Transcript Slide 1

BAC 312 Intercultural Communication
Anne Dwyer
China
• 1.4 Billion people
• Language: official language is Mandarin
but many different dialects spoken
throughout the country
• Han Chinese 93%
• 56 minority ethnic groups
• Other immigrants including Mongol,
Zhuang, Manchu and Uighur) 7%
External factors: Culture
120
100
80
USA
60
Hong Kong
40
20
0
PD
ID
MA
UA
LT
Culture
Dimension Scores
PD = Power Distance; ID = Individualism; MA = Masculinity;
Avoidance;
PD UA = Uncertainty
ID
MA LT = Long Term
UA Orientation LT
USA
Japan
40 L
54 M
91 H
46 M
62 H
95 H
46 L
92 H
29 L
80 H
Hong Kong
68 H
25 L
57 H
29 L
96 H
China
80 H
20 L
50 M
60 M
118 H
Culture Gap Between U.S.A. (PCN)
and China & Thailand (HCN)
Individualism
Power
Distance
Uncertainty
Avoidance
Assertiveness
Long-Term
Orientation
United States
91
40
46
62
29
China
25
70
85
39
118
Thailand
20
64
64
34
56
(FGI World)
Key Concepts
•
•
•
•
•
•
Guanxi
Mianxi
Lijie
Keqi
Inner and Outer Circles
Collectivist v Individual Interests
Guanxi 關系?
• Reciprocity, kudos
• “the set of personal connections which an
individual may draw upon to secure resources or
advantage when doing business or in the course
of social life” Davies, 1995
• Networking of relationships among various
parties that cooperate together and support
one another
• “You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours”
Some Ideas On Guanxi?
• Personal
• Reciprocal obligations
• Continuing over time
if nurtured
• Declining if neglected
• Insider/outsiders
• New friends/old
friends
• Networks of
connections
• ‘Investing’ in guanxi
• Consideration for
others
• ‘People’ orientation
7
WESTERN PERCEPTIONS OF
GUANXI?
• Guanxi = Corruption and Complication
• Building guanxi is expensive and timeconsuming
• Without guanxi nothing can be done
• Difficult to identify who is the decisionmaker
• Negotiations take too long
8
3 levels of relationships
• Individuals are linked by:
– the ‘expressive’ tie - family - distribution by
need
– ‘instrumental’ tie - strangers - earning a living
– ‘mixed’ tie - with non-family people you
expect to interact with into the future
What Are the Social Costs and Benefits of
Guanxi?
• COSTS
– inefficiency if people deal with a limited pool of
others
– corruption may have social consequences
• BENEFITS
– allows transactions to take place in the absence of
trust and effective institutions
10
What Are The Private Costs and Benefits of
Guanxi?
• COSTS
– dinners, gifts (appropriate to the situation) not
usually money, help with kids’ education
• BENEFITS
– access to resources and permissions
– favoured position for getting contracts
11
Mianzi面- face
• Personal pride = basis of an individual’s
reputation and social status
• Never insult, embarrass, shame, yell at, or
otherwise demean a person.
• Neither try to prove someone wrong nor
shout at him in public.
Lijie: surface harmony
•
•
•
•
Polite and courteous
Face and the role of intermediaries
‘Maybe’
Neutral v affective
Keqi: ke=guest, qi=behaviour
• considerate, polite, and well mannered, …
represents humbleness and modesty
• impolite to be arrogant and brag about oneself
or one's inner circle
• seldom express what they think directly and they
prefer a roundabout way
• seldom show their emotions and feelings in
public. They rarely greet people with a
handshake
Inner and Outer Circles
• “self in relation to other” wu lun五倫
• tend to put others into categories more sharply
than Westerners
• Strangers: outsiders, unrelated people, they are
nobody, and the Confucian morality is not
applicable for them. “We are temporarily related
by instrumental relation.”
• more family-oriented and regard helping the
family as an ethical imperative - giving business
to a relative = good not bad
Collective v Individual
• Confucius: humanism, a social order in this
world.世俗和諧秩序
• The individual and the community are closely
related. An individual is not an isolated self
• ren: the highest ideal in Confucianism, through
self-cultivation, a personal attainment.
• ren, 仁 = 二人 (two persons)
• ren can only be found in human relation, within a
community
(Focused) Family以家庭為本位
• Family is the communal system.
• T. Parsons (sociologist), “China is a
familistic community.”
• In the Confucian family, father/son is the
most important.
The Self of a Chinese
• Chinese seldom consider themselves as
individuals, but e.g., the father of his son,
the son of his father, the brother of his
siblings, the husband of his wife…
• In every family, there is a head. i.e, the
grandfather/ father of that family. The rest
of the family respect and listen to his
words.
• In a Chinese family, the order/ structure is
clear.
(Focused) Family
• Because of the clear hierarchy,
individuality is always suppressed
• An individual’s obligation & duty: loyalty to
the family, sacrifice for the family.
• 个人義務,責任: 捍衛家庭,為家人作犧牲.
• An individual’s privilege: lives within the
family structure, relies on & supported by
one’s family.
• 个人權利: 受家庭保護, 被家人支持
(Focused) Family
• Filial 孝, treating your parents well,
provides a predominant identity for
traditional Chinese. It is a fundamental
ideal.
• Filial has a superior status in culture
• Traditional Chinese are not individualistic,
but within the family-based moral system.
Questions
• What does this mean for us?
• (How) will this change in the future?
• How will we know?