[Jan. 16, 2008]

Christmas has just gone, millions of people celebrated the birth of Jesus, others just followed the magic atmosphere and let themselves go with the flow: presents, parties, delicacies and typical cakes. People from Europe, Americas, Australia, Asia, in countries with a common Christian heritage, rushed into the streets to keep the traditional shopping alive.

But Christmas shopping fever may sound a bit strange in an officially atheist country like China. As a matter of fact, in late December, Chinese malls were crowded with people who just wanted to buy, even if shoppers (and retailers) had no idea of what the festivity means.

"It's not really a real holiday," said Benny Zhang, 29, a computer programmer outside a Beijing mall with his wife. "It's just a nice atmosphere for shopping and a chance to swap gifts with each other." International Herald Tribune reported. Shopper retailers were obliged to wear those typical Santa Claus outfits, red and white, including the pointed hat, and they didn’t know why. At all.

China Daily’s columnist, Raymond Zhou, writes "I've always seen Christmas as the Western equivalent of Chinese New Year or Spring Festival. Like most Chinese consumers, I'm able to mentally discard all the religious associations and go right to the fun part.[…] In the true spirit of holiday frolicking, I'll combine the two occasions and come up with a very Chinese Christmas". Bei-jingle bells, the title of the reported articles, resound like a broken frontier.

Besides, the Christian Broadcasting Network titled "China Catches the Christmas Spirit" on December 24th, arguing that crossing Chinese main cities with lights and Christmas carols was a sign of openness and "the secular acceptance of Christmas throughout China might actually provide a more promising opportunity for China's Christians to introduce their friends to the true meaning of Christmas".

A hope, but not necessary so. For the real shift is not that much spiritual or religious. We should rather talk about economy and business. And numbers talk. "Retail sales rose 18.8 percent in November from a year earlier, marking the fastest growth since 1999, the National Bureau of Statistics reported this month." (IHT)

In such globalized world, where firms and companies cross the oceans to enter new markets and open paths of new economic profit, culture may assume a greater role than before. Investing in a country like China implies a deep knowledge of Chinese cultural environmental and hierarchic structures.

Cultural differences can influence business success. Even if Western values and traditions (like Christmas) apparently seep into dissimilar cultures.

Alberto Lippolis, in his interesting thesis Working in an International Team: the Chinese Perspective, analyses the main problems arising from the management of multicultural project teams in the major industrialized cities of China, Beijing and Shanghai. Cultural clashes do disturb the smooth functioning of a business project, creating mutual incomprehension and mistrust.

"When Western companies approach China usually tend to impose their organizational styles in a culture, the Chinese one, completely different from the Western one. This imposition often creates a sort of refusal by the Chinese counterpart which does not want to accept different methods which are seen, among other things, as inefficient and inferior in respect of the Chinese one. This is true for both the managerial and negotiation processes."

In particular, Mr Lappolis underlines the function of Chinese personnel as basically different. "The role of personnel departments in China is often focused on control and conformity, in severe contrast to the Western human resources vision." Since personnel departments are focused on control over staff, Chinese managers use what we may call negative discipline – punishment, restrictions and personal loss of face – "whereas Western managers tend to favor positive discipline – motivation through honor and reward as well as encouragement to initiative."

Moreover, Mr Lappolis highlights two main aspect of Chinese traditional culture involved also in working relations, such as the concept of Face and the concept of Guanxi, both connected.

"The concept of "Face" is the respect, pride, and dignity of an individual as a consequence of His/her social achievement and the practice of it, or "face work", is the use of a complex package of social skills to protect his/her face and the face of others in Chinese relational settings". The concept of "saving face", or "face work" is different, in Western human communications it means "interesting weakness", but in Chinese relationship building is a kind of "social recognition".

Guanxi describes the hierarchy of personal relationship between two people, where one is able to prevail upon another to perform a favor or service, or be prevailed upon. But the concept Guanxi describes a network of contacts which an individual can call upon when something needs to be done, in this sense guanxi is also a state of general understanding between two people.

As Saro Capozzoli, general manager of Jesa Industrial Ltd., a consulting company, where Mr Lappolis have worked as intern, affirms "...it is not easy to gain advantages from guanxi (especially if you are Western) and it is almost impossible to buy it. Moreover the ones who are acquiring it often come to realize that it is a precious good that entails additional and continuous costs in order to be maintained…

Furthermore, in order to create guanxi in the business matters, the understanding of the people you are doing business with, is a necessary element. Doing so and building relationships with people that surround you entails quite the same respect as in the case of Western cultures. If you are able to do so, with success, you will get access to the entire Chinese society meaning that you will have a privileged access to events, persons and opportunities and you will be given an opportunity to successfully start a new business in China, or expand your activities there…"

Guanxi explains the Chinese concept of hierarchy which derives from Confucianism, where seniority is fundamental: younger members must listen to the senior members’ speeches and can intervene in the discussions only if consulted by an older member. Hierarchy is "a reference point which gives an idea of the position one occupies in an organization and of the persons everyone must report to. The idea of hierarchy has the goal of creating a sort of harmony in every organization, in order to have everything and everyone at the right place."

Despite cultural differences between Western and Chinese human relationships, little attention is given to the interaction of culture within business and economic issues. Generally speaking, understanding cultural differences is essential in the world we live in, and mistrust and incomprehension are the main threat to our societies. Overcoming such barriers is a big challenge for economy, but for politics as well.