers. To begin with we have a most timely paper emphasizing the integrity of management research by Youmin Xi, Xuanwei Cao and Liuxu Xiangli: “A Chinese view on rebuilding the integrity of management research: the evolving He-Xie management theory”.

The second paper is a very remarkable, empirically in-depth research paper by Lin Wang, Jiaxin Huang, Xiaoping Chu and Xiaohui Wang: “A multilevel study on antecedents of managerial voice in Chinese context”. Following this, the third paper by Yuchun Xiao, Xiyan Zheng, Wenan Pan and XiaoXia Xie is titled: “Trust, relationship commitment and cooperative performance: supply chain management”. The fourth paper, by Jie Chen and Derek Eldridge, explores the question: “Are ‘standardized appraisal practices’ really preferred? A case study in China”. The fifth paper is on “Internationalization and organizational resources of Chinese firms” by Chung-Ming Lau, Hang-Yue Ngo and Daphne W. Yiu. And with Chinese economy growing relentlessly over the last three decades, sixth commentary paper, by Michael Triolo and Zhu Sun raising the possibility of “The limits of China’s growth”. The final, seventh paper is by Sheh Seow Wah on “Confucianism and Chinese leadership”.

Check-Teck FooEditor-in-Chief