What is it about?
The Chinese subsidiary of a Japanese multinational electronics firm had a distinctive managerial philosophy which included some term that were hard to translate from Japanese (into Chinese or English). By studying what these terms meant to people in the Chinese subsidiaries HQ and plants, we reveal some qualities that are highly valued in both China and Japan - inclusiveness and emptiness - which seldom feature in anglophone accounts of business ethics.
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Why is it important?
This gives a deeper understanding what people value, and the resources they seek to preserve and grow, in business cultures influenced by China and Japan. It also reveals some of the depth of cultural differences encountered in multi-national business ventures.
Perspectives
The idea of the 'empty vessel', gong qi, provoked new reflections about what counts as precious. The growing awareness and appreciation of emptiness and spaciousness has been a source of joy and intrigue ever since working on this paper with Dr Wenjin Dai.
Prof Jonathan R Gosling
Exeter University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: The Inclusiveness and Emptiness of Gong Qi: A Non-Anglophone Perspective on Ethics from a Sino-Japanese Corporation, Journal of Business Ethics, October 2019, Springer Science + Business Media,
DOI: 10.1007/s10551-019-04308-3.
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