Besides universalism versus particularism, discussed in the last post, another angle from which to view the differences between the American and Chinese responses is “rule-based” versus “relationship-based” cultures. In the U.S., rules rule: as we have seen in the pedestrian scenario and in the discussion of the interview scenarios, Americans are much more likely than [...]

In the last two posts I’ve summarized similarities and differences between how Chinese and American interviewees responded to scenarios about a surprise arrest and a tax hike. I ended the last post with this: I got exactly what I had expected from the Americans: anger in response to both the Surprise Arrest and Tax Hike [...]

If you have 3 1/2 minutes to spare, please check out this short video, featuring myself, Janet Carmosky (Founder and CEO of The China Business Network), and Dr. Ian Hau (Founder and CEO of Orchestrall). It’s from a recent event we (Orchestrall) sponsored, put on by Janet and The China Business Network. The video quality [...]

In today’s second consecutive tongue-in-cheekily titled post, we take a look at a different scenario from the one discussed in the last post: The government passes a law doubling the income tax without consulting the citizens. Is the government right to do this? What would citizens say? What would they do? What should they do? [...]