Cross-cultural Integration Of Management In Sino-foreign Joint Ventures

Under the push of economy globalization and China's entry into WTO, the economic communication and cooperation between China and foreign countries are more and more frequent which become the main power to accelerate China's economic growth. As the hub of manufacturing industry and the biggest market in the world, China is attracting more and more multi-national company and foreign investment. Sino-foreign Joint Ventures are the most typical cooperation model which established by both China and foreign investors. However, the foreign investors bring to China not only the capital, technology and updated management, but also different cultures and values. So Joint Ventures are where capital, technology and management from both sides merge, but also where the cultural differences from both sides conflict. Studies show, cultural conflict is one of the main factors to cause Sino-foreign Joint Ventures'failure. Therefore, the most important challenge we face today is to find a better way to avoid the cultural conflicts and strengthen the communication among different cultures.This paper begins with the cultural characteristics, takes China, America and Japan as typical examples, makes comparisons between these cultures and related management models, then suggestively raises some measures to the cross-cultural integration of management, based on the study of relevant cases of Sino-foreign Joint Ventures and spot investigation in Changan Ford Mazda Automobile Company. The aim of cross-cultural management is not to eliminate the cultural individuality and difference but to manage with them. Cross-cultural management is to set up an organization where all the strengths from different cultures will be reserved and be beneficial to the development of the organization. Based on these studies, I proposed the following cross-cultural management strategies: to make each side of the Joint Ventures have more cross-cultural understanding and communications, establish common values. To implement localization strategy, the strategy of division of power and management, humanism rule management and cross-cultural training to solve these problems. In a word, multi-culture is a useful resource for Joint Ventures, under the use of right management methods, the cultural difference can bring advantages to the company instead of becoming obstacles.