comparative value priorities of chinese and new zealand

owned by the co-operative, had rigorous testing procedures but it was impossible to
exclude sabotage of a product.” In a self-contradictory following statement, “Mr Ferrier
says investigations so far have ruled out contamination from the production, storage and
sales process, but he says it appears the raw milk which Sanlu buys from a third party
has been contaminated.” Fonterra had rigorous testing procedures that did not detect
contaminated milk, perhaps indicative of the “she’ll be right, mate,” and “we will fix
any problems with no. 8 wire” propensities in leadership, planning, and management.
Affected families received no compensation; Sanlu was bankrupted; executives of two
suppliers of contaminated milk were executed; twenty-one Sanlu executives and
middlemen were tried and sentenced to lengthy prison terms. Some government
officials resigned after their wrong-doings were exposed; however, many were
reinstated soon after, getting similar positions in other governmental departments. Indepth
understanding of the business and culture issues of guanxi, renqing, and disregard
of non-in-group members might have led to different managerial leadership
participation by Fonterra in Sanlu.
PERCEPTION, ANALYSIS, AND UNDERSTANDING OF ONE’S OWN CULTURE
It is difficult to completely comprehend one’s own culture without some knowledge of
other cultures, as “culture is what goes without saying”. “It goes without saying” is a
Standard English idiom, deriving from a literal translation of the French “Cela va sans
dire”. The phrase implies acceptance due to tradition or received knowledge without
any thought or analysis.
As an example of the problems of idiosyncratic identification with one’s culture, social
interaction in Chinese cultures involves dynamic relationships among the concepts of
several dimensions, lian face (lian), mian face (mianzi), reciprocation of favours
(renqing), and relationships (guanxi). Guanxi and renqing must be understood in
relation to one another, as the reciprocal favours define the value of the network. Failure
to meet renqing obligations causes loss of lian face. From my four-year sojourn as a
human resource manager in the interior of China, and from seven additional years of
anecdotal discussions with Chinese students in undergraduate and postgraduate
international business classes (commonly about 50% of students in business classes are
Chinese or Overseas Chinese at Auckland University of Technology), many Chinese do
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