Enterprise Culture(中德企业文化差异 英文).doc

Differences of Enterprise Culture1 Cultural foundation 1.German companies: Enterprise culture in German is based on the Christian rational spirits and the humanistic thoughts. But science and legislation are more important in German.2. China companies: Enterprise culture in China is based on the Confucian culture. But “ human relationship ” and “ morality ” are more important in China. 2 Power distancePower distance means the concentration of power and the degree of autocratic leadership in an organization. So in a company, it stands for social distance between managers and staffs.China companies have a bigger power distance relatively, people think superiors deserve the special rights. Besides, this situation also leads to the big salary difference. China has a pyramid structure of centralization of authority, you can tell boss and staff easily. Status hierarchy and separation of powers are obvious greatly.On the contrary, German is a country who has a smaller power distance, they think all employees should have the same treatment with their bosses. Everyone is equal. They think it is wrong to get the special rights by using their power. In German, the standardized skills and professions are more important, so the power distance is not obvious between superiors and inferiors.3 Individualism and collectivismIn German, people praise individualism highly. Although they require cooperative spirit, subjective initiative and creativity are strongly emphasized.In China, people think collectivism is better. Employees consider the collective as first thing. When personal interests is conflicting with collective interests, people always choose to protect the collective interests with giving up the personal interests.4 Time managementGerman has strict sense of time, they think time is limited. Time managing is a prerequisite for effective action and an essential component of professionalism. A successful manager must have the ability to arrange the work time of employees and himself. Time should be planned as well as possible. They think time is for arrangement.But Chinese think it in a different way. In China, it is very normal to break an appointment and change a plan casually. When facing a new situation, people always change the plan they have already made. They like working in an uncertain state. Nowadays, flexibility is a basic ability for Chinese, they believe that preparing theirselves for unanticipated things is necessary.5 Communication systemThrough the application of Halls High- and Low-Context Orientation, in high-context cultures, such as China, most of the information is in the physical context or is internalized in the people who are a part of the interaction. People tend to be more aware of their surroundings and their environment and do not rely on verbal communication as their main information source. In low-context cultures, such as German, however, most of the information is contained in the verbal message, and very little is embedded in the context or within the participants.In China, when people communicate with their customers, they will think firstly how to keep a harmonious relationship. When we negotiate with old customers, we should chat to remember our friendship, then begin to negotiate with politeness. And when someone makes mistakes, he can know it through other peoples tone and eyes. So if someone is criticized, he may have a bad mood in several days.In German, managers think the chat before the negotiation is a behaviour of wasting time. They should negotiate directly, including old customers. In the negotiation, they will talk what they said. And if someone makes mistakes, the bosses will criticize him at the first time, they never consider about the faces and the bearing capacity of staffs. Differences of Business LetterGerman use more negative politeness strategies than Chinese, and Chinese are unwilling to destroy the negative face to business partners in some disputes. Germans are directive to the conflicts with Tact maxim. Chinese cultural rank and collectiveness concept consider the approbation maxim while German cultural equality and individualism put the agreement maxim at the first place in business communications.In China, when we write a business letter, the business context is formal,