As a follow up to my previous posts and leadership and the soft skills of business (Leadership and the Himilayas — Part I, Leadership — Part II and Leadership Part III), check out this WSJ article, Hard Sell on ‘Soft’ Skills Can Primp a Resume for some useful ideas for your resume …

I am surprised by how often students feel like they don’t have an interesting story to tell or item to focus on in their resume. However, this article gives some great ideas for hidden gems in your background and experience that you may not have even realized were there.

Submitted By: Erik Slayter

Referencing this article found in the Wall Street Journal.

I guess the answer to that question depends on your point of view. The president of the Teamsters James Hoffa is on his way to Beijing to explore possibilities of helping to improve working conditions in China. His launching off points will be United Parcel Service and YRC Worldwide - two of the largest employers of Teamster members here at home. Not surprisingly, employees of these two companies are not unionized in China.

The AFL-CIO [as a side note, take a look at the arcade games on the AFL-CIO site ] does not formally recognize the Chinese “All-China Federation of Trade Unions” because they have no rights to strike and do not use collective bargaining for contract negotiations.

Hoffa says, “the workers can’t be ignored”. The cynic in me thinks that what Hoffa meant to say is, “gadzooks there’s a lot of union dues to be collected.” With the recent financial troubles with our automobile manufacturers in the US, I’m sure the unions are taking a hit - is this just another example of global expansion by big business to help diversify it’s revenue stream or does Hoffa really want to help every worker in every country?

One of the things I love about China is that you can visit a decent sized city, drive by an empty parcel of land, and then come back six months later and see a fairly far along massive skyscraper sitting in what used to be an empty lot. It often makes me thoroughly confused and disoriented, but to be honest I sometimes like that feeling.

It also makes me realize how different SLO can be from China when it can take me a year just to get a permit from the city of SLO to build a friggin’ deck in my backyard — what a contrast in views re: development between China and some of the “now that I am here I want to shut the gate on everybody else who wants to move to SLO” locals.

Okay, enough preaching and ranting ….

Check out these recent NY Times articles, In World Skyscraper Race, It Isn’t Lonely at the Top and Embracing Koolhaass’s Friendly Skyscraper about skyscrapers in Shanghai and Beijing.

This month’s feature in National Geographic by Peter Hessler of River Town and Oracle Bones fame is also simply a must read – China’s Instant Cities.  As usual, Hessler has created a piece that is incredibly well written and thoughtful.   The guy can flat out write.  Reading this article will also help you better see and understand part of what I will show you in some of the factories we will visit in Guangzhou.

If one of the cities featured in this Hessler National Geographic piece, Yiwu, was not so darn far away from Hangzhou, I would take you there, as from a business study standpoint it’s a pretty good place place for MBAs to visit. Yiwu is famous as a commodities center (see also my related post on Dollar Stores), but other than that, I can assure you there is not much else to see there and you would hate me for the 3 hour bus ride (minimum) to get you there.

I have also always wondered why China seems so transfixed with cutting edge architecture (the Shanghai skyline — need I say more)? Think about asking Mr. Yang this question when we visit Callison.

When we are in Shanghai, the buildings around The Bund and the Pudong District will amaze you, especially at night, particulary the Pearl of the Orient TV Tower and the Jin Mao Building.

When we visit The Bund, you can use the tunnel that runs under the Huangpu River to cross and check out one or both of these famous buildings and sites, and take in a quick visit to one of their observation decks. The view is well worth it, and if/when the night in Shanghai is foggy or has higher then normal humidity it gives a real Gotham feel to the city.

I plan to take you to The Bund during the early evening — in my view this is the best time to go because of how the light hits the buildings and the river along The Bund. It’s magical each time I go. I really love it.

Our visit to The Bund will also be a nice bookend to your visit to Callison in Shanghai and the Shanghai Urban Planning Exhibition Hall.

Thanks to the CLB for this new blog lead …

I thought long and hard about becoming an anthropologist after college (I loved the material we studied in anthropology, even though my professor for the course was terrible). Then I learned how little money anthropologists make, and I had no idea how I would pay my bills. I quickly started looking for a Plan B. Law school turned out to be the perfect compromise — to be a good lawyer one must be able to observe people, understand them, have a feel for what makes them tick, be able to predict what they will do, have a deep sense of curiosity about people, etc. (i.e., these are similar skills that an anthropologist uses), and, you can actually get paid well practicing law.

Tons of new blogs are appearing that deal with China. Check out this one — Ben’s Blog.

Below is an excerpt from new blog. Now THIS guy knows how to experience and do field research in China.

I want you to know that I have approached the planning of this trip for you much like an anthropologist would …. go there, try to fit in and not stand out, watch, observe, observe, observe, ask questions, ask questions, ask questions, take notes, learn, etc. Ben’s Blog is a good example of a template along these same lines that is, of course, much more in depth and time intensive than our three week trip.

My name is Benjamin Ross and I am an American originally from Kansas City. I finished college in 2003 and came to China the following year. My reasons for coming to China were that I wanted to experience a lifestyle completely different from my cushy life in the ‘burbs … I wanted to be shocked and isolated. I also wanted to learn a foreign language and actually have the chance to use it. For this reason, I did not want to go to a major city like Beijing or Shanghai. Rather, I found a job in Fuqing, a small town located in Fujian province in Southeastern China. For a year and a half I worked there as a University English teacher, until I moved to Fuzhou (the provincial capital in Summer of 2005. My current gig is doing ethnographic research for Pacific Ethnography.

I am also an amateur writer and photographer … While in China I have also worked as an interpreter, TV extra, regular game show contestant, and token white guy. Interesting (and often humorous) things happen in China all the time, so this blog is where I try to keep people up to date of what’s going on in my little corner of the Middle Kingdom.

Several months ago I got the idea of working a typical Chinese job for a month to try to experience what it is like to live like a local. So for the month of May I will be working as a trainee in a Chinese barber shop. For more info on the project, click here.

As an American living in China, I have spent the last three years of my life enjoying the benefits of being a citizen of a country which is far wealthier than the one in which I reside. I travel around town by taxi. I drink at expensive bars. I eat sushi. I take trips across the country, and when my apartment is dirty, I call a maid to clean it up. My life is not that different from the other several hundred Westerners who call Fuzhou home. We all come to China for the “China experience,” but we still live our lives with the advantages of being Westerners. But what is it like to be one of the 6 million Chinese residents of Fuzhou, especially those of the working class? For us China is fun and relaxing. It’s a place we come to expand our horizons, to learn a culture, to spend our copious free time studying Tai Chi and Chinese cooking or picking up girls at the bar. But for Fuzhou’s working class, there is no such fun and relaxation, no time for hobbies and no money for Tsingtaos at the pub. Work is a way of life and a means for survival.

Tomorrow I will begin a one-month stint as a trainee at a local barber shop/salon. The manager will be treating me just like any other beginning employee his first days on the job. I will be starting at the very bottom of the barbershop food chain, and my duties will include sweeping hair, cleaning bathrooms, assisting barbers, and entertaining customers as they have their hair cut. Throughout the month I will have only three days off, and work the rest from 9 am to 8 pm. I will essentially be a slave to my job which for one month pays what I would make in one day of teaching English.

What I hope to gain from this experience is an understanding of what Chinese workers go through on a daily basis. What is it like to work a job 10 hours a day, 6 days a week, for a salary of less than $100 a month? How will this put into perspective my life in China as a foreigner, or my life in America as an American? How does the other half (or in this case 99.9%) live, and how do the respond to a foreigner trying to do the same? I hope to find the answers to these questions, and hopefully have a little fun doing it. I will be keeping my blog updated daily for the next month, so check back regular for more updates, and wish me luck. I’m going to need it.

I emailed Ben to see if he would be in or near any of the cities we will visit while in China, but unfortunately our timing and respective schedules are off for this year.

Ben, well done! And you get double kudos in my book for being a good fellow from the Midwest (so am I). Keep us posted on your experiences, and, for Heaven’s sake, think about turning your barbershop experience and field study into a book. I think it would do reasonably well (could even be a hit), and I would certainly buy and read it (see, e.g., Peter Hesler’s River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze as a possible model — he is your fellow Missourian!).

Submitted By: Ryan Maaskamp

After a standoff between Google and Thailand’s government and a resulting countrywide ban on the website YouTube, Google has agreed to remove videos that are said to be insulting to Thailand’s King Bhumibol Adulyadej. This is not the first time Google has backed down on censorship issues. Recall the issue involving Google and the Chinese government in which Google removed politically sensitive subjects from their search results including the Tiananmen Square Massacre.

Google did show some signs of courage by refusing to remove two videos that were deemed offensive by the Thai government. Regardless, Google’s actions make me question their true interests. Is Google still following its original mission of “organizing the world’s information and making it universally accessible and useful”, or have they compromised their values for future returns ?

Submitted By: Lindsay Yoshitomi

The major ingredient in antifreeze, diethylene glycol, has been linked to counterfeit drugs sold as medication. Thousands have died as a result of this industrial solvent being substituted for glycerin which is commonly and safely used in drugs, food and toothpaste. The deadly counterfeit drug has been tracked to Chinese companies, compounding the woes of China’s already lax food and drug regulations. In the recent months, US authorities have accused China of exporting animal food tainted with the industrial chemical, melamine.

According to this NY Times article, China has been a major source of counterfeit drugs. Couple that with being a big player in the global economy today, and you have a recipe for a profitable, although deadly counterfeiting business. The sweet-tasting poison is added to cough syrup, fever medication and injectable drugs because it’s cheaper than glycerin. Anyone who has used antifreeze in their car knows how toxic diethylene glycol can be. We are often warned not to spill antifreeze on the ground because pets are attracted to the sweet taste of this toxic syrup, which can lead to death. It’s scary to think that a company would knowingly distribute a chemical that causes death as a safe ingredient for medication. It makes me wonder about the quality of imported foods from countries that have poor standards and safety regulations.

Although the counterfeit glycerin has not slipped into the US, thousands around the world have died. Most recently, Panama fell victim to the falsely labeled drug when it manufactured 260,000 bottles of cold medicine using diethylene glycol, which was imported from China as 99.5% pure glycerin. Hundreds died as a result of the toxic syrup, which has been traced to its origin near the Yangtze Delta. According to trade records, the counterfeit glycerin went through three companies in three countries, untested and with altered certificates that eventually showed no point of origin.

Dr. Henk Bekedam, the World Health Organization’s top representative in Beijing says, “This is really a global problem, and it needs to be handled in a global way.” However, he doesn’t go on to say how. Although the Chinese government claims it will clean up its pharmaceutical industry, much like the tainted pet food incident, officials also claim no laws have been broken. No one is admitting a mea culpa here.

Submitted By: Steven Rodger

It depends on what kind of surfing you’re talking about. What was once an industry influenced primarily by Hawaii, California and Australia, there is a sleeping giant who has been awakened … Chinese surfboard manufacturing. In an industry worth over 8 billion dollars, it is no wonder why China is getting involved. With the disappearance of the Clark Foam [the former leader of 'blanks' for surfboards], there are more and more Chinese surf manufacturing plants popping up all over China.

Most of these Chinese boards are being stamped with expired logos from the past, such as The Realm or Canyon. Next time you’re at Costco look for one of these boards. All these boards are being hand-made, by Chinese shapers as oppose to machine produced. The ironic part …n one of these Chinese shapers have ever surfed, nor have they ever visited the beach. While Chinese surfboard production does not represent a large part of the sales market yet, it surely will in the future as this new Asian growth is merely the tip of the spear. Further expansion into China is certainly going to occur, primarily because surf-shop owners of the U.S. are begging to dually have the long sought-after margins, and to quench the demand for low-end/beginner boards.

While most MBA’s probably are too busy with business matters to get a board and go surfing, this is an interesting phenomenon/opportunity that we’re seeing across most industries. Asia is clearly changing the way we do business. Similar to the Wal-Mart dilemma, this puts some skilled crafts-people out of jobs … Diversification of skills and products will help to alleviate this problem evolving the industry to the next level. Debates over whether tariffs should be put into place have been made to block the importation of Chinese boards, but would this be fair?

Who should determine whether Asia should be able to dump cheap products on US soil?

Check out this cool pic and adventure activity on the world’s second largest steel towner in Harbin — located in northeastern China, which is not close to where we will be or travel in China). Erik Slayter forwarded me this link (thanks Erik!).

Having typed the above, let’s tie this into business and your MBA studies. The following was a common experience in my prior life as a practicing attorney in working with business clients ….

CASE STUDY:

Business client spends hours and hours, if not days, shopping around for the best price on an insurance policy for his/her business. Then, after buying the policy, sure enough, some type of bad event (called an “occurrence” in insurance parlance) occurs that causes the client an economic loss.

Business client then submits his/her claim to the insurance company under the policy they purchased. However, the insurance company then proceeds to deny the claim and/or coverage.

Client is pissed off at the insurance company because he/she “thought that is why I bought the damn insurance coverage in the first place and I want you to sue those bastards.”

So, the client comes to me for help to try and fix their mess, and he/she in turn also pays to me the money they may have saved in obsessing over finding the cheapest policy they could find. (Thank you client!!).

The client could have likely avoided this problem altogether if they had taken just a few minutes to read over the policy once they received it to get a good feel for what activities or events were covered/not covered under the policy, and then adjust their business practices and behavior accordingly to conform to what the policy does and does not cover.

BUSINESS TAKE-AWAY:

Re: this adventure activity, it looks fun, right? I am sure it is.  As is this world’s tallest bungee jump in Macau near Hong Kong, which several years ago when I took students to Macau in southern China several students asked me when we drove by if I would stop the bus and let them give it a go (it was a quick and easy “no” for me) - was not going to be a class sanctioned bus stop or activity).

So as you might expect this is not an activity that we will do as a class or on Cal Poly time. This would the type of activity that is a “completely on your own time” activity, and where you assume any and all of the risks in the event you decided to go for it and were somehow injured.

I.e., back to the business point — this is NOT an activity that is covered by your travel insurance policy for this trip, nor is any loss or injury you incur that is connected with drinking, drug use, etc.

Gotta be careful what you do/don’t do in China/India and always use good judgment. It’s not Iraq or Afghanistan, but is also isn’t Disneyland.

You will receive your travel and medical insurance policy from Cal Poly Continuing Education sometime during late Winter or the Spring quarter. READ IT!! Or risk being like the client/customer I describe above. This part of business is not rocket science, and competitive advantage in part goes to those firms and managers who take a few minutes to actually read and try to understand their friggin’ personal, auto and business insurance policies.

Who would have thought the China/India trip would teach you a fair bit of what you need to know about insurance policies and their tie in to business? If you read, understand and take to heart the above, you are now well ahead of the vast majority of corporate America on this issue …

Prof. Carr March 1, 2009 addendum:  Check out this related post that Dan Harris of the China Law Blog just made that gives you a different angle on this unappreciated but very important issue: China Law. What’s Insurance Got To Do With It?

The WSJ is good not only for keeping abreast of where the proverbial “puck” of business is located or headed, but also because it often has articles that can assist in your personal life … like saving money on airfares when you go on vacation.

Some of you will stay in China and travel after our course ends. Some of you will return to the US and then travel to Europe or South America.

See this September 16, 2006 WSJ article [subscription may be required] that I found while cleaning my desk today (stop by you will be amazed at how organized my office finally looks!):      Digging Up Cheap Overseas Fares

The article discusses how you can find and buy a cheap domestic ticket in another country (e.g., Asia, Europe, etc.) that does not show up on the usual internet search you might do here in the US.

The always good China Law Blog has run a series of excellent posts on corruption in China, with excellent practical advice and discussion of the “how” and “why” Western firms get caught up in the corruption game in China (e.g., click here).

But aside from the legalities the we attorneys tend to go “ga-ga” over and love to debate, here are some points from the China Economics blog that likely relate to your economics classes with Dr. Williamson and/or Dr. Marlow.

• Yes, a number of economics papers have been written on how corruption has a negative effect on Foreign Direct Investment coming into a given country. No surprise there.
• And yes, per what is called the “reputation effect”, corruption damages the reputation of a country/locale, and this may be one reason countries like China like to keep publicity about corruption to a minimum. (Yet as the CLB has rightly noted in a number of its posts this year, China’s reputation as a “wild west” (or “wild east”) is improving for the better in this regard — e.g., click here and here).
• However, how does one then explain the “speed money” theory, which posits that high corruption levels actually act to attract FDI when investors believe that well placed bribes will speed up certain processes (which may then result in increased in economic growth - and hence, why would a given government have the incentive to root out corruption?!)

In your view, are Western firms who stick closely to their morals and ethical standards at a competitive disadvantage to local Chinese firms who take corruption short-cuts? (And for the business haters out there in blog land, don’t be ridiculous — I am not advocating that this justifies doing business in such a manner.)

Through the above I hope you can you see why in an academic/case study setting it’s easy for all of us to say, “Well, of course, to agree to corruption and bribes is crazy and I would never do that,” yet in real life, Western firms get caught up in these debacles again, and again, and again and ….

And because they do, it is highly unlikely that those of us in the legal profession will run into a shortage of business clients who need representation in such matters anytime soon. We, and our children and their private schools, and our massive California mortgage payments thank the businesspeople of the world, profusely, for these repeated missteps. Hate lawyers and want to get rid of us? One possible way is for employees, managers and CEOs to exercise better judgment in their decisions and chances are you will cut your appointments with us in half. Kidding, of course, but don’t shoot the messenger.

Finally, one of the great ways to make these types of issues come to life and enhance learning is to personalize them. So let’s leave the subject of multinational corruption in China and turn back to student cheating, a subject I recently posted on (34 Business Graduate Students at Duke University Face Discipline for Cheating).

Today’s Wall Street Journal ran an excellent follow up article to its original reporting on this event — Their Cheatin’ Hearts: You Call it Copying, Students Call it Collaborating, which has some wonderful discussion of some of the theories as to why such behavior abounds.

Does the economic theory that explains corruption at the multinational-country level also explain student cheating at the academic level? See what Professor Marlow has to say on this issue as an economist.

The following is a quote from the article that really resonated with me:

“[The cause of the increase in cheating in today's society and educational system ...] is not technological or pedagogical — or ideological, as is charged in the case of business schools — but cultural and moral. Fewer and fewer students seem to believe that cheating violates their own internalized standards of honesty and good character.”

Amen, amen, and amen.

Professor Carr “extra soapbox and editorial note”: To be fair, I am not suggesting that we just pick on students here — I would argue the same can be said about CEOs, managers, priests, professors, administrators, firemen, artists, garbage collectors, farmers, government officials, engineers, real estate developers, wine makers, insurance salesmen, fisherman, attorneys, accountants, etc., etc., etc. Heck, is any one class of people or professionals immune from this statement? I don’t think so …

The above quote also is a strong argument, in my view, that we can’t solve ethical problems and lack of judgment simply by inserting an ethics course or two into a curriculum or an ethics component into a series of MBA courses. The do-gooders out there who believe that such a strategy will solve the problem and that is “what business schools need to do more of” are unrealistic and have their heads in the stars.

In my view, it is silly to blame ethics courses or those professors who teach them, or business schools in general, for the failings of corporate America or society. Nobody blames accounting professors for Enron, nor do we blame finance professors for missteps in the investment banking community, nor do we blame English professors or English departments when somebody writes a crappy book and/or can’t write a sentence to save their life, nor do we blame College of Agriculture professors for farmers who overly rely on chemicals in their crop production, incur crop failures or plant a crop in the Central Valley that makes little sense to plant there and that would never be planted there without subsidies, political water allotments and overall lack of a free market, nor do we blame College’s of Engineering or computer science professors when a software program crashes and causes chaos. Need I go on?

Thus, I am unwilling to pin the blame for ethical lapses on business schools, ethics courses and/or ethics professors, and I will push back every time against such flawed logic, and this why I see the above WSJ quote as so very powerful … and true.

We do in business schools all we can do for our students — refine their skills re: ethical issues spotting, provide them with ethical theories and models to analyze the problem (e.g., utilitarianism, natural law, legal positivism, social contract, etc.), and then the rest, my friends, is up to them ….