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...Paternalism is actually the "central pillar of the Confucian design for social order". Confucian philosophy is distinctively Chinese, a culture of the Chinese that had been practiced since ages ago. In fact, "Confucius's teachings on personal ethics have been established among Chinese as a set of pragmatic rules for daily life". "In Confucian philosophy, the stability of the state depends on the maintenance of order within the millions of separate families of which it is constituted. The power of the father figure, and the legitimacy of his authority, come to be enhanced in such a system". Thus we can see, this practice of high reverence and respect for the employer is, in reality, an extension of the Chinese culture. The values and ideas were long imbued in the Chinese society. The second distinct Chinese business practice is that of Personalizm. "Personalizm refers to the mechanism used by a society to establish connections for the conduct of everyday affairs". The main idea behind this is, in fact, networking or in mandarin, guan-xi. Unlike the west, networking is a very important feature of Chinese business practice. In fact, "the Chinese business environment can be best described as a series of interlocked networks. In the West there is networking as only an aspect of ongoing business; amongst the Chinese, there is networking before a business is started and then networking takes a leading role again in further promoting the business". Thus it is established that guan-xi is a key element of Chinese business practice, in fact, it is a natural thing to do. To enable such a practice, the influence of Chinese culture is important. Guan-xi is based on numerous values such as mutual obligations and trust. These values are some of the teachings of Confucius, which had been very much practiced by the Chinese. "In an extended family, members are mutually obligated to help one another; a wealthy member helps a poor one". Likewise such values were brought into the Chinese business arena, with members of the business world mutually obligated to help one another, more so if there were any form of relations such as "dialect, kinship or common origin in a clan or village". And it is precisely such relations that trust is based upon as well. Last but not least, "the concept of fraternity pervades the Chinese business scene". Chinese business placed a lot of emphasis on brotherhood that has to some extent relations to the above point of networking as well. In the Chinese business scene, one can see numerous Chinese associations and guilds; this is especially prevalent in overseas Chinese businesses. "Some of these associations are formed among the members of the same clan, dialect group, educational group, physical culture group, music and drama group, and so on". Of these associations, more than 50 percent are associated with the business community. These associations very often were established as a form of support, security and mutual help for each other. As stated, such associations are especially prevalent in overseas Chinese businesses...
Essay Empire
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