le blog konaxisatshenzhen

Dear Friends and Colleagues:

Last week I returned from a brief trip to China. I was privileged to deliver a short paper at a conference in Shanghai. The theme of the conference was how China can develop a “harmonious society”. Our panel was asked to reflect on how business ethics and corporate social responsibility could contribute to that end.

The vision of a “harmonious society”, I was told, is taken from the writings of Hu Shih, a noted Chinese writer of the 1920’s. Hu Shih in his time was seeking to describe a modern China, part of the global community, but one that still retained a sense for order and achieved better livelihoods for all. Today, the Chinese leadership seeks something similar: use of free markets and participation in a global economy but with restraint on abuses of power and self-seeking exploitation of others.

The discussions of how to build this China seem genuine and open to reflection and new ideas.  It is my hope that as the CRT develops its relationships with Chinese colleagues we might be able to contribute constructively some well-reasoned conclusions for their consideration.

In my paper I suggested that indeed business ethics and CSR as conceived and practiced in Europe and America could easily fit within a Chinese moral framework leading to the desired “harmonious society”.  I suggested that China has in fact two major normative models for business ethics – one derived from Confucius and Mencius and the other derived from the recommendations of Mo Di.

The Confucian tradition that I specified is contained in The Analects, and not in later writings that conform to the influence of Imperial pretensions. This tradition I consider to rest on ethics and the expectation of responsible individualism.

The normative model provided by Mo Ti, on the other hand, I consider to rely on compliance mechanisms only. Mo Ti lived and wrote after Confucius and did not agree with his expectations of individual moral potential. Mo Ti thought little of individuals and, accordingly, recommended that social and political order be achieved through forced compliance with the will of superior authority.

China could use a Mohist compliance approach to seeking a “harmonious society”, but at a cost of lost creativity and restricted freedoms. Alternatively, use of the Confucian/Mencian approach would build a “harmonious society” within a framework of individual excellence.

Finally, I suggested that President Hu’s recent recommendation of 8 do’s and don’t’s was an attempt to blend Mohist pessimism with the more optimistic Confucian/Mencian approach.

For those of you who might be interested in the complete paper, a copy of Two Traditional Chinese Normative Models for Business Ethics has been attached to this email (a 19-page PDF) and also posted on our website (www.cauxroundtable.org) under publications and papers.

Sincerely yours,
Stephen B. Young
Global Executive Director
Caux Round Table

It's already 2007, a happy beginning.

I said this beginning is happy because Lady Killer and I have already made a whole plan for this year, how to get more business and how to expand our office, very detailed. This makes me very happy. A Chinese saying, a good beginning equals to 50% success, that I agree with.

Last weekend I hung out with my friend who comes back for new year from Canada, it was a wonderful experience. He took me to meet some of his friends and parters who are taking an MBA course, the sposor is a joined form of Beijing Uni and HK Chinese Uni. All the MBAs are very good at  impressing themselves and analysizing, market expand, strategy setting, etc. Meeting them let me feel in Uni. class, learnt much.

After dinner we go to a club for game. It's named "Play Kill Club", very cool. Shame to say that was my first time to play such games, even though this has been popular for some years in China, such as Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu, Kunming, Xi'an and so on.  It's a kind of adult game(not in that way...) which requires the players must have strong logical thought and be grow up.

It's heard that this game is from Organizing and Behavior Course from MBA program. Quite interesting.

I got two times for that very night.

The general rules are: www.pkclub.com.cn (sorry, all is in Chinese)

1) four killers, four policemen and four normal citizens are in the game, or three of each instead. It's for group;

2) there are some special way to ask killer to kill people (can be normal citizen or police), then everyboday needs to say sth to proove that him/herself is inculpable. Then all the participators decide who will be out according to every candidates' words, by votes.

In the first play, I got the role as a kill (cool me!). But I almost knew nothing about the rules. So I just followed the other killers to decide who would be dead. Unluckly, the person who was killed was a police and her "last words" (there are three players can leave last words.) said that I would be a killer and need to proove I am inculpable about this kill thing. Again, it's my first time to take a part in this game, so I didn't say anything. But that round, I got alive because others couldn't make any judgement whether or not I was a killer or anything else.

But I got out for the second round, because I had to say sth as all the other players' request. I was nervous and didn't remember what other players said in the first round, so my speach was very poor and I was "dead".

I found it's cool to join that play, so I decided to play for once more.

The second play, I was just a normal citizen. I found that normal person (means someone has no special power issued by the sponsor) was not easy to find out who was whom. But this play was very cool.  Because the killer group decided to kill a killer! This would add the difficulties.  Then all the polices and general citizens felt very hard to find out all the killers. At the end of this play, almost the citizens got voted to die. So, the killers won.

So, I am not going to describe the details here, not easy. The best way is to experience it! 

What I learnt from this game is, it's a kind of communication. People say trueth and people lie, you need to figure out which is real or not. This is very clost to business, coz all the participators always communicate with others and need to get the useful info. from what they said and what they did. It's pretty hard. It's why this game requires adults to join, better with college education.

From that game, I found the MBAs are quite good at speach and logical analysis, which I feel very proud of them. I think they will be someone in near future, just because of their behaviour.

BTW, I think the pkclub's business pattern is good to consider in other countries, but I am not sure whether or not there have been some?

You can see, Shenzhen locates between Hongkong and Guangzhou on the east and south side of China. It's a very young city, aged about 40years.

Shenzhen City's development is a milestone for China's recent developing. Thanks to Mr. Xiaoping DENG, a very famous politician in China's recent history.

As an economic city in China, Shenzhen is very special. She isn't like Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou who have huge histories. In the past, people like saying Shenzhen is a desert of culture, because people come here for making money. So, in the past 20-30years, more and more people came here for expanding business. The result is to make her crazily developed without "cultural improvement"

So, I couldn't help wondering: what's the so-called CULTURE? To me, it is SHENZHEN CULTURE, economic growth and almost no life tinge. It's easy to understand, when people are busy with making money, they have no time thinking about comfortable living environment.

But things are getting much better in the past two-three years. If you stay under a tree in the street, you can see people have already slowed down and tried to enjoy life. There are more and more dancing classes around some living commitees, Latin, royal...

I remember when I went to book stores during 2002-2004, there are always some hot-sell books about economic, stock market, management, money-making, blah blah blah, which make me heart broken. I was very supriced that people didn't even read anything else, just those? Is it the reason called "desert of culture"?

From the way people said that name, I guessed most of them don't like Shenzhen.

But some years later, things changed. We have "reading month" for a whole month in each Dec., which is supported by Shenzhen government. There will be a contest about the books you have read. The winner will be awarded. And now, you can find more and more travel books/magazines in the book store. And, in some living area, you can even find cartoon books for rent! ( my favorite ^^)

So, things changed, in a good way.

How do you think about Shenzhen city? Is it deserted culturally like nothing?

Don't forget that keep your attitude active, then you can find its active and wonderful facet. ^^