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Doing Business in China: Culture and Practice Ming-Jer Chen. 2001. Inside Chinese Business: A Guide for Managers Worldwide. Boston: Harvard Business School Press. 234 pages.
John B. Stuttard. 2000. The New Silk Road: Secrets of Business Success in China Today. New York: John Wiley & Sons. 144 pages.
Yadong Luo. 2000. Strategy, Structure, and Performance of MNCs in China. Westport, CT: Quorum Books. 302 pages.
Maria Lai-Ling Lam. 2000. Working With Chinese Expatriates in Business Negotiations: Portraits, Issues, and Applications, Westport, CT: Quorum Books. 188 pages.
INTRODUCTION
This reviewer had the good fortune to be reading the books discussed here while traveling in China with a group of faculty colleagues and graduate students. It was instructive to see again with my own eyes some of the phenomena being described. It was noteworthy that this trip was taking place 22 years after my first visit to China, shortly after the initiation of the economic reforms which, along with many other forces, have produced today's China.
It is interesting to contemplate how much has changed in China during those 22 years. On the surface, one can sometimes hardly recognize places with which he/she might have been quite familiar only a few years before. The rate of change has been phenomenal in many respects. At the same time, it cannot be forgotten that China has been around a long time. China's history and culture are both a source of strength and a heavy burden to be borne by all Chinese.
Complicating this feature is the gap that has long existed between belief systems and accepted ideology-whether Confucianist or Maoist-and actual practice throughout much of China's history. While the gap between ideals and reality characterizes all countries to some extent, it seems especially wide in China. Consider seventeenth century Qing China. A historian has pointed out that while "no Confucian-oriented emperor who wished to assume a moral role as an exemplar of the officialdom and the people could afford to tolerate corruption," the low official salaries paid by the central government to district magistrates at the lowest rung of the civil service ladder were grossly inadequate to cover their heavy bureaucratic and personal expenses. As a result, virtually the entire civil service at the provincial level levied customary fees...