The Research On Cross-Culture Management In Sino-Foreign Joint Ventures

With the opening policy carried out in the last 25 years, China has experienced a fastest era in its economic development throughout the last century. According to the statistical information, China's GDP has surpassed 10,000 billion yuan in 2002, which is 17.5 times more than that (568.98 billion yuan) in 1978. The Foreign Direct Investment in China, including Sino-foreign JVs and wholly foreign-owned companies, have become the major force to stimulate China's economy. Up to the end of 2002, 424,196 foreign-funded companies have been approved by Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation, which $447.966 billion's foreign capital has been adopted, more than half of the contracted amount ($8280.60 billion). With China's entry into the WTO in 2001, Foreign Direct Investment(FDI) and China's foreign trade are increasing more rapidly, which makes China the hub of manufacturing industry and one of the biggest country in foreign trade.However, the foreign investors bring to China not only the capital, technology and updated management, but also different cultures and values. So Joint Ventures are where capital, technology and management from both sides merge, but also where the cultural differences from both sides conflict. In many cases, cultural difference will have a negative impact on Joint Ventures. So this research, which is from the viewpoint of cross-culture management, focuses its study on the management characteristics of different countries resulted from different cultures, the performance and causes of cultural difference in JVs, and the influence of cultural difference on JVs' business and management. This study is through two practical cases, one case is about Hot Stream Storage Water Heater(Chengdu) Liability Limited Co. for which I have been working in 8 years, and the other is ChangAn Ford Automobile Company where I have been with for a short time. The aim of cross-culture management is not to eliminate the cultural difference but to manage with it. The cross-culture management is not designed to create a cultural furnace, but to create an organization where all the strengths from different cultures will be reserved and be beneficial to the development of the organization. Based on these studies and complemented by my 10-odd years of experience in JVs, I propose that it is an effective solution of cross-culture management to establish a "Mixed Culture" with all the advantages in each culture reserved so that JVs' competitiveness will be improved. The research will be helpful for more and more JVs and foreign-owned companies when they are dealing with the problems arising from cultural difference.Owing to the limitation of time and my competence, there may have some problems in this thesis, so I'd like to invite your comments and suggestions. Thank you!...