20201130 trans

Cao Runxin 曹润鑫

A good example to illustrate this is the cuisine that is often still defined by national borders (but certainly also in even smaller regional units). The existence of Italian cuisine is undisputed, but you don't have to go to Italy to eat quite authentic Italian food. Of course, there have always been Europeanized variations of Chinese cuisine (e.g. with thickened sauces), and the Istanbul native who orders a kebab in Germany will be surprised that he is served flat bread and not a plate of cutlery.

Eating habits, especially at breakfast, seem to be difficult to change, so that the author did not get used to the Chinese breakfast (rice soup with salty vegetable side dish) in China for years.

Chang Huiyue 常慧月

When Italian spaghetti with bolognese sauce was announced one lunchtime in the cafeteria of Beijing University, the joy was great, at least until the dish could be tasted. Obviously only the outward appearance had been preserved here, the appearance of the spaghetti largely corresponded to that which one can see in cookbooks. However, in terms of taste it was a catastrophe, the tomatoes used had obviously been understood by the cook not as vegetables but as fruit and the noodles had been overcooked for an extra long time.

Also with the enterprises there are such cultures, German enterprises are considered e.g. in many countries as well organized. Even manufacturing processes for the same products often differ from country to country, but are increasingly standardized worldwide, especially when a company has a patented process in several countries.

Chen Han 陈涵

This can lead to interesting national solutions when the same task is set, namely to design a street cleaning vehicle:

Street cleaning vehicle a) China

Street cleaning vehicle b)

Since the 1990s, the author has personally experienced the differences in working in a foreign Chinese software company in America (e.g. PC Express, later TwinBridge in Los Angeles), in a Chinese software company on the mainland (e.g. Suntendy, Beijing), in a German company in China and in a German-Chinese mixed company. These personal experiences flow into the present booklet.

Thus, the term culture here is largely synonymous with tradition or philosophy, whereby tradition appears to be related to the past and philosophy often appears as reflected culture reduced to a few principles, and thus already consciously controlled and teleological. For these reasons, the author has chosen the term culture in the present context.

Chen Hui 陈惠

Japanese production culture is known to us, the Chinese (here abbreviated CMPC) has hardly been investigated in literature, so this booklet has a pioneering character.

In this booklet, the author draws on Geert Hofstede's comparative cultural model, which he discussed with him at the LMU in Munich on January 22, 2009, on fundamental observations on the Chinese economy from a macro perspective by Philip Huang, and on the results of a field study by Jianzhong Hong, Aino Pöyhönen, Kalevi Kyläheiku 1998-2000 (see bibliography).

This booklet was prepared to be presented at the conference "Beyond Japan - Values and Attitudes of Asian Production Cultures" in autumn 2010. The author is grateful to Dirko Thomsen, AutoUni Wolfsburg, who invited the author to contribute to the conference.

Chen Jiangning 陈江宁

Approaches/Perspectives

The distinction between craftsman culture and trader culture has been established for some time. This means that in an economy, more emphasis is placed on developing products that are as perfect as possible, and constantly improving them. A dealer culture places more value on the profit that is made between the cheapest possible purchase and the most expensive possible sale. This distinction becomes clear when we examine a typical case of complaint:

If a customer complains a product in a craftsman culture, then the salesman is concerned, offers an error free exchange product or a financial compensation and reports the product error further, sends the equipment possibly in, with the goal of letting the error, if it should occur e.g. at several devices, in principle of letting the development department eliminate the error.

Chen Jiaxin 陈佳欣

In a dealer culture the service and satisfaction of the customer is more important, here it is more important to see if the customer is angry and reacts accordingly to his complaint with apologies and compensation offers. Feedback to the manufacturer is of secondary importance.

Here are some of the countries that fall under the relevant categories:

Craftsmen's Culture Retailer Culture

Germany, France Poland, USA, China, Korea

Another distinction is made between production and design cultures.

In the 19th and 20th centuries, a production culture developed in mechanical engineering in the USA, whereas in Germany a construction culture developed.

Chen Jingjing 陈静静

The experience of rationalization in the U.S. with the pioneer Frederick Winslow Taylor (1856-1915) was quickly received in Germany, among other things by establishing chairs of business administration in Berlin in 1904, Aachen in 1908 and Hanover in 1910. Accordingly, I follow Kunze in 2008 when he rejects Kothes' assertion that German production culture before 1914 is backward.

In Germany as a culture of craftsmen, a diversification of products developed early on, which was made possible by constantly optimizing the product. Even in teams, the focus is still on the highly qualified individual who does his part of the teamwork independently and assumes responsibility.

Chen Sha 陈莎

In the USA, the goal is rather the production of a cost-effective mass product. Responsibility was delegated to teams and budget control was introduced to control these teams. However, this is more in keeping with the lawnmower principle and does not apply to the appropriateness of the individual special product or the individual employee.

This can be illustrated in an overview:

Chen Sunfu 谌孙福

The Japanese Production Culture

After World War II, Japan did not have as many investments available as Germany, for example, through the Marshall Plan. Out of necessity, the Japanese economy therefore did what was possible, namely an optimization of existing machines, processes and personnel. This also resulted in the development of a special national production culture, the characteristics of which can be seen in an overview:

Chen Yongxiang 陈永相

Today, the Japanese production philosophy is considered the pacemaker for new production technologies and the benchmark for modern industrial nations. Former Porsche boss Wendelin Wiedeking is an admirer and imitator of the Toyota Production System: "Toyota is synonymous with consistency". It is the international standard by which the modernity of a factory is measured.

The basic idea of the Japanese model was that storage costs were incurred because more was produced than purchased. So technologies were developed which ensured that the product was only (re)produced when the customer bought the product (production on demand). The higher costs of producing a single item are more than compensated by the savings in intermediate storage (and, in the case of slow-moving items, final storage) of products. This procedure is successfully used today, for example, in book production.

Cheng Yusi 成于思

More important, however, is the idea that there should be as few production interruptions as possible, and if so, that these should be eliminated as quickly as possible. A typical phenomenon on the construction site is that work stops because a certain part / material to be installed has not been delivered on time. In production plants, a machine in the assembly line production breaks down and the whole production is stopped. This is where the Japanese philosophy comes into play, training the individual employee to the extent that he or she can repair minor defects on their own and assigning the responsibility to them to do so. For larger defects, a central team is available.

Deng Jinxia 邓锦霞

This motivates them to ensure that these smaller defects do not occur in the first place and not only repairs the defect, but also thinks of a way to ensure that this defect does not occur in the future, i.e. they not only repair the defect, but also the cause of the defect.

With production on demand, interruptions in production would also be conceivable if demand were to decline. Ideally, production then adjusts, i.e. it runs correspondingly slower or faster, depending on how strong demand is at the moment. The most important thing is that production is uninterrupted and trouble-free.

Ding Daifeng 丁代凤

The Japanese reward system works in a similar way for innovations introduced by individual employees involved in the production process. Here, it is important that the person who had the idea receives a relevant sum of money immediately and unbureaucratically, long before the idea is implemented.

Another element are the quality circles or Kaizen teams. These are smaller working groups that are responsible for a small part of the production. They should meet once at the beginning and then regularly at least once a week to openly discuss suggestions for improvement.

Recently, other Japanese elements of production culture have also been mentioned, such as multi-divisional structures and decentralization. They are also found in the American production culture.

Fang Jieling 方洁玲

The Japanese production culture, whose optimization was born out of necessity, proved to be more competitive than the cultures of other countries, which is why it quickly became the model, even the epitome, of modern production culture, and in the 1960s and 1970s it began a worldwide triumphal march.

China - Factory of the world

Today, however, China has replaced Japan and the other classic industrial nations as the factory of the world.

It also leads the emerging markets worldwide.

In the projection of economic performance, Goldmann/ Sachs sees China ahead of the USA, India and Germany.

Gan Fengyu 甘奉玉

So China is today again (after the period 0 A.D. until about 1200 A.D.) the leading economy in the world. One of the characteristics of the Chinese production culture is its continuity. For thousands of years, China has been producing products such as silk, tea, porcelain, etc. without interruption. Even though Chinese production was not a world leader in the period 1200 to 2000 A.D., it remained at a roughly constant level for a long time before it caught up with the Industrial Revolution in a rapid development. Such a long production culture is without equal worldwide.

Gao Mingzhu 高明珠

It is still important to bear in mind that China is once again growing to become the leading economic nation, but in this most populous country not all Chinese are yet benefiting equally from this leadership role. This is easy to see when comparing the absolute figures (e.g. GDP in country comparison or related to the growth of its own GDP) with the relative figures (GDP/capita). Here is one such comparison with the USA:

I would like to start my analysis of the importance of production culture with a few questions:

Does the production culture have anything to do with the rapid increase? Is it perhaps the cause of the increase?

Obviously, the Chinese production culture has not been an international model for modern production culture. Could the reason for this be the problem that the production culture is culture-specific? What other reasons could there be? Are these reasons justified?

In order to find clues to answer these questions, the Chinese production culture is examined and defined below.

Gong Yumian 龚钰冕

Genuity of Chinese production culture

The Silk Road has been documented since about the 5th century BCE, but gene analysis proves that it was used to trade domesticated plants and animals in both directions already about 10 millenia BCE. There is also proof of cultural exchange through this trade road. The following products manufactured in China were traded on it:

·Silk

·Tea

·Spices

·Ceramics/Porcellain

·Jade

·Bronze

·Lacquerware/Paints

·Iron

·Paper

·Gunpowder

·Furs etc.

The Silk Road was of course used in both directions, gold, precious stones and for a long time glass were imported into China. If the New Silk Road can be built with rail roads, it will lower the costs and time of shipping several times compared to the current maritime container shipping.

Gu Dongfang 顾东方

With the world's largest merchant ships, junks, which could hold up to 4000 tons, China also dominated maritime trade for centuries. Already in the 3rd century B.C. the Emperor's Canal was built in China for inland navigation.

Previous picture: Chinese junk from the year 1804.[ John Barrow, „Travels in China: containing descriptions, observations, and comparisons, made and collected in the course of a short residence at the Imperial palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a subsequent journey through the country from Pekin to Canton“, Cambridge Scholars Publishing 12.1.2010, ISBN 9781153190947, 302 pp., p. 59.]

Ming period junk (14th century).

In the period from the birth of Christ until 1200 A.D., China had the highest gross domestic product in the world. Only in 1200 was China overtaken by Western Europe.

Guan Qinqing 管钦清

Between 1200 and about 2000, China lagged far behind the West and was considered a developing country. Nevertheless, from 1700 until today, China has experienced the same population explosion as America and Europe.

While Europe ensured the food supply of the larger population at the end of the 18th century with the Industrial Revolution, China slept through this development and caught up with it in fast motion from 1900 with its first factories, from 1950 with centrally planned larger production units and from 2000 with private enterprises, at first mainly joint ventures, which led to an uneven development in the country.

Gui Yizhi 桂一枝

The example of silk production in Japan and China already reveals the first differences in the production culture:

In Japan, a loom was introduced that was copied thousands of times without a license, thus ensuring a nationwide standard. Silk from Japan was always woven in the same way, and buyers could always rely on the same product quality.

In China there were various independent production facilities and regional traditions. So silk from China was of a variable quality.

Another aspect of Chinese production culture is the ethnic component:

·Western companies have better cards in China if they use Chinese middlemen.

·Chinese companies that are active in Africa export their entire business model including employees, cook, buildings.

Guo Lu 郭露

Nevertheless, today's Chinese production culture is no longer genuine, but is also more strongly influenced by history than the Japanese Western culture.

Even party schools at the beginning of the 21st century are commissioning business faculties of American universities to conduct management training.

Made in China

The label "Made in Germany" was originally a British origin label to distinguish itself from poor quality German goods. It was only later that the mark of Cain became a trademark due to the improvement in quality.

"Made in China" stands for cheap products, low wages, poor quality, mass production and plagiarism, hierarchical management and an "ant-like" workforce.

Han Haiyang 韩海洋

But in fact this is only an impression that applied to the first mass products in China; in the meantime the picture has changed.

1 At the beginning of the 21st century, the labor market in China appears saturated for the first time. This is accompanied by extreme wage increases. In the meantime, one has to pay almost as much for a man-day of an engineer with comparable qualifications in China as for an engineer-man-day in western industrialized countries.

2. The previously most important productive sector is being replaced by the service sector as the most important economic sector.

3. Following the example of Western companies that have consistently introduced quality assurance in China, the proverbial poor quality of Chinese products is now a thing of the past. In many companies, quality assurance is now also practiced.

Han Wanzhen 韩宛真

4. apart from the reproduction of products developed in the West, the first high-tech products that have been further developed in China (cell phones, notebooks, etc.) are already available.

5. Chinese companies are now buying companies worldwide with the required know-how (notebook division of IBM => Lenovo, Volvo etc.).

6. with a real ravenous appetite, Chinese managers devour bestsellers that explain Western management principles and apply them with playful curiosity and great zeal, such as team meetings. Meetings in Chinese companies are now more common (5 meetings/day) than in Germany (1-2 meetings/day).

He Changqi 何长琦

Characteristics of Chinese production culture

Hierarchy

Chinese companies are traditionally strictly hierarchical, with many levels. Authority gives face. As in other countries, functions are called together with the name as titles. According to Hofstede, the yardstick for hierarchy is the power distance index.

Appreciation of age

In addition to hierarchies based on professional positions, age also has a corresponding authority. Older people are seldom deported to retirement homes after their retirement, but live until death in the extended family, in which they fulfill tasks until the end. The neighborhood also takes care of the elderly people by involving them in work assignments (street cleaning, support for traffic regulation) depending on their readiness.

Hu Baihui 胡百辉

The older brother automatically has a more prestigious position than the younger one. In Chinese, kinship terms are strictly separated into "older" or "younger". The preceding adjective "alter" in the confidential form of address is an honorific.

In business life, too, older employees are respected because of their life experience (and possibly because of the large network of relationships to be expected). A positive side effect is that the experience remains in the company. New research also shows in the West: older employees are often underestimated, their experience must be used more and knowledge can be kept in the company.

Concept of Face

For the protection of the individual, there is the face concept, where everyone can preserve his or her honor, even if mistakes have been made or someone is inferior. For this purpose, unwritten rules (institutions) are observed in the company: No one criticizes the other person in front of others. If criticism must be exercised, then indirectly. A request is not rejected directly, there is no "No! The Chinese employees are particularly sensitive to the nuances, to the "maybe" and know how to classify it accordingly without being damaged.

Hu Huifang 胡慧芳

Incompetence of bosses leads to informal decision-making

Traditionally, the position of General Manager, or even senior positions in Chinese companies, is preferably filled with people who can be trusted by those making the appointments. The greatest trust is given by a family relationship, somewhat less so in the case of friendship between families or between individuals, or by shared periods of life, such as being born in the same village, attending the same school, the same club, etc. Of course, professional qualifications also help to build trust, but this is only of secondary importance.

The leadership positions of the largest state-owned enterprises in China are assigned by the party, and these positions are cobbled together with correspondingly deserving cadres.

One consequence of this appointment policy is the widespread incompetence of leaders.

Hu Jin 胡瑾

In economic terms, this too is an emergency situation, especially for the bosses concerned, who are surrounded by more competent subordinates. In combination with the facial concept, the bosses thus have to hide their incompetence on the one hand and on the other hand want to keep their position, i.e. they are under enormous pressure to make the right decisions. This has led to an informal decision-making system. The boss discusses possible alternatives informally with the experts. In the end, he has obtained a broad opinion and makes the decision that seems best to him alone. The fact that the laurels are actually due to others remains unspoken; it increases the intensity of the personal relationships (renqing) of the people involved. Once the boss has made a decision and communicated it, the employees will implement it without contradiction due to the hierarchical structures.

Ji Tiantian 纪甜甜

If a superior's decision is not considered correct, the subordinate may not address the boss. Rather, when the hierarchical structures do not apply (joint leisure activities or similar), an opportunity must be sought to indirectly point out the wrong decision to the boss.

Meetings per day C > USA > D

The frequency of meetings is much higher in China than in Germany. In the country comparison of four selected countries/regions the following order results:

1. Hong Kong

2. China

3. USA

4. Germany

Jiang Fengyi 蒋凤仪

Shapes of modern Chinese production culture and their causes

Modern Chinese production culture shows the following characteristics:

1. in the area of know-how China lags behind the western industrial nations and Japan, which causes feelings of shame. Many Chinese feel that they are on the defensive and regard their country's relationship with the USA and Japan as the David's against Goliath. This results in a subjective legitimacy for broad-based industrial espionage with national interest and know-how theft.

Jiang Hao 姜好

2. Innovation

China is traditionally known as an empire of inventions, so letterpress printing, gunpowder, porcelain etc. were invented long before similar inventions were made elsewhere in the world. However, these inventions were often not brought to serial production and were produced in masses, as for example in Europe, where gunpowder led to the production of handguns and cannons. It can be exaggerated to say that gunpowder was used instead for New Year's fireworks by the nobility. This shows the Chinese characteristic of a capacity for innovation with a simultaneous lack of diffusion in the market.

The Industrial Revolution also largely passed China by. Since China, like Europe, was experiencing a population explosion due to better hygiene and medicine, but at the same time the automation of food production did not go beyond manufactories, China fell behind in its standard of living.

Kang Haoyu 康浩宇

Traditionally, imitation has always been highly valued in China. A good copy was almost as important as the original. Thus, both the civil service examination system of previous centuries and today's school system were strongly oriented towards reproduction rather than creativity. One reason may be the enormous amount of characters that requires students to memorize for years.

The idea of copyright is also less rooted in China than in the West.

When the Chinese were awakened from their sleep by the cannon thunder of the 1st Opium War, there was great regret that they had not carried out their own research and development. Although physical violence was disregarded, the foreigners were envied their technical superiority and since then they have propagated the idea of learning technology from foreigners and reproducing it in order to be able to defend their own cultural values and sovereignty more effectively. This feeling of envy gave rise to an extreme motivation to both imitate the superiority of others and ultimately to outdo them.

Kang Lingfeng 康灵凤

3. Competition

The toughest competition worldwide is in China. Successful products immediately find numerous imitators. As soon as an imitator can produce the product at more favorable conditions, the client switches to him. Together with state arbitrariness, this has resulted in the emergence of a typical Chinese type of company: The financial holding company as a family-owned enterprise with involvement in various industries. This enables a company to survive even if the sales market for a product suddenly collapses. In hardly any other country in the world do companies have to be as vigilant as in China, adapting products to changing customer requirements within the shortest possible time and always being one step ahead of the competition. New trends have to be recognized early and capacities have to be built up or reduced flexibly.

Those who survive in this hard school are also prepared for more peaceful and fairer markets like those in Europe and America.

Kong Xianghui 孔祥慧

4. State control

The reform and opening policy since 1978 has led to a predominance of foreign companies in China at the end of the 20th century. In order to protect their own industry, laws were introduced obliging companies to provide a certain percentage of their production in China locally. As a result, Chinese suppliers had to be sought who were able to contribute parts to the production chain. This promoted local industry and also the transfer of know-how.

At the same time, foreign suppliers were also forced to follow the large companies to China if they did not want to be replaced by a Chinese company. This accelerated the settlement of foreign companies in China.

Kong Yanan 孔亚楠

However, legislation (like the joint venture laws) and court decisions favoured domestic companies. Also, China has built up a state capitalism that sponsors industry, supports domestic industry on the world market and helps financing overseas investment. Also, copyright infringement and industrial espionage (including civil-military alliance) supports the Chinese economy. Under the Trump administration, the USA has responded with a protectionist “America first” strategy.

5. Legal system

The legal system in China is not independent. It acts at the behest of the state.

Western companies came to China with superior know-how and financial power. These companies were admired in China, but at the same time a feeling of disadvantage arose with regard to their own backward industry.

Lei Fangyuan 雷方圆

As a counterbalance to this perceived weakness in relation to the large foreign corporations, the legislation was designed and the judiciary was urged to protect their own corporations.

This puts Chinese partners in a better position when joint ventures are dissolved (often the know-how and capital goes to the owner).

Necessity is the mother of invention

The reason for the increase in efficiency, known worldwide as Japanese management culture or production culture, was the lack of money for new machines in Japan after World War II.

Lei Kuangxi 雷旷溪

In China, another emergency situation is also the reason for developing a separate response to the challenges of the market: it is the professional incompetence of management personnel. This has grown historically. In China, management positions are primarily given to people who can be trusted. Traditionally, the most trustworthy people in China are family members or family members of old school friends, acquaintances who come from their own village and who have indulged in the same hobbies together (see Deng Xiaoping's Bridge round or the golf acquaintances in Western lobbying) etc. Loyalty to the party plays a secondary role. In principle, members of the Communist Party have it easier in business life, cadres even easier. Membership in the People's Liberation Army plays a similar role.

Li Haiquan 李海泉

Professional competence often plays no role at all. But here, too, a generational change has taken place; the highest leadership cadres in the Central Committee often had no education or training at all in the Soviet Union at the beginning, were replaced by technocrats in the 1980s, and at the beginning of the 21st century many have an American university degree.

In the business sector, the leadership positions of the largest Chinese state-owned enterprises are still awarded by the party to deserving cadres.

The professional incompetence of the bosses represents a plight that must be countered in daily work with a sophisticated strategy if one does not want to be replaced by a more professionally competent boss.

Li Lili 李丽丽

This strategy consists of the following:

·Avoiding the disclosure of own professional incompetence

·Informal consultation and coordination with the actual experts in the company before each decision process

·Announcement and representation of the decision by the boss alone, this decision may then also no longer be questioned

This informal participation in the decision-making process is organized in a network which, however, in contrast to the Japanese model, is not lived out in team discussions, but rather through several face-to-face meetings between the boss and a different expert in each case, since if the boss sought the advice of a first expert in the presence of a second expert, he would lose face with the second expert. This network character is therefore very personal and usually consists of direct two-person relationships.

Li Lingyue 李凌月

However, it is also possible to contact a third person who knows the second person, whereby the second person then only establishes contact and then withdraws.

A further emergency in China is that due to the sleepy industrial revolution and the lack of information diffusion in the market, no research and development tradition of its own has been established to date. Instead of carrying out basic research for a long time, information about the state of the art of advanced competitors was obtained and attempts were made to copy and eventually outperform them. Only recently, due to enormous governmental support, e.g. in hybrid drive technology and electric motor technology, self-developed products have been created in China.