HBR(Dec2007, Vol. 85 Issue 12)上的一篇短文：Mao's Pervasive Influence
Harvard Business Review(Dec2007, Vol. 85 Issue 12)上的一篇短文：Mao's Pervasive Influence on Chinese CEOs由于我试了几次都传不上附件只好复制在这里了。
Title: Mao's Pervasive Influence on Chinese CEOs. By: Li, Shaomin, Yeh, Kuang S., Harvard Business Review, 00178012, Dec2007, Vol. 85, Issue 12
Database: Business Source PremierMao's Pervasive Influence on Chinese CEOs
Section: forethought
GLOBAL PARTNERS
Executives of multinationals partnering with Chinese firms can benefit by being alert to Mao Zedong's lingering influence on some of the country's most successful executives. One leadership tactic, in particular, can undermine a joint venture.
Our research on the practices and attitudes of Chinese CEOs offers abundant evidence that Mao's principles continue to influence top executives: All but one of 15 CEOs we interviewed told us they often turned to Mao's teachings for management ideas. Consider the manner in which Mao wielded power: by keeping the country in a state of chaotic flux, often playing one group against another. To make a change in the political landscape, Mao would orchestrate a movement that sucked in the entire population, such as the campaign against Liu Shaoqi (the number two leader in the Chinese Communist Party) and his allies, then resort to a mixture of agitation, networking, and rallying to mobilize people at the grass roots to denounce certain cadres, or senior officials. Most of the cadres would be forced out of their jobs, and Mao would rehabilitate a few. Deng Xiaoping was denounced in this manner, rehabilitated, and denounced again.
In our study, conducted with Garry D. Bruton of Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, we found several Chinese chief executives who employ a business version of that tactic: They cement their authority by keeping even senior managers in a constant state of uncertainty, sometimes mobilizing lower-level employees to criticize and pressure mid- and upper-level executives.
A wireless-paging company we studied offers an example. Rather than directly fire some of her middle managers, the CEO mobilized lower-level employees to defy them, leaving them with no choice but to resign (the CEOs we spoke to did not want their names used). In another instance, a former general manager of a call center told us she had to quit after her subordinates were directly mobilized by the parent company's CEO to circumvent her orders and pressure her to resign.
High-profile Chinese business leaders who have used this and other Mao-style tactics to dominate their managers include Zong Qinghou, the founder and former CEO of Wahaha, the French- Chinese beverage joint venture. Zong recently circumvented the formal organizational procedures during a dispute and mobilized Wahaha employees to publicly denounce the French management. As of this writing, no settlement of the dispute was in sight.
A multinational partner of a Chinese firm should recognize Mao's tactics and regard their use as an indication that the company is dealing with an authoritarian leader who tends to be secretive (secretiveness was a characteristic of many of the CEOs we studied) and who is likely to bypass formal decision-making processes. Such companies often have vague organizational structures and CEOs who can easily nullify any of the company's agreements, hampering the JV's attempts to implement official strategy.
Recognizing a CEO's penchant for Mao-style tactics isn't easy, but the chief executive's age is often revealing. Mao left an indelible imprint on the thinking of Chinese people who are now in their forties or older. Another indicator is a firm's inability to select a second in command or successor (one analyst has wryly noted that Ren Zhengfei of the telecom equipment company Huawei has \"more than 100 second in commands\").
A multinational that chooses to work with a CEO who uses those tactics needs to have effective procedures - both formal and informal - in place for monitoring the Chinese leadership. A JV should create a standing executive committee with members from both companies that meets frequently and monitors the CEO and the decision-making process. At the same time, the foreign partner should take note of small details: For example, one way to anticipate management reshuffles is to pay attention to clues such as who sits where at receptions and who gets invited to play golf with whom. A former senior executive of Procter & Gamble in China described successfully following similar procedures during his P&G tenure.
Additionally, a multinational should always be ready with a contingency plan to thwart the Chinese leader's attempts to get around organizational procedures. Had Wahaha's French managers anticipated Zong's tactic, they might have been able to defuse it by providing rank-and-file workers with objective information on the dispute.
Reprint F0712C
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By Shaomin Li and Kuang S. Yeh
Shaomin Li (sli@odu.edu), a professor of management and international business at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, was the founding CEO of a Hong Kong-based IT firm with subsidiaries in China.
Kuang S. Yeh (kuangyeh@gmail.com) is the chair of the Department of Business Management and EMBA director at National Sun Yat-Sen University in Kaohsiung, Taiwan.
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