The Influence Of Confucius' Ideas Upon Managerial Ethics Of Chinese And Japanese Enterprises

Nowadays, the world economy is ever-increasingly globalized. China has to learn and mergesinto the world. In order to do business with Chinese more efficiently and effectively,foreigners also need to know China and its unique culture. As a rule to guide managers'practices, managerial ethics mirrors one aspect of culture. Due to different cultures, differentcountries do not always have the same managerial ethics. Therefore, the differences incultures can be revealed through the study of the managerial ethics in different enterprises ofdifferent countries.Confucianism which had long dominated Chinese ideology has exerted great influence uponthe oriental countries like China, Japan and South Korea. Though it is a bit exaggerating toattribute the rapid economic development of East Asia to the influence of Confucianism, itdoes work in this area. If we take its essence and reject its dross, its influence will be positiveand conducive to the establishment of managerial ethics with characteristics of orientalnations as well. Confucius' ideas are most representative of and original in Confucianism, andthe code of conduct or ethics is a written statement of a company's managerial ethics.Therefore, on the basis of western theories, the positive influence of Confucius' ideas uponthe managerial ethics of Japanese and Chinese enterprises is analyzed from the cross-culturalperspective in this thesis through the case study and comparison of the similarities anddifferences between the conduct codes of Haier and Panasonic. In that way, the culturaldifferences of these two countries are also revealed to some extent.In accordance with stakeholder theory and the definitions of management and managerialethics, the author puts forward five important aspects to analyze managerial ethics: thegeneral management, HRM, CRM, leadership and CSR. At the same time, the most importantparts of Confucius' ideas applicable to managerial ethics are extracted for examination:"virtue", "humanity", "loyalty and forgiveness", "righteousness" and "leading by settingoneself as a good example". On the basis of those five parts combined with the five importantaspects of managerial ethics, a model is established to explore the similarities and differencesof managerial ethics in Chinese and Japanese enterprises. Then on the basis of that model, theauthor chooses the conduct codes of Haier and Panasonic as the research subjects to carry outcase studies since both companies are typical of Chinese and Japanese ones respectively. Thethesis focuses on the study of the positive influence of Confucius' ideas upon the generalmanagement, HRM, CRM, leadership and CSR of Chinese and Japanese enterprises. Theresearch proves the existence of the influence of Confucius' ideas upon those five checkedaspects in various degrees and the fact that some good Confucius' ideas still play a positiverole which can not be neglected in Chinese and Japanese enterprises. According to Hofstede'sfive dimensions of culture, the differences in the adoption of Confucius' ideas are analyzed.They reflect the differences in the cultures of these two countries and the influences ofcultural differences upon managerial ethics. Different adoptions of Confucius' ideas on"humanity" and "loyalty" are one of the typical examples.Due to time pressure and personal limitations, the research is by no means a perfect one. Fewpeople have studied the positive influence of Confucius' ideas upon the managerial ethics ofChinese and Japanese enterprises, and few valuable materials in this respect have been foundfor reference. The opinions derived from the study are still open to further justification.