Cultural profile : China and France

Résumé du document

China is emerging today as one of the major global economies thanks to its dynamic business activity and a large working population. China is known in the world for its various ceremonies and etiquette dating from the first emperors. It is necessary to understand the basic Chinese cultural, ethical and business values in order to conduct business successfully in this country. To understand the cultural profile of China we must analyse the key concepts and values of this culture, based on Confucianism, referred to as Guanxi, Mianxi, and Keqi by linking them to the dimensions of Geert Hofstede, Fons Trompenaars and Edward Hall. France is one of the largest Western European developed countries with the sixth-largest economy in the world. It is a nation known for its past with legacies dating from the Declaration of The Rights of Man and of The Citizen to the creation of the European Union. The country benefits from a wealth of landscape and identities influenced by centuries of cultural and historical amalgamation. France is a nation that experiences an immense pride in its history and unique culture in various domains like arts, literature or philosophy. Its cultural identity plays a crucial role in the business culture of the country, where appropriate conduct, mutual trust and understanding are very important.

Extraits

[...] The French culture praise organisation, and attention to rules and regulation. Every risk, in business as well as in any everyday task, must be avoided to ensure a successful enterprise. The concepts of uncertainty avoidance help us to define new orientations of the French culture, based on Hofstede, Trompenaars and Hall theories: Uncertainty avoidance orientation: this concept defines a society's tolerance for uncertainty and ambiguity; it also tends to refer to man's search for Truth. In France, the uncertainty avoidance is very important and define its members as uncomfortable in a unstructured situation, defined as novel, unknown, surprising, unusual French people try to minimize the possibility of such situation by applying strictly all rules and laws, safety and security measures. [...]

[...] The uncertainty avoidance concept illustrates the fact that French people need to control the future and avoid all difficulties. For that, they organise their time, plan the future and make sure to be well understood by their fellow members of their companies or business partners. When an unplanned situation occurs, they tend to get very emotional and express their mecontentment or ‘fear' of the unknown. To conclude on the cultural profile of France, we could saiy that the French culture is driven by three major concepts: the centralisation, the individualism and the uncertainty avoidance. [...]

[...] Cultural profile : China and France Part the cultural profile of China China is emerging today as one of the major global economies thanks to its dynamic business activity and a large working population. China is known in the world for its various ceremonies and etiquette dating from the first emperors. It is necessary to understand the basic Chinese cultural, ethical and business values in order to conduct business successfully in this country. To understand the cultural profile of China we must analyse the key concepts and values of this culture, based on Confucianism, referred to as Guanxi, Mianxi, and Keqi by linking them to the dimensions of Geert Hofstede, Fons Trompenaars and Edward Hall. [...]

[...] Monochronic culture: In monochromic cultures, time is seen as a line and schedules are very important as they can help to organise life in order save time. Moreover, in these cultures people are task orientated, they prefer to do one thing at a time and adhere to time commitments like appointments and deadlines. They also believe they can plan the future to improve thing, faith is not acceptable and organisation is a mean to fight against it. To avoid all kind of risks, French people have developed a monochromic attitude to time. Planning in every circumstance is a way to control the future and avoid difficulties. [...]

[...] In the actual world of business, for example, the unlimited and uncontested authority of the boss in front of their employees illustrates this centralisation. The concept of centralisation helps us to define specific orientations of the French culture, based on Hofstede, Trompenaars and Hall theories: High power distance orientation : The power distance defines the extend to which the less powerful members of an organization or a family accept that power is unequally distributed. This inequality is accepted by the leaders but also by the followers. [...]