To many foreign companies who like to explore new opportunities on the Chinese market it doesn't matter which of their managers will go there each time to do the negotiations, as long as these managers adhere to the adopted strategy and remain within the scope of the authorisation granted to them. The personalities only matter with an eye to the negotiating skills acquired and also, when the negotiations reach an advanced phase, to make sure that the senior executives are present at the moment the final loose ends need to be dealt with.
Each company has a number of managers available all sharing the same skills, so if it suits them better they just send someone else with the same knowledge and experience. Besides, as a rule, the company always needs one or more substitutes to fall back upon who are well informed about the matter.
Only when a certain negotiator has proven himself to achieve better results than others would they prefer to put this negotiator into action more frequently, but apart from that to the average foreign company it is not really that important who will visit China in this respect. One assumes after all that commitments are exclusively binding between companies (organisations) and not between individuals. With regard to companies, individuals are not decisive in the legal sense.
This so-called institutional line of thinking is most prevalent in economies characterised by an advanced, comprehensive legislation with a long-standing record, where the relations between legal entities or persons are of course principally viewed in legal terms.
This line of thinking is in China yet far from common property. Here, much attention is still paid to the building up of a personal relationship.
A regular contact person who is to consult and negotiate with the Chinese partners, and is fully entitled as well to take decisions of one's own, is a natural prerequisite in order to make progress.
Without a familiar face from the European side you may not get one step further.
Yujie Services comes each month with a premise that focuses upon a certain aspect of the Chinese business culture where things may go wrong.
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