EMBA student learns business the Chinese way
Published 29 June 2010
‘I never thought I’d travel to the Far East and find the Wild West.’ For Jan Harper, what prompted this comparison was the sheer speed and scale of the industrial expansion she saw around her in Beijing and the enormous sense of opportunity.
Jan was in China as the first Lancaster Executive MBA student to take part in the ‘Doing Business in China’ programme run by Guanghua Management School, part of Peking University, China’s foremost university and one of Lancaster’s academic partners. Programme participants have a packed programme of daily lectures by academic experts on many different aspects of Chinese economy, history and culture, learn some elementary Mandarin and also visit local companies.
Jan with local tourists at the Forbidden City in Beijing
‘I knew it was something I just couldn’t afford to miss,’ Jan says. Jan now works for Lancashire County Council in ICT business support, but had visited China before, having spent three days in Shanghai during the 1980s when she was working in Japan.
‘The visits were twenty years apart, but it felt so much more. The first time people were on bicycles, this time it was a ten-lane highway.
‘The open programme at Guanghua was a fantastic experience. The two weeks went towards changing your mind-set – it was like immersion. Having a go at the language was one aspect of that. It took you out of your comfort zone. Trying to communicate in another language that’s so different, to understand a culture where the assumptions are so different – and then figuring out how that affects business dealings, how it affects strategic thought and management. It was layer after layer building up over the two weeks, giving you a sense of how this truly is another part of the world.
‘The other thing it gave me was the ability to reflect on my own cultural assumptions and the things I take for granted, such as behaviours, management style, and groups. When we looked at some aspects of Chinese culture I’d be thinking, this is familiar, this is universal. Then with other aspects I’d think no, this I don’t know – this is a new way of thinking to me. So all the while you are reflecting on whether back home you might do that differently, and why. It was a really nice reflective experience as well as being very good preparation for any aspect of doing business in China.’
Sharing the experience with Jan were around 50 other programme participants from around the world, including 16 other MBA students, mainly from the USA and Canada.
Remarkably perhaps, given China’s significance as a global superpower, Jan was not only the sole Executive MBA student but also the only European. ‘I’ve managed to network fabulously,’ she says. ‘My network now is international as a result.’
Visiting the Bird's Nest stadium in Beijing
Company perspectives
The two company visits were to Li Ning, China's answer to Nike and a huge presence in the domestic market, and to Bimbo, originally a Mexican firm, which manufactures bread products with long shelf life. They had managed to gain a toe-hold by selling to family-run corner shops, Jan explains, which enabled them to feed into an existing distribution network. ‘But what they had to do was teach the Chinese what a sandwich was. Because they were selling bread, and the Chinese don’t eat bread. So the Chinese culture is being changed and adapted all the time through commerce, through foreign investment.’
As this programme was, for Jan, an integral part of her EMBA (an elective module), she had to knuckle down to some academic work during the visit.
‘We did three pieces of assessed work before we left. We had to produce a presentation on the last day: an analysis of the business model of Haier, now one of the largest manufacturers of refrigeration equipment in the world and competing with General Electric and Whirlpool. They’re going global and are no longer passive recipients of overseas orders, so their strategy was very interesting. For marketing, we had to pick a product and produce a business proposal outlining how we’d introduce it into China, given the cultural and marketing differences. We also had to interview a local resident about their consumer choices.'
Strategic insights
She feels that the visit will continue to touch on many areas of her own managerial practice:
‘I went out knowing that China was somehow an important player but didn’t have any great depth of understanding. Through the lectures, the cultural immersion and the access we had, I have a far clearer understanding. I’m now thinking strategically and at a global level, and I’ll be able to apply that in my future career, and for anyone I work with. It’s broadened my horizons in terms of what I’d like to do in the future.’
It’s an experience she’d recommend wholeheartedly to any other Executive MBAs with the opportunity to attend. ‘Two weeks fits into annual leave. If you figure it right, and plan ahead, it’s do-able.
‘There’s a focus on strategy and strategic thinking that runs through the EMBA. Those are things you are required to give great thought to, because it’s as a strategist that a lot of your strength as a manager or a leader will lie. Adding a global element like this can only strengthen your strategic thinking. It gives you another perspective and stops you from becoming too inward-looking or parochial – it’s really refreshing and empowering in that respect.’
The Doing Business in China programme is open, on a competitive basis and at additional cost, to both Executive MBA and Full-time MBA students.
See the full range of international exchange programmes for the Lancaster MBA
