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It's not rewarding bad behavior when you take it into account in the deal. Moralization is useless when you do business with different cultures. When you noti
by Nokinside 8y ago
It's not rewarding bad behavior when you take it into account in the deal. Moralization is useless when you do business with different cultures. When you notice something what would be out of ordinary in your culture, you estimate the cost and find out how locals solve it. Different cultures have different kinks and people living there know to adjust to them. It can be fun to figure out how other cultures function.
From a naive Finnish perspective you could see American business culture as dishonest. People lie all the time and promise things that are false and you need massive amount of legalese or they fuck you over. When they say something, you can't trust it as much as you can trust a Finn (or Swede). American way is to lie to your face in pre-negotiation but then be truthful to the legally binding agreement. Germans or Belgians are more truthful beforehand and they stick to deals better without legal enforcement looming over them, but require more detailed written deals than Finns. Who is right? Should we punish Americans for their behavior or adopt their culture?
Of course not. You must understand that that the level of acceptable exaggeration, overpromise and bullshit and trickery is strictly culture dependent and relative. Someone is dishonest if they "lie this amount above average" in their cultural context. After you make an adjustment, you know how to get the truth.
Chinese manufacturers have the capability to stick to standards, take responsibility and deliver high quality stuff. It's just more dependent on personal relationship. Just placing an order has less trust as default. Either you develop "quanxi" with your suppliers or work trough some third party that understands both worlds. Third party understands what you need and knows how to get it from the Chinese suppliers because they have a relationship.
Chinese pay the cost that comes with their business culture. They can't network as fast as you can in open western cultures with more default trust between strangers.