Publication: Guanxi, Mianzi, and Business : The Impact of Culture on Corporate Governance in China
Loading...
Date
2012-09
ISSN
Published
2012-09
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
Before taking advantage of the growing opportunities of the Chinese market, investors will do well to understand the strong influence of Chinese culture on the way businesses operate, how they govern themselves, and how they interact with each other. The author (David Smith) identifies two key cultural and sociological issues of particular interest guanxi (relationships and networks) and mianzi (face). He analyzes their most common implications for investors in areas such as related-party transactions, board composition and deliberations, and shareholder engagement.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Smith, David. 2012. Guanxi, Mianzi, and Business : The Impact of Culture on Corporate Governance in China. Private Sector Opinion;no. 26. © http://hdl.handle.net/10986/17094 License: CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 IGO.”
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Culture and Corporate Governance Principles in India : Reconcilable Clashes?(Washington, DC, 2011-01)The structures, institutions, and legal framework of corporate governance are developed and administered by individuals whose behaviors are shaped by cultural and personal concepts of hope, ambition, greed, fear, uncertainty, and hubris, as well as by the social ethos. A problem arises when these influences do not conform to the regulatory prescriptions of corporate governance. This private sector opinion explores the dynamics of culture and corporate governance in India by calling attention to three areas where the clashes are strongest: related-party transactions, the promoter's or large shareholder's actions, and the board's nominations, deliberations, and effectiveness.Publication Uses and Limits of Conventional Corporate Governance Instruments : Analysis and Guidance for Reform - Part One(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2009-06)This private sector opinion seeks to demonstrate that while conventional governance mechanisms can be highly effective in many situations, they are not appropriate remedies in all contexts. In some cases, the prescribed medicine actually exacerbated the governance ailment that it was designed to cure. To illustrate, the rapid growth of executive compensation persisted and in some markets, accelerated after the introduction of individual executive pay disclosure. In the financial sector, the shift toward a board dominated by independent directors perceived by many to be key for effective monitoring of management ultimately proved to be its Achilles' heel as weak industry knowledge meant that non-executive directors were unable to pick up on warning signs of imprudent risk taking by management. This section will examine how the core set of corporate governance instruments comprising transparency, independent monitoring, economic incentives, shareholder rights, and financial liability has been applied to different issues and contexts. It will discuss the extent to which these mechanisms have been effective and analyze the limits of their application by surveying cases where they have failed to work as intended. In addition, it will set forth proposals to improve the use of specific tools and suggest how certain governance issues should be addressed.Publication Firms Behaving Nicely : Incentives and Commitment(International Finance Corporation, Washington, DC, 2013-09-26)Ever since the rise of large firms in the 18th century, debate has been raging about how to combine economic efficiency and productivity with socially desirable behavior of firms. This paper reviews the debate starting with the classic corporate governance argument about shareholder rights. It discusses the potential incentives to exploit other stakeholders unduly and examines some mechanisms, beyond contracts and regulation, to cope with this exploitation. In this light it considers reputational mechanisms, using the example of corporate social responsibility, and changes to the constitution of firms, with emphasis on the nonprofit form of enterprise. Based on evidence so far, the for-profit firm with mechanisms assuring sound shareholder rights remains preferable to the alternatives. However, scope for experimentation with mechanisms such as different classes of shareholders with differing voting rights may be socially useful, which suggests that global corporate governance principles thus should not be prescriptive in detail.Publication News and Corporate Governance : What Dow Jones and Reuters Teach Us About Stewardship(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2007-12)Corporate governance in the media faces an intractable problem. There is an important public interest in the integrity of news, which is the lifeblood of an open society. Yet the shareholder value model of governance offers no guarantee that the integrity of news will be protected. Indeed, conflicts of interest abound in a business where dominant CEOs often put their own private interests before those of other shareholders, reflecting the principal/agent problem, as well as before those of society. In this paper Donald Nordberg, a former senior editorial executive at Reuters who also worked as a consultant for Dow Jones, explores the respective governance of these two media giants, which received bids last year respectively from Thomson Corp of Canada and Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. The perception that Rupert Murdoch had given in to pressure from the Beijing government to drop news channels from his company's television transmissions into China raised the issue of conflicts of interest very starkly for executives and journalists on the Wall Street Journal, the crown jewel of the Dow Jones group.Publication Does More Power for Shareholders Undermine Board Stewardship?(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2011-01)The level of shareholders' expertise and experience needs to be questioned as they wield greater clout and become more deeply involved in strategic issues that should be the board's purview. This misdirected involvement distracts shareholders from their principal and most important role: electing and overseeing boards. To play that role, shareholders must have the basic tools from soliciting proxies of holders of voting securities to having the ability to seek court relief for a company's oppressive conduct. One of the important principles of good governance is the empowerment of shareholders. Unless they are able and willing to hold boards to account, then there is little hope, short of tough and intrusive regulation, of ensuring that company management acts in anything other than their own narrow self-interest. But the question is: how far should shareholders go? Peter Dey's paper brings an important perspective of someone who is both committed to good governance and experienced as a corporate director. This report heralded a new era of increased attention to the responsibilities of Canadian boards as stewards of shareholder value. Internationally, the author has been associated with the International Corporate Governance Network (ICGN) for the last ten years and has been an active participant in the Global Corporate Governance Forum, serving as a chairman.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Remarks at the United Nations Biodiversity Conference(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-10-12)World Bank Group President David Malpass discussed biodiversity and climate change being closely interlinked, with terrestrial and marine ecosystems serving as critically important carbon sinks. At the same time climate change acts as a direct driver of biodiversity and ecosystem services loss. The World Bank has financed biodiversity conservation around the world, including over 116 million hectares of Marine and Coastal Protected Areas, 10 million hectares of Terrestrial Protected Areas, and over 300 protected habitats, biological buffer zones and reserves. The COVID pandemic, biodiversity loss, climate change are all reminders of how connected we are. The recovery from this pandemic is an opportunity to put in place more effective policies, institutions, and resources to address biodiversity loss.Publication Economic Recovery(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-04-06)World Bank Group President David Malpass spoke about the world facing major challenges, including COVID, climate change, rising poverty and inequality and growing fragility and violence in many countries. He highlighted vaccines, working closely with Gavi, WHO, and UNICEF, the World Bank has conducted over one hundred capacity assessments, many even more before vaccines were available. The World Bank Group worked to achieve a debt service suspension initiative and increased transparency in debt contracts at developing countries. The World Bank Group is finalizing a new climate change action plan, which includes a big step up in financing, building on their record climate financing over the past two years. He noted big challenges to bring all together to achieve GRID: green, resilient, and inclusive development. Janet Yellen, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, mentioned focusing on vulnerable people during the pandemic. Kristalina Georgieva, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, focused on giving everyone a fair shot during a sustainable recovery. All three commented on the importance of tackling climate change.Publication South Asia Development Update, April 2024: Jobs for Resilience(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-04-02)South Asia is expected to continue to be the fastest-growing emerging market and developing economy (EMDE) region over the next two years. This is largely thanks to robust growth in India, but growth is also expected to pick up in most other South Asian economies. However, growth in the near-term is more reliant on the public sector than elsewhere, whereas private investment, in particular, continues to be weak. Efforts to rein in elevated debt, borrowing costs, and fiscal deficits may eventually weigh on growth and limit governments' ability to respond to increasingly frequent climate shocks. Yet, the provision of public goods is among the most effective strategies for climate adaptation. This is especially the case for households and farms, which tend to rely on shifting their efforts to non-agricultural jobs. These strategies are less effective forms of climate adaptation, in part because opportunities to move out of agriculture are limited by the region’s below-average employment ratios in the non-agricultural sector and for women. Because employment growth is falling short of working-age population growth, the region fails to fully capitalize on its demographic dividend. Vibrant, competitive firms are key to unlocking the demographic dividend, robust private investment, and workers’ ability to move out of agriculture. A range of policies could spur firm growth, including improved business climates and institutions, the removal of financial sector restrictions, and greater openness to trade and capital flows.Publication Media and Messages for Nutrition and Health(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-06)The Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Lao PDR) has experienced rapid and significant economic growth over the past decade. However, poor nutritional outcomes remain a concern. Rates of childhood undernutrition are particularly high in remote, rural, and upland areas. Media have the potential to play an important role in shaping health and nutrition–related behaviors and practices as well as in promoting sociocultural and economic development that might contribute to improved nutritional outcomes. This report presents the results of a media audit (MA) that was conducted to inform the development and production of mass media advocacy and communication strategies and materials with a focus on maternal and child health and nutrition that would reach the most people from the poorest communities in northern Lao PDR. Making more people aware of useful information, essential services and products and influencing them to use these effectively is the ultimate goal of mass media campaigns, and the MA measures the potential effectiveness of media efforts to reach this goal. The effectiveness of communication channels to deliver health and nutrition messages to target beneficiaries to ensure maximum reach and uptake can be viewed in terms of preferences, satisfaction, and trust. Overall, the four most accessed media channels for receiving information among communities in the study areas were village announcements, mobile phones, television, and out-of-home (OOH) media. Of the accessed media channels, the top three most preferred channels were village announcements (40 percent), television (26 percent), and mobile phones (19 percent). In terms of trust, village announcements were the most trusted source of information (64 percent), followed by mobile phones (14 percent) and television (11 percent). Hence of all the media channels, village announcements are the most preferred, have the most satisfied users, and are the most trusted source of information in study communities from four provinces in Lao PDR with some of the highest burden of childhood undernutrition.Publication The Journey Ahead(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-10-31)The Journey Ahead: Supporting Successful Migration in Europe and Central Asia provides an in-depth analysis of international migration in Europe and Central Asia (ECA) and the implications for policy making. By identifying challenges and opportunities associated with migration in the region, it aims to inform a more nuanced, evidencebased debate on the costs and benefits of cross-border mobility. Using data-driven insights and new analysis, the report shows that migration has been an engine of prosperity and has helped address some of ECA’s demographic and socioeconomic disparities. Yet, migration’s full economic potential remains untapped. The report identifies multiple barriers keeping migration from achieving its full potential. Crucially, it argues that policies in both origin and destination countries can help maximize the development impacts of migration and effectively manage the economic, social, and political costs. Drawing from a wide range of literature, country experiences, and novel analysis, The Journey Ahead presents actionable policy options to enhance the benefits of migration for destination and origin countries and migrants themselves. Some measures can be taken unilaterally by countries, whereas others require close bilateral or regional coordination. The recommendations are tailored to different types of migration— forced displacement as well as high-skilled and low-skilled economic migration—and from the perspectives of both sending and receiving countries. This report serves as a comprehensive resource for governments, development partners, and other stakeholders throughout Europe and Central Asia, where the richness and diversity of migration experiences provide valuable insights for policy makers in other regions of the world.