Managing Chinese-African Business Interactions Growing Intercultural Competence in Organizations

This book provides deep insights into intercultural collaboration among business partners, employees, managers, and entrepreneurs in Chinese-African professional interactions. It presents cultural and theoretical knowledge on Chinese and African management, leadership, and philosophy. Chinese and African scholars and professionals share their insights into how to address intercultural management challenges proactively and successfully. The cases provide insights into a wide variety of industries and offer actual scenarios studied in governmental, parastatal, and private Chinese-owned organizations in twelve African countries. This book will benefit a broad readership including scholars in employment relations and business management as well as African and Chinese collaborators in academia, government, NGOs and industry.

CONTENTS

Part I: Cultural Insights into Chinese-African Management

Chapter 1

Introduction

Claude-Hélène Mayer

Chapter 2

Chinese Cultural Concepts and Their Influence on Management

Zhaoyi Liu

Chapter 3

African Cultural Concepts and Their Influence on Management

Samukele Hadebe and Dion Nkomo

Part II: Intercultural Training Cases: Dealing With International Communication, Cooperation and Negotiation

Chapter 4

Case 1: Dealing With Organisational Strategies in the Tanzanian-Chinese Chalinze Water Project

Christian Martin Boness

Chapter 5

Case 2: “Not who I am, not what I mean”: Intercultural Communication in Chinese-African Interactions

Fungai B Chigwendere

Chapter 6

Christian Martin Boness, Naiming Wei and Claude-Hélène Mayer

Chapter 7

Case 4: A Negotiation Between Chinese and African Organisations in Namibia

Haiyan Zhang, Chen Ni and Liusheng Wang

Chapter 8

Case 5: How to Make Friends in Rwanda: A Chinese Tea Ceremony

Christian Martin Boness

Part III: Intercultural Training Cases: Entrepreneurship, Management Styles, Language and Identity

Chapter 9

Case 6: Setting Up Small, Medium and Micro Enterprises (SMMES) by Chinese Entrepreneurial Immigrants in Maputo, Mozambique

Mattheus Johannes Louw, Lynette Louw. and Fiona Geyser

Chapter 10

Case 7: Managing a Chinese-Angolan National Housing Project in Angola’s Capital, Luanda

Christian Martin Boness, Naiming Wei and  Claude-Hélène Mayer

Chapter 11

Case 8: Language, Culture, and Power in the Chinese-South African Telecommunications Sector

June Sun

Chapter 12 

Case 9: Transforming Employee Conflicts in a Chinese Construction Firm in Kampala, Uganda

Sidney Muhangi

Part IV: Intercultural Training Cases: International Human Resource Management

Chapter 13

Case 10: Sharing Knowledge in a Sudanese Oil Refinery Through Cultural and Language Trainings

Chapter 14

Case 11: Working Conditions in a Chinese-Ugandan Communications Company

Christian Martin Boness and Naiming Wei

Chapter 15

Case 12: Managing a Chinese-South African Restaurant in Port Elizabeth, South Africa

Zhaoyi Liu

Part V: Intercultural Training Cases: Management Practices and Employment Relations

Chapter 16

Case 13: Employee Perceptions of a Chinese Heavy Machinery Importing Organisation Operating in Uganda

Lynette Louw, Katherine Burger and Mattheus Johannes Louw

Chapter 17

Case 14: Hiring and Firing in the Chinese-Zimbabwean Mining Industry

Christian Martin Boness

Chapter 18

Case 15: Managing Chinese-Cameroonian Daily Interactions in a Company in Douala, Cameroon

Jocelyne Kenne Kenne

Chapter 19

Case 16: A Cross-cultural Conference in the Mozambique Confucius Institute

Christian Martin Boness and Naiming Wei

Claude-Hélène Mayer is a Professor in Industrial and Organisational Psychology at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa, an Adjunct Professor at the European University Viadrina, Frankfurt (Oder), Germany, and a Senior Research Associate at Rhodes University, South Africa. Her research areas are transcultural management, mental health and well-being, women in leadership, transformation of emotions, shame and psychobiography.

Christian Martin Boness is an Associated Researcher at the Department of Management, Rhodes University, South Africa.