I have not written nearly enough about India on this blog, not because I am not interested and fascinated by the place, but because I just don’t know India; I only know a bit about China.

This short 60 Minutes segment, Out of India, is a required assignment for you to watch.

You will enjoy this video and will learn a lot. This segment also builds nicely on Mr. Asnani’s excellent talk with you a few weeks ago about his ecountant business, and, the call center in India we will also visit.

See also this related Wall Street Journal article that just came out, In India Parents Become Part of the Picture for Outsourcing Firms. Fascinating employee recruitment development, retention and HR issues are highlighted in this article as it applies to the outsourcing industry in India and the above video.

The world today is an amazing place. I can’t think of a better or more exciting time to be alive and in business.

Students, your thoughts?

UC San Diego Professor and former Deputy Assistant of State responsible for China, Susan Shirk, has written an outstanding book, China: Fragile Superpower: How China’s Internal Politics Could Derail Its Peaceful Rise. Her book is so good and so well written that I will likely require it as book review reading next year for all students.

In her book she has an excellent chapter on how the media and internet present both challenges and opportunities for the CCP. For example, the “let’s bash Japan” issue and phenomenon in China has now become even more of a volatile issue that the CCP cannot control and manage to its benefit, in large part due to the Internet.

This NY Times article, China Leader Makes Debut in Great Wall of Facebook, made me think of her excellent book and analysis, and her chapter on the media and Internet. Although Prime Minister Wen Jiabao still lags behind people like Obama and Aaaarnold in number of fans, he is ahead of icons like Ronald Reagan and rabble-rousers such as Hugo Chavez.

One other thing about this article of note:

Once the earthquake hit, Prime Minister Wen Jiabao got his butt out to Sichuan, right away, to at least go through the public motions that showed he and the government were there and cared (too bad they were asleep on building code issues for schools before the quake, though, in particular - but that debate will occur in another place and in another time).

See also this NY Times article, Fearing Floods: China Orders Evacuations in Quake Area, re: how the Chinese government just ordered the evacuation of 150,000, that’s right 150,000 people, due to possible flooding if a natural dam were to burst. And an estimated 16 MILLION buildings were destroyed by the quake (click here). 16 friggin’ MILLION! The import here is that in China, Katrina like events and disasters are not unusual (e.g., Yangtze flooding; the snowstorm this past winter that stranded hundreds of thousands of peasants at train stations trying to get back to see their families during the Chinese New Year, etc.), and their top down government/model seems to handle these situations pretty well (see my related post on this topic, Human Rights, Part II). To move and evacuate 150,000 people in China, with it’s 1.3 billion people, tends to be ho-hum news that makes page three, not page one. And the CCP knows it has to get these situations right … if they botch too many of these post natural disaster relief situations, it knows its days in power will be numbered. Not many second or certainly third chances will be given in today’s Internet world to top down governments.

Yep, ladies and gents, this is not yo’ momma’s CCP.

Lots in the news lately about bad product/suppliers coming from China, although things seem to have died down lately. Yesterday I sat in on some nice presentations in Dr. Anderson’s ethics class, one of which included a presentation on corporate social responsibility and doing your due diligence on quality control with your supplier.

For an excellent nickel tour on what the issue of supplier control means and how it comes up, see this CLB post, How To Monitor Your Chinese Factory, The China Price and QC By Motorcycle. After you read this you can see how darn hard it can be to do this well.

Having said this, are there a number of bad suppliers in China? Of course. They get all the press. Are there many good suppliers? Of course. They do not get the press.

I have been watching and studying some of the US business schools who have entered the China MBA market for some time now (joint executive MBA programs are the usual market entry strategy). One such school is the University of Maryland Smith School of Business; an excellent business school with excellent programs, students and faculty and with loads of money to do great things (they are not scared to charge market rates).

For example, click HERE to learn about what schools like Smith are doing in China with their executive MBA program. It seems that each week I get a high quality marketing brochure in the mail from Smith re: one of its programs and said brochure, just one of them, must cost at least as much as my entire marketing budget for all of our Cal Poly Orfalea College of Business graduate programs.

Well, even the big boys falter. Smith just closed up it’s executive MBA program in Beijing (only); it looks like its much larger and well known Shanghai program is alive and well. Other B-schools are also struggling. See this May 15, 2008 Business Week article that just came out, China: Why Western B-Schools Are Leaving. Yet another good example of how local Chinese (in this case Chinese MBA programs) can replicate and achieve quality quickly, thereby making things miserable for the early foreign market entrants.

The money quote in this article:

Thirty Chinese universities are now authorized by Beijing to provide executive MBA programs. “The Chinese schools are coming right at the teeth of what I offer,” says Gary Gaeth, the associate dean of the University of Iowa’s Henry B. Tippie School of Management, which will start a program with the highly regarded Peking University this year. “And their MBA programs are every bit as good as everyone else’s.”

Oh, how that market and invisible hand can quickly swing the other way.

Yes, in China, when you make it you can make it big. But when you lose, well, you know the rest of the line. In China, experienced and knowledgeable expats will tell you, “Here, anything is possible. But nothing is easy.”

This NY Times article will blow you away.

Westerners can be ethnocentric (see, e.g., my previous post and our comment discussion, Cultural Knuckleheads in the Global World); but let’s be fair — so can others, including the Chinese. And per Dr. Morris’ lecture with us we learned that a fair bit of this stems from China’s historical “we are the Middle Kingdom” and our emperor has a “mandate from Heaven” cultural superiority/bias/thing and that house of cards. On either side of the Pacific, ethnocentrism is not terribly attractive, in my view.

I also see over-the-top nationalism to be a subset of ethnocentrism. Example: “I love my country” = okay and it seems to me is not ethnocentric and is legitimate patriotism. But “I love my country because we are the best at or we have the best ____” or “We’re Number One!” many times = obnoxious nationalism and hence ethnocentrism (particularly when said by one who has not traveled much to be able to have a decent sample size to gauge what the “best” or “No. 1″ is or by someone who is afraid to try new things and/or is not terribly adventurous).

Yes, the line between legitimate patriotism and obnoxious nationalism is fine, but it’s important. It’s easy to tip from one into the other.

See Dan Harris’ recent China Law Blog post on this very subject (Chinese nationalism) and how it relates to business. It’s worth the read.

Some will argue one side caused or led to the other’s grief. I have no idea how to sort out the casual chain. Others will offer excuses for their ethnocentrism (whether it’s western, eastern, northern hemisphere, southern hemisphere, or other) (e.g., “But you misunderstand me. I am not really that way as a person; and how can I be classified as ethnocentric for believing what I believe. That’s not fair. And in any event, I am right, you know.”). That stuff does not much matter to me. At some point, we all just need to get over the reasons and excuses, cut out the feeling of being right and/or superior to the other, and move forward.

Your thoughts?

Prof. Carr June 10, 2008 addendum: See the WSJ article that just came out relating to this very post, Victim or Victor? China’s Olympic Odyssey

A hat tip to Gary Chou for sending me the below link. I am a National Geographic subscriber, remember the below issue coming out and reading it, but I forgot to put up a post and the issue had since disappeared into the mess on my office desk at home.

Click HERE to check out these great pics on China’s Instant Cities (the photo gallery link is on the right side of the page; the commentary by Peter Hessler is top notch, as is all of his work - e.g., Two Years on the Yangtze). And reading this very good Wall Street Journal article, On the Move: Chinese Officials Want More Farmers to Migrate to the City; But They Are Also Aware That Migration Brings Problems, will put these photos into a good big picture context for you.

Finally, last month, April 2008, National Geographic published a special issue only on China called, China: Inside the Dragon. Check it out. Again, some great short pieces by Peter Hessler and the usual amazing pictures. You can also click HERE to listen to the China Business Network’s recent podcast interview of the Editor-in-Chief of National Geographic Magazine, Chris Johns, about this issue on China. I also had no idea National Geographic is read by 40 to 45 million people each month. Cha-ching. And talk about a company that has put on a clinic for others re: how to manage and build its brand ….

Enjoy.

Prof. Carr June 13, 2008 addendum: see also this related post on instant city Shenzhen I just made (Shenzhen is located in southern China).

Nope. Not Shawn Kemp, the NBA player with loads of talent but not much production (that’s being kind).

This “reign man” is Shaun Rein, an up and comer in the US and China business circles. Check out this recent 6 minute video interview of Mr. Rein by Christine Liu of the Chinese Business Network. I have read some of his work, reports and seen other interviews and blog discussions about him. This is a smart business dude - also served as a teaching fellow at Harvard; did his undergrad work at McGill University in Montreal (good school; sorry OCOB MBA ethics team, not trying to put salt in the wound by saying the word “McGill” as in my view you got the short end of the stick that favored McGill on the time clock thing at your recent competition — chalk it up to a real world experience and an advance start for the “life ain’t fair” vicissitudes).

Continue to monitor Mr. Rein (a real reign man) and his career. He is young and I predict he is going to make it really, really, really big.

Cyclone in Myanmar. Quake in China. Many dead. Not good.

Here is an article in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal titled, Does Being Ethical Pay? Companies Spend Huge Amounts Of Money To Be Socially Responsible. Do Consumers Reward Them For It? And How Much?.

The article reports a series of experiments that found that consumers will pay a small premium for ethically produced goods. But they will punish an unethically made product even more harshly by buying it only at a steep discount. These results are consistent with academic studies I have read on this topic.

In light of this devastation in Myanmar and China, what is your response to the following questions:

1. One way you can help brand your firm and do good at the same time, particularly if your firm does business in or with Asia, has Asian employees or clients or suppliers, any of which is highly likely given our locale in California, is reach out and show empathy by donating $$$ to victims in China and/or Myanmar. You could then in turn leverage this in other ways.

But who/what agency would you donate funds to to help these folks? Who is reliable? Who do you start with and how do you find this out? And do you donate in RMB or US dollars?

2. How would you broadcast your firm’s do-goodness in this regard, gently and humbly or other, to your various stakeholders so that they know you care and will remember you when they buy your product? What is your strategy?

No cop outs on the second question! That is, I would question your credibility and business savvy if you say, “Well, I am/my firm will be ‘above’ telling people about my firm’s good works and money donations to these regions in Asia. We won’t tell anyone about our do-goodness because that would be arrogant and will let our actions speak for us.” I don’t know one successful and profitable business run by people that took a marketing or strategy class that would take that approach to product or service differentiation, and be that selfless, particularly a public company that has to answer to shareholders about how they are spending their money.

Discuss.

By the way, here is a good blog from Chengdu, the mega-city in China that is 50 or so miles from the quake epicenter, Barking at the Sun. Said blog has some pretty good on-the-ground info re the quake and that region.

On the trip you will kick yourself when you find out a classmate bought the same thing you did for much less. You will have the chance to practice the negotiating skills Dr. Peach taught you first hand. A hat tip to my friend and one of the best negotiators I have had the pleasure to work with, John Wu, for this video lead from the classic film featuring a young hottie named Harrison Ford, Gallipoli (battle) (click here for film info). Has direct relevance to China and India. Click HERE to check it out. And yes, it would be totally uncool to ask the merchant for your money back like the fellows in this clip when you were the one who was a poor negotiator.

Professor Carr July 29, 2008 addendum: Each year I try to take students, or at least give them the opportunity to go on their own, to the Silk Market in Beijing so they can practice their (usually lame, undeveloped and passive) Western negotiation skills. See this four minute must see Wall Street Journal video on YouTube filmed at this very venue. This will give you a glimpse of what you are in for.