Customer Reviews

The China Executive: Marrying Western and Chinese Strengths to Generate Profitability from Your Investment in China

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Our company has made a good number of multi-million-dollar investments in China in the past decade. While a couple of them have been doing fine, most have been struggling since day one. As the director in charge of these operations, I have been trying to understand why but I am puzzled.

I have also tried to make sense of what happens in China by seeking help from classic Western business theories (such as those developed by Peter Drucker and Michael Porter) as well as a number of China business books (such as Tim Clissold's Mr China and James McGregor's One Billion Customers), but I find that they are of limited help because I still struggle to grasp the big picture.

For example, I find Drucker's management-by-objective philosophy too rigid in China because local people do not like to act according to pre-determined plans; Porter's five-force competition and three-point strategy models too static because, apart from significant regional differences, the China business environment is characterised by rapid changes in regulation, competition and technology.

Meanwhile, Mr China has made me disheartened (are the terrifying stories going to happen to me as well, given that the author offers no clues on how to deal with such challenging situations?) and One Billion Customers has made me confused (are the Chinese really one of the most individualistic and selfish peoples in the world, given their apparent valuing of and great attention to human relationships?)

The good news is that, with The China Executive in my hand, I am not puzzled any more! Not only do I now understand why my fine China operations are doing fine, but also how I might turn around the poorly-performed ones.

If you are contemplating investing in China or have already made investment there, this book is for you.

Jack Welch, "manager of the century" according to Fortune, wrote in his latest global best-seller Winning:

"At speaking engagements, I am often asked what industries I would recommend to college grads and MBAs today. I tell them to look into companies doing business at the intersection of biology and information technology. And I suggest they learn everything they can about China because it will permeate every aspect of business in their lifetimes."

Yet, although thousands of business books are published in any year, most of them are written by "get-rich-quick tipsters, motivational preachers and one-minute-solution merchants", as the FT's Michael Skapinker has described them. In fact, the situation is so bad that the Financial Times and Goldman Sachs decided in 2005 to establish an annual award for the world's best business book.

I vote The China Executive for this year's award.

To be sure, there are an increasing number of books published on China business, including the highly publicised The China Dream, Inside Chinese Business, Doing Business in China, The Chinese Century, Mr China, The Chinese Tao of Business, One Billion Customers and, most recently, China Shakes the World. But while these books enhance our understanding of China business, they at the same time add much confusion because they are either not grounded in the authors' direct experience of doing business in China or do not link the China business reality with the well-developed Western business and management theories. For example, if it is so hopeless to invest in China as The China Dream depicts, why are most Western investors not leaving China? True, the China business reality can be as tough as Mr China presents, but surely the question is: how to rise to the China challenge? And if virtually everything you hear about China is true, so is the opposite (John Frankenstein, University of Hong Kong), how do we find their limits?

In The China Executive, you will find answers to these and many other crucial questions. I have particularly appreciated the fact that the book has exploded many fashionable myths about doing business with China, such as the collectivism of the Chinese and their negotiating advantage in dealings with Western business people, which have been created because many so-called "China hands" have really been a prisoner of their own culture - whether in a professional or philosophical sense.

As the author observes, "China cannot thoroughly be understood from either a Western or a Chinese viewpoint. To grasp its nature requires an orbital, historical view of both the West and China." There is no doubt that the author has successfully uncovered the nature of China and has demonstrated its profound implications for business.

Given also China's growing part in global business and as the world's Leadership Guru Professor Warren Bennis endorses, I cannot see any reason why any existing and future business executives will not find this book valuable.

Indeed, we may simply conclude that China has advanced over the past two-and-a-half decades as a result of its learning from the West. Isn't it time for us Westerners to ask: what can we learn from China so that we can succeed in the 21st century?

I recommend The China Executive, because you will find the answer to the above question in the book. In fact, you may find that The China Executive is your business bible in the age of globalisation because it will stimulate you to develop a global mindset, which is the start of a successful global business journey. And a global mindset is "an elevated, enlarged mindset that seeks to combine the strengths of the Western mindset and those of the Eastern mindset."

I have read many business and management books during my MBA study. I find The China Executive, which is full of original and stimulating ideas and above all wisdom, extremely valuable in helping me link what I have learnt in the classroom with what I am experiencing on the China ground.

For all this, I thank the author!

This is an outstanding book because Dr Wang has demonstrated an ability to generate original, durable thinking on the hard task of making a successful investment in China.

Given this challenge and the lack of books that reveal its nature, it is obvious that Western executives will greatly benefit from reading the book, in which the author has successfully made a connection between China and the West - their histories, cultures, worldviews and, above all, their implications for business - in the most practical way.

I guarantee that with this book in your hands, China will never be a puzzle for you again!

But the book is not just a practical guide for practising executives; it also offers ideas and concepts that challenge business management theories taught at Western business schools.

For example, it extends Peter Drucker's results-oriented business orientation, which has produced not only material results but also people who are driven by such results, to one that is based on both results and relationships (which are really two sides of the same coin). Drawing on Sun Tzu's strategy wisdom, it extends Michael Porter's competitive force-based strategic framework to one that sees business success as being determined by moral, temporal, spatial, organisational and leadership forces, and his three generic strategic positions to four levels of strategic advantage that are pursued as a moving target.

At the heart of these ideas and concepts is actually intuition, which Henry Mintzberg, another business guru, has long advocated against the analysis-based mainstream business school thinking. (As a business school professor, he is really a courageous rebel.) But Mintzberg has achieved limited success in connecting intuition with analysis in a theoretical form. And this is where Dr Wang has, in my view, made the most important contribution.

He has demonstrated the role of intuition in dealing with Chinese people, in reading the dynamics of the China market, in finding a suitable business partner, in running a business organisation and, more generally, in achieving global business success.

As such, The China Executive is required reading for every business school student, whose business career will not only be related to China but also inseparable from globalisation.

Business with China takes many forms. Whether you are considering import/export, technology transfer, licensing, joint venture or wholly-foreign owned investment, this book will guide you to success.

Of course, this book is not just about these business arrangements; it is about the essence of them. As this book shows, any business arrangement not only is an abstract idea about the future but also has people at its heart.

All too often, Western business people (and professors) only see the idea side of business, with the people side largely ignored.

In our homeland, this may not cause too big a problem (although bringing the best out of every individual is becoming more and more important). But in a non-Western environment where people have different ways of thinking and want different things from life, mastering the hearts of people is really the key to business success.

This is, in my view, where most books on China business have got muddled up, and why I say The China Executive is "A wonderful book on China business!"

I was assigned this book for my MBA - Global Management class, so I read it thoroughly.

I loved it, by far the most practical business book on China (there are now many that have been published on the subject)!

First, it has helped me place all those Western business concepts and techniques in the China context, which is central to global management.

Second, because this book tackles China right at its heart (which requires a thorough understanding of both Western and Chinese civilizations, instead of a long tradition of Western theorists only too willing to see their own prejudices confirmed by what they imagine to be the Chinese experience), I feel that all the other books on China I have read are but footnotes to this book.

Recommendation: to understand China, start with this book.

I highly recommend this book.

As a US business exec who has been traveling to China for over 5 years, I can honestly say this is one of the best books I've read for helpful and practical insight for executives traveling to China for business.

There are many books available that address cultural comparisons between East and West including both social, and business situations. However The China Executive focuses exclusively from a business perspective and more specifically; how to understand cultural perspectives and work with strengths in each to be the most communicative and effective in business dealings.

It is well written with an easy to read writing style. The cover text under the title "Marrying Western and Chinese Strengths to Generate Profitability from Your Investment In China" sums the book up quite well.

I met Wei Wang at the Sixth Annual China Conference, held at the Port of Los Angeles on September 12-13. The conference (thechinaconference dot com), presented by Seattle-based, eighty-five-year-old Cargo Business News, not only provided each attendee with an autographed copy of Wang's book The China Executive but also had him give the closing keynote speech to several hundreds of executives from the global logistics industry. His speech, entitled China and the Human Side of Business and supported by a series of compelling slides, was the highlight of the entire conference.

In particular, I found his presentation of ancient Chinese wisdom (e.g. "Virtue is the root; wealth is the consequence", "Without self-interest, your interest succeed" and "Without expectations, you will be strong; with tolerance, you will be big.") extremely eye-opening. And if you don't know how to deal with your Chinese partner, this one will surely inspire you: "Before marriage know your partner's weaknesses; in marriage use your partner's strengths."

Of course, you will better understand the above with the help of his book, which I managed to read after the conference. And I must say that it is a pioneering book of real value and wide appeal!

Indeed, China's rise is transforming global politics, the global economy, and societies worldwide. So, everybody will arguably need to develop responses to meet the China challenge.

But first and foremost, business people worldwide - in particular Western business people due to our long-held superiority in the areas of technology and management - have to understand China if we want to achieve sustained business success in the age of globalisation, in which China is in the driving seat.

Wang's book contains everything you will need to know about China - above all what it means for business in a practical sense. Of course, the book's most original contribution is to connect Chinese civilisation with Western civilisation, thereby demonstrating the vital importance of combining intuition with analysis, leadership with management, relationships with results, and ultimately Chinese human-centered, integrated worldview with Western things-oriented, divided worldview.

I strongly recommend The China Executive because it has the potential to change how we see the world. And once we can see the world from a truly global perspective, every difficulty we experience in our endeavour to do business with China becomes an opportunity.

I am now in my 6th year of running an enterprise in Tianjin, PRC. I wish I had had this book in the beginning, it would have saved a lot of grief. I can vouch for its usefulness to the manager entering China for the first time or anyone else, even an "old China hand" such as I. This is one of two books I highly recommend for anyone interested in doing business in China. I have ordered a book for both of my associate deans.

I bought a copy of The China Executive over Christmas holidays in 2006 to develop my understanding of China business. Since then, I have recommended other professors on China business this wonderful book, which contains almost everything we need to teach our students.

But the republication of Prof Michael Porter's "The Five Competitive Forces That Shape Strategy" in the January 2008 issue of Harvard Business Review has compelled me to write this review.

Porter's five-force model has dominated courses on strategy in business schools since the article and his book Competitive Strategy were published in 1979 and 1980 respectively.

But a re-reading of Porter's article and a more careful reading of the last chapter of The China Executive has made me think that it is time to replace Porter's five-force model with Wang's five-force model.

Porter's five-force model is about competition to the extreme. According to Porter, strategy is about coping with competition; managers only regard their direct competitors as competition; as such, they should consider customers, suppliers, potential entrants and substitute products as four other competitive forces.

But such hyper-competitive thinking surely leads to corporate greed. As a company takes everybody as a competitor (or even enemy) and tries to do everything possible to maximize its own profits by minimizing others' (or even beating them down), its profitability may improve in the short term, but surely at some point in time it will crash because there will be nobody left who is happy to do business with it. Isn't Enron an example?

Furthermore, thinking around the five-force model does not lead to effective actions because all five forces are beyond a company's control. Competitors will always do what they like to do. Customers and suppliers are much better to be treated as partners, but still the world is so big that they can always choose somebody else. Whatever barriers to entry (from hundreds of millions of dollars for a car plant to thousands of dollars for a book publisher), new competitors will always come up. And who can stop substitute products from occurring?

By absorbing the strategic wisdom of Sun Tzu, whose 2,500-year-old book has proven to be the most insightful ever in the field of strategy, Wang has come up with his five-force model, which is presented in the last chapter of The China Executive.

The five strategic forces are: business purpose (the moral force of a business), business climate (the temporal force of a business), business location (the spatial force of a business), business organization (the organizational force of a business), and business leader (the command force of a business).

Consider business purpose. Isn't this or answer to the question of "to what extent, are we still creating real value for society?" what the new CEOs of Merrill Lynch and Citigroup should be contemplating? (By the way, Goldman Sachs has not exposed to the sub-prime crisis because it did not abandon itself to the lure of easy money - proof of the power of the moral force of a business.) Indeed, if they can somehow organize their thinking around what is important to creating that value despite all the incoming distractions, crisis and complexity crashing down all around them, then they will have a sustainable model for their business.

Overall, as the subtitle of Porter's article suggests, his model is about helping a company "stake out a position" within a precisely-defined local industry. It might well have been helpful to the largely predictable American industries in the early 1980s. But entering the 21 century and in a world that is now "flat", what American businesses face are the strategic challenges of how to cross national borders, how to understand local aspirations, how to have good partnerships...

In a word, strategic thinking in this new world is about how to prosper together rather than how to maximize one's own profits at the expense of others, and this is why I think Wang's model is more valuable and deserves to be published by Harvard Business Review.

For perspective - I am part of a team investigating China and made my first trip to China 6 months ago. This book is well written and gives a good quick overview - it is weak on details, however my limited experience in China shows a very dynamic situation with each company different. Flexibility is key - this book will give an excellent foundation to be better prepared as business situations are approached. Each team member has purchased a copy of this book and it is frequently referenced as we work to clarify and grow our understanding in China