Saving face in China: Good IT can bridge the cultural gap

Computerworld - SHANGHAI -- In the West, companies want to put on a good face for customers, even if it means having to admit mistakes. Righting wrongs is a big part of a good public image, and a good internal image as well.

In the East, particularly at traditional companies, saving face is important. Saving face means that you don't admit your own mistakes and you don't publicly humiliate co-workers by exposing their mistakes.

This can create management challenges for companies doing business in China. Foreign companies are particularly vulnerable, since a Chinese employee who admits to making a mistake not only shames himself, but also brings shame to his country in front of foreign visitors. As a result, simple problems left undiscovered can easily grow into full-blown crises.

One manager at an international company in Shanghai says he routinely sends foreign employees to give bad news to customers, since foreigners don't get embarrassed as easily. (Some of the people interviewed for this story did not want their names used because "face" is a sensitive topic.)

Technology for Transparency

"This is one of the critical areas that we have to face upfront," says How Newseng, general manager at Fairchild Semiconductor Corp. in Suzhou, located near Shanghai. The company's global headquarters is in South Portland, Maine.

How says that one way of addressing the face-saving problem is to have good technology in place to automate reporting functions. "We want to take out any personal involvement in the system," he says. Using PeopleSoft software "allows us to have good detection if anything goes wrong," How explains.

But Chinese people aren't unique in not wanting to pass on bad news. "Other countries in Asia find it difficult," says John Oska, regional supply chain manager for the Asia-Pacific region at Sealed Air Packaging Co., a Shanghai-based division of Sealed Air Corp. in Saddle Brook, N.J. The company currently has two small plants in China and is building a new plant in Shanghai.

"Sales reps in countries such as Indonesia are reluctant to advise customers that a shipment is late or not to spec until the customer calls to complain," Oska says.

One of the ways around that problem is to give the customer direct access to the information, he says, but many of his company's local suppliers aren't capable of providing that level of IT-enabled visibility. Fortunately, it's a lot easier to demand visibility internally, and Sealed Air is rolling out SAP 4.7 this year to do just that.