From the Great Wall to Wall Street: A Cross-Cultural Look at Leadership and Management in China and the US - Hardcover

Yen, Wei

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 3319330071 ISBN 13: 9783319330075

Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016

Synopsis

Wei Yen explores how differences in world views between Eastern and Western thought and culture have on management and leadership behaviors.

In The Geography of Thought Richard Nisbett showed how the thought and culture of the East is rooted in Chinese Confucian ideals while that of the West goes back to the early Greeks. In From Great Wall to Wall Street, Wei Yen explores how these differences impact today’s leadership and management practices. He delves deeply into the two cultures and their philosophical roots, and explains why there can exist significant misunderstandings between the two camps.

Yen was born in China, raised in Hong Kong, educated both there and in the US and then spent half his working life in the US and half in Asia. From his vantage point, straddling both cultures he compares and contrasts the pragmatic, wholistic Chinese (or Asian) management style with the rational and analytical Western management style. He shows their pros and cons, the areas where they differ and situations where one may be more successful than the other.

Yen argues that understanding traditional Chinese culture, and how it affects management behaviors and current events, can help decision makers make better decisions in business, finance and politics. He further combines culture with credit analysis to argue that it is unlikely that China will suffer a financial collapse despite a slowing economy and high debt levels. Equally, he shows how that same philosophical traditions also lie behind China’s inability to innovate or project the “soft power” that the West’s globally successful popular culture has achieved.

How can the West take advantage of China’s epic rise to strike win-win outcomes? How can the Chinese be more integrated into the global community and become a better global citizen in the future? How can policy makers make more realistic policies? None of these can be accomplished without first understanding where each other is coming from.

About this title

About the Author

Born in China, raised in Hong Kong and educated in the US, Wei Yen has spent half his life and his career living and working in both the US and Asia.

Wei has 23 years of financial industry experience, including as Managing Director for Moody’s Asia Pacific, where he ran its Asian Financial Institutions rating practices, and as Managing Director for Lehman Brothers Asia and Nomura International, where he advised Asian clients on rating and corporate finance. He was also a member of Lehman’s Asia Commitment Committee. Wei also held corporate positions as CFO for iSwitch Corp., a Mainland Chinese technology company, and as Group Treasurer for CITIC Pacific Limited, a Hong Kong listed subsidiary of the conglomerate CITIC Group.

Before relocating to Asia in 1997 with Lehman Brothers, Wei was a biotech VC in New York for Rothschild Ventures, and corporate High-Yield analyst for Moody’s covering the technology and chemicals sectors. Earlier in his career, he was a research physicist and business manager for the American Cyanamid Company.

Wei received his BS in physics from SUNY at Stony Brook, PhD in physics from the University of Maine and MBA in finance from Pace University. He lives in Southern California.

 

 

 

 

Review

FromGreat Wall to Wall Street is a reality check for anyone doing business with China, whether in China or elsewhere. Wei Yen writes in a lively and personal voice, showing how to bridge work cultures by digging at their deepest roots: history, philosophy, etiquette, even food culture. He witnesses the 2008 financial crisis from within and has lived and worked both sides of the East-Westdivide, so he is well placed to decode mysteries of both. Reading this book will save China business people a lot of pain. - Craig Pepples, Publisher, Chief Executive of China, Global Sources
 
Wei Yen's book is a brilliant application of psychological research on cultural differences in reasoning to matters of great interest to business people. -Richard E. Nisbett - Theodore M. Newcomb Distinguished Professor of social psychology and co-director of the Culture and Cognition program at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor
 
Wei Yen brilliantly bridges the cultural divide between the Chinese and Western ways of management by delving deeply into their sources of wisdom. A must read for leaders hoping to better understand China and profit from its rise in the world economy. - Weijian Shan, Group Chairman & CEO, Managing Partner, PAGAC.
Even as China has reshaped the global economy, the country's commercial emergence will change global business practice. Yen provides valuable insight into the potential areas of collision, combining a rich understanding of traditional Chinese culture with his real world experience as a business executive in Chinaand the United States. - Ben Simpfendorfer, Managing Director& Founder, Silk Road Associates, Author of The Rise of the New East, a Palgrave Macmillan book
 

The persistence of fundamental cultural differences is almost invariably underestimated or, even worse, ignored in the West. Yet these differences pervade every sphere of human activity from politics and medicine to language and philosophy. Unless this is recognised, itis impossible to understand China. Yet all too often we persist in living inour Western bubble and ignore the novelty and difference that is China. The genius and wisdom of a great civilization is sacrificed at the altar of our supposed superiority but which is better described as our ignorance. Businessis no exception: it too is permeated with cultural difference. Wei Yen's book explains how Western and Chinese business cultures differ and why and how this matters. As Chinese companies become increasingly important global players, this books helps to understand the ways in which they think and behave. -- Martin Jacques, Senior Fellow at the Department of Politics and International Studies, Cambridge University. Author of the global best-seller: When ChinaRules the World: the End of the Western World and the Birth of a New Global Order.

About this edition

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 3319330071
• ISBN 13: 9783319330075
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 300