(4)Cross-cultural training of managers

An evaluation of a management development programme

for Chinese managers
The Authors
Mohamed Branine, Dundee Business School, University of Abertay
Dundee, Dundee, UK
Abstract
Purpose – The main purpose of this paper is to provide an evaluation of how Chinese managers
perceive and respond to training and management development programmes that have been
designed and delivered by Western experts, and of the extent to which such programmes have
been successful in achieving their learning outcomes.

Design/methodology/approach – Data have been collected from experience of a management

development programme for Chinese managers in 20 state-owned enterprises, and from
interviews with 45 senior Chinese managers and officials who had been involved in a United
Nations Development Programme (UNDP) for the training of Chinese managers.

Findings – It was found that although considerable efforts had been made to train the largest
possible number of managers, there was still a gap between what Chinese managers could do and
what they had been expected to do in order to meet the demands of increasing economic reforms.
Limited resources, inadequate means, traditional ways of learning, power relationships, and
political restrictions are examples of some of the apparent obstacles to the efficient
implementation of Western-designed and delivered programmes of management development in
China.

Practical implications – Management development programmes that do not take into

consideration the cultural context in which managers were brought up and taught to think and
operate may not be successful. It is only when Western providers of management education
understand the culturally and politically bound learning habits of the Chinese they may be able to
introduce some change in management and contribute to the development of China's economic
reform process.

Originality/value – The paper is a further contribution to the ongoing debate on cross-cultural

training and could spark a useful discussion on the relevance of Western-designed management
development programmes in less developed countries in general and in China in particular.
Article Type:
Case study
Keyword(s):
Management development; Cross-cultural studies; Training; Managers; China.
Journal:
Journal of Management Development
Volume:
24
Number:
5
Year:
2005
pp:
459-472
Copyright ©
Emerald Group Publishing Limited
ISSN:
0262-1711
Introduction
Over the 1980s and 1990s, a number of management development programmes for Chinese
managers were commissioned from Western academics and management developers in order to
consolidate the liberalization process of economic reforms. One of these programmes, in which
the author of this paper was involved, was a United Nations Development Programme (UNDP),
which was to provide an opportunity to Chinese managers to understand how Western
management ideas had been developed and implemented in capitalist economies, and to think
about how those ideas might be applied, presumably after modification, within Chinese
organizations. The training programme involved 45 senior managers (12 female and 33 male)
and 105 middle managers (23 female and 82 male) selected from 20 state-owned enterprises. The
average age of the senior managers was 47 and that of the middle managers was 34. More than
65 per cent of the senior managers had no university education but their average work experience
was 28 years. By contrast, more than 55 per cent of the middle managers (most of them were
personnel managers) had university education. By attending the programme, the managers were
expected to develop an understanding of the wider management concepts relevant to
international operations, and then to undertake a project of relevance to their organizations that
incorporated ideas stimulated by participation in the training programme. The programme lasted
for three years and each year a cohort of 15 senior managers and 35 middle managers attended
four two-week residential sessions delivered by an international team of faculty members
(academics) from British, Canadian and US universities. All teaching was through Chinese
interpreters who spoke fluent English and were very competent in simultaneous translation.
A key feature of the UNDP project was the commitment to enhance the managerial competency
of managers within state-owned enterprises. The managers were required to attend a series of
taught module courses in strategic management, human resource management, international
finance and international marketing, and to work on projects focusing on recent change
initiatives that had been undertaken in their organizations. After the training programme was
completed, and the individual projects submitted, a selected number of organizations were
visited for further in-depth interviewing of senior managers who had participated in the training
programme. Eight senior managers (five male and three female) were interviewed. The
experience of being involved in the programme and the analysis of data collected from
interviews led to an enhanced understanding of how training was perceived by Chinese
managers, and how the need for management development was met with a high demand for
Western-designed management development programmes. This paper is based on the evaluation
of that experience, and on the feedback received later from managers who attended the
programme. It starts by explaining the conditions that necessitated the introduction of Western-
developed management knowledge and skills to China, and then describes how the programme
was delivered and how Chinese managers responded to it. The reasons for the problems that
were encountered are discussed, and some suggestions for the future introduction of cross-
cultural training programmes in China and other developing countries are made.
The need for management training and development in China
Economic reforms that followed the open door policy of 1978 created a fast-growing economy
that have led to an unusual, uncertain and uncomfortable working environment for many Chinese
managers who have found themselves in the unprecedented position of having to “think
business”, to improve the quality of their products and services, to compete for better jobs and/or
higher positions, and to face the possibility of losing their employment. This new managerial
context is different from what they had been used to before the reforms, when the government
controlled every aspect of employment, finance, production and distribution through a
bureaucratic web of authoritarian management. Then, there were very few incentives for
improving individual performance because an employee's efficiency and achievement had
limited effect on his/her personal rewards, as everybody was guaranteed an income under the
“iron rice bowl” policy (Warner, 1985). State-owned enterprises had a monopoly in the
production of goods and provision of services, and there was very limited competition between
firms. The issue of quality was never a major problem and there was no pressure on management
or workers to improve the quality of their products or services. It was simply a case of supply
creating demand. Therefore training and management development were not seen as a priority
for organizational performance. It was not until the mid-1980s, when a raft of economic reforms
was under way, that it was realised that the training and development of all employees was
important and that the transfer of management knowledge and skills from Western countries was
necessary for China's economic development and sustainable competitive economic growth.
Consequently, the need for management education and training became apparent at all levels
because there was an acute shortage of sufficiently qualified managers to meet the demands of
economic reforms. Warner (1986) estimated that when the reforms were initiated, around two-
thirds of the Chinese managers had no professional qualifications beyond high-school level.
Also, a study of state-owned enterprises by Chow and Shenkar (1989) found that the managers
who had completed trade or technical training varied from zero in a services enterprise to only as
high as 35 per cent in manufacturing. In describing the need for training in order to improve the
competencies of Chinese employees in the late 1980s, Child (1991, p. 104) wrote:
The training of staff is an inevitable requirement for developing their technical competence to
work with new methods and technologies. It can also be a very important means of showing
recognition of individual worth and engendering a pride in the job, neither of which were much
encouraged in the typical Chinese enterprise.
There was an apparent need for managers who understand market-based and capitalist-oriented
management techniques. This need led the Chinese authorities to introduce the middle and senior
management of state-owned enterprises to Western management education. Consequently, one of
the first Western management training co-operation ventures in mainland China was the
establishment of the National Centre for Industrial Science and Technology Management
Development just after the visit of Deng Xiaoping to the USA in 1979. Subsequently, the
Chinese commitment to the adoption of Western management was given formal approval at the
12th Congress of the Communist Party in 1982, but it was not until the 14th Congress in 1984
that the go-ahead to transfer management knowledge and skills from Western countries was
made explicit (Borgonjon and Vanhonacker, 1994, p. 14). Chinese authorities realized that it was
management knowledge and skills, and not just finance and raw material, which had kept the
wheels of industrialization and technological supremacy running in Western Europe, North
America and Japan. The Chinese became eager to train as many employees as possible, and
Western management became “an acceptable means of introducing elements of a foreign
managerial approach into the Chinese situation” (Child, 1991, p. 104).
Throughout the years of a fast growing economy, especially between 1985 and 1995, there was
an increasingly acute shortage of qualified managers. In response to such shortages, a variety of
management education and training programmes was introduced. As a result, the whole of China
witnessed an eruption of colleges and universities offering a wide range of management and
business courses. For example, in the ten years between 1981 and 1991, the number of
universities that offered Master's level programmes in business and management doubled (Chan,
1994). Most management courses, however, had to be transferred from the West and that led to
“increasingly importing management education from the West” (Newell, 1999, p. 287). In order
to understand the extent to which such initiatives have been successful in transferring Western
management knowledge and skills to Chinese managers it is important to explain first how the
Chinese managers responded to Western-designed and -delivered management development
programmes by describing the experience of one of the UNDP projects in China.
Delivering Western management development programmes in China:
Chinese managers' perceptions and experiences
There have been a number of attempts to answer the question of how Chinese managers learn
(see, for example, Warner, 1992; Child, 1994; Chan, 1994). Most of them seem to agree that the
Chinese managers' approach to learning and training is characterised by the way and the
conditions in which the Chinese, in general, learn their “characteristics”, and by how they
perceive the teacher-student and leader-subordinate relationship. Learning is a process by which
thinking and ways of acting and interacting with others are changed. However that change may
never happen unless knowledge and experience are reflected upon and internalised by the learner
(Kolb et al., 1984; Honey and Mumford, 1989). In this paper, it is assumed that the way the
Chinese managers responded to, and participated in, the UNDP classes provides an example of
how they learn in a structured learning environment that is designed and delivered by Western
scholars and management developers. The managers' response to the programme is indicative of
how they perceived management knowledge, learning and management training methods, and
the teacher-student relationship.
Managers' perception of management knowledge
Most of the managers who attended the programme saw management as a set of guidelines and
techniques that can be learned and practised as given. They very often referred to or described
Western management as “scientific management”, and management in general as a set of
systematic, quantifiable and operational techniques of running an organisation. Their description
did not obviously mean the “scientific management” of Frederick Taylor as known in the West.
When invited to explain the reasons for describing management as “scientific”, most senior
managers and state officials said that it was the best way to describe good management practice.
This perception of management knowledge became more apparent when the managers were
asked to work on a project of relevance to a problem in their organizations. All of them chose
topics that required the use of systematic or step-by-step methods. All of them related the
problems in their work units to the lack of what they called “scientific management techniques”
which, they believed, they could learn from Western management teachers and textbooks.
Although most of the managers were holding senior positions, none of them thought of
developing his/her own thinking of people-oriented and problem-solving issues because that was
not seen to be within the remit of their managerial role and was definitely not what they thought
they had been expected to do during a training programme. It was no surprise to see that the
reports, which they produced supposedly to solve the problems they had faced in their
organizations, were basically a rewriting of lecture notes and textbook material on the chosen
topic. They produced lists of what should be done not because these were required by the cases
they studied, but because their instructors and management textbooks said so. The reports were
translated into Chinese and published in a small book which the Chinese managers and state
officials were very proud of. Five years later, none of the senior managers interviewed had
implemented their projects. Some of them had changed jobs and did not see the need for the
implementation of what they had learned from the programme. This perception of management
knowledge was reflected in, and also affected by, their perception of learning and training
methods.
Managers' perception of learning and training methods
The Chinese managers saw learning as a passive rather than an active process. They preferred
taking notes during lectures even when they were told that the content of the lecture was in the
handouts. They liked those lectures in which they were given a lot of information that they wrote
down and later memorized. They saw group discussions as a waste of time, and seemed
uninterested in discussions that required the expression of individual opinions, especially in the
presence of their leaders and/or elders. In two instances, as soon as the managers were put in
small groups they asked if they could take a break and they were unable to engage in a group
discussion between them. They appreciated highly the structured type of lecturing in which they
were told how to do things, and they insisted on receiving packs of translated texts. It was
apparent throughout the programme that the Chinese managers preferred well-structured and
clearly delivered lectures to learning by themselves from a group discussion or case study
analysis. When they were asked to read a case study, that had been carefully translated, for
discussion two days later only three out 35 managers had read it. The interpreter explained that
they had expected the professor to explain it to them and there had been no need for them to read
it. They focused on the content of the training rather than the process of learning. They relied on
the trainers' knowledge and experience and they seemed to be unable to experience by
themselves the process of analysing business issues and finding solutions to them.
As part of the programme, the managers visited a number of companies during their stay for two
weeks in Manchester, one week in London and three weeks in Vancouver in order to observe and
learn how Western organizations had been managed. The managers, however, saw each visit as
mainly an opportunity to exchange gifts and business cards, and to collect glossy company
brochures that they may ask to be translated and later memorise. At those visits, very little
importance was given to examples of good management practice, or to aspects of organizational
behaviour. As the programme progressed, it became clearer that the Chinese managers did not
appreciate, and therefore not benefit from, all of the teaching methods used to transfer
managerial knowledge and skills to them. Most of the interactive and experiential teaching
methods that are used in training Western managers seemed inappropriate for the Chinese
managers. Management development in general was never seen as an achievement in one's
career development.
Managers' perception of management training in general
Most of the Chinese managers and their officials who attended the UNDP courses paid little
attention to the learning outcomes or to the relevance of the content of the training programme.
The issue of transferability of learning was never seen as a priority for sending a manager on a
training course. Chinese managers never questioned the extent to which the content of the
courses was relevant to their work or important to their career development. It seemed that
training had been undertaken for training's sake, and there had been a tendency to misconstrue
every organizational problem as a training problem. Training was seen as an end in itself rather
than as a means to an end, because of the limited consideration of the learning outcomes and the
transferability of knowledge and skills to the workplace for attending a management
development programme. This became obvious when the managers, interviewed five years later,
said that they had enjoyed attending the programme and they learnt quite a lot but they were
unable to put any of what they learnt into practice because of many internal organizational and
cultural barriers.
One of the interesting observations during the training programme was that the Chinese did not
want to learn what was politically, culturally or practically unacceptable in China. In other
words, the Chinese wanted to be, as Tung (1986, p. 23) put it, “modernised” but not
“Westernized”. Certain attitudes and habits, which are deeply ingrained in Chinese society, are
not expected to change, regardless of how advanced or modernised the country becomes. For
example, when taking a human resource management course they were not interested in the topic
of industrial relations, especially subjects such as collective bargaining and strikes, because they
were seen to be alien to their employee relations tradition. Although more and more foreign
experts and specialists in different fields are invited to work in China to bring new knowledge,
new technology and new skills, they are not expected to introduce any ideas that may be alien to
the established cultural norms and values. Western management knowledge is accepted as long
as it does not seem to interfere with Chinese politics and culture. Chinese state officials and most
of the managers interviewed believed that management knowledge which had been developed in
the West could be used to improve management in China, and they argued that management
systems could be changed without having to change the managers' ideology or culture. This is
clearly in line with the guidelines for the policy of opening China up to the West, which
emphasized the continuity of socialism under the leadership of the Communist Party. This level
of expectation has conditioned the managers' perception of their Western tutors.
Managers' perception of Western tutors
There was a reciprocal and respectful relationship between the participants and their tutors. The
Chinese managers always addressed the Western trainers formally and called them “professors”
or “masters”, while the latter addressed the managers as “Mr”, using the surname, and most of
the communication was through an interpreter. Both parties seemed to have agreed that Western
management could be implemented in Chinese organizations without having to follow a
capitalist route of development or having to change the Communist ideology of the country.
However, that mutual understanding created a socio-cultural barrier between the managers and
their instructors. The Western trainers were over-cautious in their approach in presenting
Western ideas as not to upset the Chinese, while the Chinese managers were too careful in turn to
be seen interested in Western capitalist management education. Since all the teaching was
through an interpreter there were instances when one had to blame the translation for unintended
comments to avoid embarrassment and loss of face.
Discussion: evaluating the experience
The foregoing description of how Chinese managers responded to the programme cannot be
understood without analysing the economic, political and cultural context in which Chinese
organizations operate. It is important for Western academics and managers to try to understand
the conditions in which the Chinese managers are expected to manage, before telling them how
to manage their organizations “properly”. The context in which the managers operate and learn
new skills and knowledge is characterised by the following cultural aspects.
Culture of learning through rote and memorising
To understand how the Chinese learn it is important to understand the process by which they
learn the Chinese language. According to Pun (1992), the process of learning Chinese involves
memorising and repeating the words written in single characters. Each Chinese character has its
own meaning, fixed form and single sound. The Chinese characters are monosyllabic and are
made of different strokes that are different from the English polysyllabic words. At school,
children are taught to memorise each character and its pronunciation. They develop the ability to
visualize and grasp the written text and accept it as knowledge not to be questioned. This process
of learning leads to a holistic rather than analytical way of thinking, and Chinese learners
become very dependent on their teachers – who provide them with information – and seldom
question or criticise what is being provided. Before the reforms, almost every manager was
expected to learn by heart the content of the Red Book (Chinese Communist teachings) and all
the guidelines and regulations set by the central authority. The more Chinese “characteristics”
managers are able to inculcate into their brains the better they became informed. All managers
had to do exactly what they were told to do by their leaders. By this process all Chinese
managers had to think the same way and to speak the same language, having no opportunities for
self-expression or innovation. Since the introduction of economic reforms, there has been little
change in the way Chinese managers and employees have to learn new skills and knowledge.
The Red Book has merely been supplemented, if not yet substituted, by Western management
textbooks.
Culture of conformity and obedience
The Chinese managers' tendency to conform to what their seniors and leaders told them to do
and their respect and unwillingness to disagree with their teachers are all related to the cultural
values of the Chinese. Berrell et al. (2001, p. 32) explained that:
… one major predicament in the development of Chinese management education was the
integration of ideas about harmony and conformity, which are essential components of Chinese
organisational life, into both content and delivery.
Chinese culture has its roots in the teachings of Confucius (551-479 BC), whose thinking still
guides Chinese society with respect to learning, hierarchical relationships, harmonious social and
personal relations, standards of morality and virtue (Hofstede and Bond, 1988; Bond, 1992;
Redding, 1990; Chew and Lim, 1995; Martinsons and Martinsons, 1996). Confucianism is built
around five elements of high respect. These are:
1. nature;
2. earth;
 3. monarch;
4. parents; and
5. teacher.
In Chinese culture the teacher is held in high esteem and has an important status in society. A
study by Chan (1999, p. 298) of how Chinese managers learn found that the “Chinese learners
have been brought up to respect wisdom, knowledge and expertise of parents, teachers and
trainers. They have been socialised to respect highly those who provide the knowledge, and to
avoid challenging those in authority”.
Teachers in China are highly respected and are not to be embarrassed or criticised because of
their knowledge, skills and attitudes. They are to be trusted not only by their students but also by
the community at large. They are expected to determine the learning environment and the
content of the learning, and not to differentiate between their students no matter what the
difference in their capabilities may be. It is the teacher who decides on the learning methods and
the type of knowledge that will be delivered. According to Newell (1999, p. 291):
… the teacher is the expert and the learner can simply learn by listening and following. Dialogue
would be avoided in this situation because dialogue presupposes a process of joint knowledge
production, which would undermine the belief in the expert teacher.
Being obedient and respectful to the teacher or the “master” is the character of a good learner
and is the main principle of a teacher-learner relationship in Confucianism. Challenging the
authority of the teacher is seen to be a sign of disrespect, deviance and unwillingness to excel in
what is being learnt. This is why the managers who attended the management development
programme preferred a trainer-centred approach. They had been conditioned to the teacher-led
approach experienced in their early stages of learning and had not been exposed to other ways of
learning. One of the main problems of teacher-centred learning approaches is the lack of
motivation to learn and to transfer knowledge and skills to the workplace (Fan, 1998; Newell,
1999). This explains the managers' limited attention to the learning outcomes and to the
relevancy of the content of the training programme. They were interested in acquiring
information that was put together by the trainers and they were not able to ask whether the
information was applicable or not to their workplace activities. As a result they did not know
how to relate their knowledge to real situations, as they did not participate fully in their learning
process. The Chinese managers' willingness to take notes, their unwillingness to participate in
group discussions or to disagree with the teacher, and their tendency to memorize textbook
material made them become very dependent on the knowledge and skills of their trainers. They
were unable to formulate solutions to problems encountered in their workplaces, as described in
their projects. They were no more than conformist administrators who struggled to cope with the
problems of organizational change. Such conformist behaviour has created a society based on
hegemonic and power-structured relationships.
Culture of high power distance and high uncertainty avoidance
The Chinese managers' perception of management as a science and their preference of structured
training methods are related to the way in which they perceive power and authority in
organizations as well as the type of qualifications they had acquired before taking up
employment. Most managers who had qualifications had been formally educated and trained in
quantitative knowledge-based subjects such as engineering, statistics, microeconomics, and
mathematics. Learning from the experts' experiences and following the advice of previous
leaders and managers is more important than attempting to develop one's own leaning abilities
through self-development, critical thinking and action learning, because there is greater risk of
failure and individual responsibility for the outcomes from the latter approach than the former.
Most Chinese managers focus on previous successful experiences and the advice of their
superiors in order to avoid failure and then loss of face. They represent a society of high power
distance and high uncertainty avoidance culture (Hofstede and Bond, 1988). Managers of state-
owned organizations seemed comfortable in their administrative and problem-free role in
meeting quantifiable targets set by the government in the national plan. As mere administrators,
who saw management no more than a systematic activity, Chinese managers avoided making
their own decisions. In every aspect of management, their role was to implement specific rules
and methods that can be learnt and easily implemented without having to express personal
opinion. Therefore, their passive and non-critical approach to learning exhibits a lack of
creativity in dealing with, and reacting to, new problems in managerial activities.
Chinese managers are expected to learn how to manage from their seniors who in turn receive
written management “tool kits” in a form of advice, planned projections and slogans that are
derived from the Communist Party manifesto. The role of the Communist Party is still significant
in all managerial aspects. Communist Party members are present at the level of each enterprise
and exercise considerable influence on all decisions no matter how small or trivial they may be.
The influence and involvement of Communist Party members in the management of enterprises
is still apparent despite making enterprise managers more accountable and autonomous.
Managers are given the right to recruit, select, promote, train, demote and dismiss employees
within the limits of an overall state planning system. However, while managers are in charge of
the day-to-day operations, the Party Committee is responsible for making enterprise policies (Lu
and Child, 1996). Although the Party Committee in the enterprise should, in principle, be
separated from administration and production, political cadres continued to be involved because
enterprise managers have been unable to make decisions without the consent of the Party, of
which most of them are members. Therefore it seems that the power of politics and culture
cannot be underestimated in any aspect of managerial work in China, and this explains many of
the attitudes of Chinese managers towards Western management development programmes.
Culture of collectivism and mass education
Not seeing management development as an achievement in one's career development by Chinese
managers is related to the concept of achieving harmony in a collectivist society in which
individual achievement is not a priority (Hofstede, 1980; Adler, 1997). In most Chinese state-
owned enterprises there was no form of training needs analysis, performance appraisal and/or
evaluation of transferability of learning. Education and training were provided to everyone
regardless of individual needs and achievements. Chinese collectivism is guided by a role
system, called wu-lun, that relates to five kinds of relationships that have to be followed in order
to establish a harmonious society. The five relationships are the love and respect between father
and son, the loyalty and duty between sovereign and subject, the affection between husband and
wife, the seniority of the old over the young, and good belief in each other among friends (Chew
and Lim, 1995). This type of relationship requires individuals to adapt themselves to collective
norms, control their emotions, and avoid any kind of competition or public confrontation.
Therefore, training was seen as an end in itself because many employees were rewarded for their
loyalty and achievements by sending them on training courses abroad or in training centres in
luxurious holiday resorts away from the workplace. Child (1991, p. 102) observed that:
Chinese employees tend to regard attendance at a training course as a perk rather than as an
investment which should take account of the potential of the person in relation to the needs of the
organization. This is especially the case when the training is abroad. Chinese candidates for
training have therefore often been selected by their compatriot superiors on the basis of seniority
rather than of capacity and promise.
It is certainly true that the only way for some Chinese managers to have a holiday in Europe or in
the USA is to be sent on a training course abroad. Even in China, training programmes for senior
managers were always held in luxurious holiday resorts where the trainees could relax and have
a good time. The successful completion of a training course was also, in most cases, followed by
promotion to a higher post and/or a transfer to a different location, even though what had been
learnt was never seen to be useful for the new job.
It can be concluded from the above discussion of the cultural aspects that have influenced
management training that the main reason for the apparent divergence between Chinese
managers' perception of training and development and that of the Western developers is the
strength of a localising power of culture. The management of human resources in China is deeply
rooted in the country's history, and reinforced by tacit socialist norms of solidarity, equality,
mutual assistance, and obedience to the law. Such cultural norms and values have continued to
influence aspects of work behaviour and employment relationships despite the consolidation of
increasing economic reforms. The main features of uniquely adapted Chinese models of
management development and training are teacher-centred, culturally bound, and politically
orientated, making it fundamentally different from the learner-centred approach of Western
countries. In the next section an attempt is made to explain what might help facilitate effective
learning in the current culture and situation, and how to go about moving from a trainer-centred
to a learner-centred approach.
Prospects of Western management development in China
The foregoing analysis of the Chinese managers' response to, and perception of, Western
designed and delivered management development programmes confirms some of the doubts
raised by many studies about the transferability of management knowledge from Western to non-
Western countries (Hofstede, 1980; Trompenaars, 1993). For example, Hofstede (1980) argued
that cross-cultural teaching and learning situations are fraught with problems because training
methods are likely to be culture-specific. However, in his definition of Chinese management as a
philosophy, Fukuda (1989, p. 49) argued that the attitudes of the Chinese towards external agents
had been changing due to economic reforms because foreign investments had come to be seen as
a means of increasing the financial strength of the economy and the transfer of technology for
further economic growth. He also argued that foreign involvement in resource extraction and
foreign trade in China had become a necessity for the success of economic reforms and therefore
had to be accepted and encouraged by the Chinese. He concluded that the Chinese had to import,
learn and implement management models that had been successfully introduced in Western
organizations.
It should be noted, however, that Fukuda (1989) was making his predictions on the basis of the
much-admired economic growth and the good relations between China and the Western
countries in the 1980s. The Chinese authorities took a number of restrictive measures in their
dealings with the West after the pro-democracy demonstrations in Tiananmen Square in June
1989. Academic and professional contributions from the West to China continued but were
treated with greater scepticism until the end of 1992, when attempts to encourage the adoption of
Western management methods were renewed with the launch of the Enterprise Management
Modernization Programme (EMMP). The programme was introduced in order to establish an
integrative system for the management of human resources, including the spread of the labour
contract system to all state-owned enterprises, the promotion of training and management
development, and the introduction of databases in personnel management. In the late 1990s, the
reforms programme was strengthened with the introduction of new laws regulating employment,
investment and trade. These new laws, such as the Labour Law of 1995, strengthened the
liberalization of the economy and the openness of China further to the West. Closer cooperation
between Chinese and Western academics became important for the development of an awareness
of the need for Western management knowledge and skills for Chinese managers. The challenges
posed for both Western trainers and Chinese managers are embedded in the answers to the
following questions.
How to move from a trainer-centred to a learner centred approach?
The teacher-centred stage is a process of adopting Western management knowledge and skills,
while the learner-centred stage is the next level of adapting what has been learnt to their working
environment. When moving from the adopting to the adapting stage, trainees are expected to
construct their own learning processes from the situations in which they find themselves. The
process of adopting management knowledge and skills is an information transfer approach which
is very often, in the Chinese context, trainer-centred because Chinese managers focus on the
training content and learn as much as they can from a training programme. But adapting new
management knowledge and skills to organizational needs requires the interpretation of
information into theoretical and practical knowledge. The process of adapting and interpreting
relevant information is very much a learner-centred approach because knowledge is transferred
from theory into practice and from a Western to an Eastern culture. The adapted knowledge may
not be necessarily exactly, and it should not be, the same as the originally adopted information
from the west, but rather the knowledge that is needed in order to meet the levels of quality
required from the Chinese by international standards.
What might help facilitate effective learning in the current situation?
In this process of adopting Western management knowledge and skills and adapting them to
Chinese managers' organizational needs and culture, Western trainers have to play a supporting
role in facilitating knowledge transfer. Having a good understanding of how the Chinese learn is
a basic requirement for being able to transfer management knowledge to Chinese managers.
Trainers should explore the ways by which managers learn to learn effectively and the possibility
of utilising a wider range of training methods in order to develop the potential capabilities of
every manager. Berrell et al. (2001) suggested that one of the ways of involving the trainees in
the learning process is the use of Chinese-based case studies to transfer Western management to
Chinese managers. They argued that the case study had to be “home grown”, but they admitted
that “creating knowledge about Chinese organizations […] is extremely difficult” (Berrell et al.,
2001, p. 35). The process of adopting and then adapting requires the use of Western case studies
in the adopting stage and then Chinese case studies in the adapting stage. While the use of case
studies can be helpful in introducing managers to experiences of management, in a historical
context, the use of a variety of training methods to facilitate effective learning is important in the
current situation. In the future, many Chinese managers Will have been exposed to Western
management education before taking up managerial positions. There has been a steady increase
in the number of Chinese graduates from Western universities as well as many graduates from
Chinese universities that offer Western-style MBA programmes. These graduates will constitute
the future generation of Chinese managers who will eventually become the leading examples of
modern managers in China.
How does learning take place outside the classroom?
Management development does not take place in the classroom only. It is a continuous learning
process which has also been facilitated by the interaction and operation of Chinese managers
with their Western partners in joint ventures, the settlement of an increasing number of overseas
Chinese in mainland China, and the international competitive pressures for better quality
products and services that necessitate the development of a Chinese workforce that thinks
globally and acts locally. International trade with China is set to increase following its
membership of the World Trade Organization. Foreign investments through the establishments
of joint ventures and new foreign companies are on the increase, as China seems to have reached
a point of no return in its economic reforms policy. A study of 20 joint ventures by Yan and
Child (2002, p. 119) found that local Chinese managers were “enthusiastic to learn about partner-
specific knowledge and resource inputs through the IJV (International Joint Ventures)
partnership”. They concluded that:
… the common mechanisms for achieving the Chinese partner's desired “objectives of learning
from the foreign partner” include the appointment of senior managers to IJV management
positions, the creation of communication channels with their Chinese parent companies via
reporting lines and an increase in the frequency of informal visits to strengthen the relationship
between the venture and its parents (Yan and Child, 2002, p. 121).
Conclusion
In the People's Republic of China, the liberalization of the economy required managers to make
market-based decisions and to have management knowledge and skills that are acquired mainly
through learning from Western-based management development programmes. It has become
apparent, however, that the main obstacles to the implementation of western management
training programmes in China are related to the difficulty in understanding Chinese managers'
approach to learning and perception of management as a discipline. The Chinese approach to
learning and management development is teacher-centred and culturally and politically
orientated because of the status bestowed on teachers and the way Chinese learn their language.
In China, teachers and trainers are expected to dominate the process of learning and have a
significant power in influencing the learning environment. The learning is generally passive
rather than active, and based on taking notes and memorising them. This passive and trainer-
centred approach has created a number of obstacles to the transfer of management knowledge
and skills from the West to China. This paper has suggested ways of how to move from a
teacher-centred to a learner-centred stage in the Chinese context. It has been argued that the
teacher-centred stage is a process of adopting Western management knowledge and skills while
the learner-centred stage is the next level of adapting what had been learnt to their working
environment and organizational needs. This process is facilitated by the increasing number of
managers taking business and management courses inside and outside China, the interaction of
Chinese managers with their Western partners in joint ventures, and the settlement of an
increasing number of Western educated overseas Chinese in China as managers, experts and
entrepreneurs.
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