Editorial

Citation

Clarke, T. (1999), "Editorial", Education + Training, Vol. 41 No. 6/7. https://doi.org/10.1108/et.1999.00441faa.001

Editorial

Thomas Clarke is Professor of Corporate Governance at Leeds Business School, and Visiting Professor at the China Europe International Business School, Shanghai. He is completing a research projÄect on The Transformation of Chinese Enterprises which examines how the explosive growth of the Chinese economy has been fuelled by the growth of collective, independent, joint venture and international enterprises. He has worked as a consultant to the British Council on the Development of Management Education in China. His earlier work includes surveys of international privatisation strategies and the new public sector management. His current book (with Stuart Clegg) is Changing Paradigms: The Transformation of Management Knowledge for the 21st Century. In September 1999, he takes up the post of Professor of International Management at the University of Technology, Sydney. UTS Sydney has a highly successful MBA programme delivered in Mandarin, and university programmes offered in Singapore, Malaysia and Shanghai. UTS also has an international institute with strong research links with China.

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To educate and train nearly one quarter of the world's population. This is the challenge facing China. Even in a country that is used to tackling problems of a huge scale, this task is daunting. Yet education and the veneration of knowledge has proved a cornerstone of Chinese civilisation for the last 4,000 years. As a consequence, China has one of the best established and most extensive educational infrastructures in the world. The desire for learning, and the belief in personal development through education is probably more profound in Chinese culture than in any other. The value placed on educational achievement by the Chinese is inestimable.

In principle this places China in a unique position in the developing world to capitalise on the opportunities of the emerging knowledge-based global economy. What is holding China back, is not just a crippling lack of resources (despite rapid economic growth GDP per capita remains that of a poor developing country) which often results in impressive college and university buildings remaining empty shells, but a similar constraint in the educational principles and practices of China. The Chinese mode of education has an ancient lineage, and involves a classical approach to literature and science. Over time this has frequently degenerated into rote learning supervised by remote and authoritarian teachers.

It is increasingly clear to the Chinese themselves that this approach to education and training will not equip China for effective participation in the modern world. An internationally competitive, continually changing, and technologically-transforming global economy demands an equally dynamic and creative approach to education and training. This has been recognised by the Chinese Government which in the past has jealously guarded a centralised state control of the educational curriculum and awards. A law passed in January 1999 devolves responsibility to regional provinces for deciding universities' standards of entry, recruitment of staff, development of international links, and the issuing of degrees. "Under China's new law, the mission of universities changes from the 'cultivation of knowledge' to the 'cultivation of talents and creativity' - a major difference in a culture that has traditionally treated the teacher as guru." (Timer Higher, 7 May, 1999). It remains to be seen whether these and earlier reforms will foster the spirit of engagement with the modern world that has typified the educational systems of the West over the last 40 years.

The area in which these tensions between ancient and modern, tradition and change, conformity and creativity are being experienced most acutely is in the field of management education and training. This special issue of Education + Training is intended to survey in detail the endeavours taking place to transform the education and training of Chinese managers. The future well-being of the Chinese economy and society will rest increasingly on the success of these efforts. Indeed, the place of China in the world economy, for too long absent or enigmatic, largely will be decided by the effectiveness with which China can bring forward a new generation of managers capable of understanding and acting on the economic forces determining the shape and direction of the modern world.

In the first article of the special issue, Bill Fischer discusses the pioneering efforts to encourage modern management thinking among the leadership of China. The economic achievements of China have so far been delivered by a political leadership, and Chinese managers have yet to emerge as a viable force capable of redefining the economy. In the absence of a managerial revolution transforming the efficiency of Chinese industry, the economic gains so far made have been accomplished simply by mobilising greater resources. A veteran of the two major initiatives of the United States Government and the European Union to support management education in China, respectively the Dalian programme and China Europe International Business School (CEIBS), Bill Fischer is well qualified to comment on the achievements and limitations of the attempt to introduce modern management theory and practice there. CEIBS represents the developing international diversity and opportunities of the Chinese economy, and the challenge will be for the 56 domestic Chinese universities now offering MBA programmes to effectively benchmark against such international standards.

The economic reform of China involves pushing hundreds of thousands of state-owned enterprises into the market system, where millions of cadres used to being guided by central planning, will for the first time, become real managers making real decisions. This together with the rapid expansion of the Chinese economy has meant there are insufficient educated and trained managers. China has responded by importing management education from the West. Sue Newell focuses on the problematic transfer of this social technology. She suggests that while the codified knowledge of textbooks may appear readily transferable, tacit knowledge requires developing in a particular context which demands practical experience of this context. The social construction of experiential knowledge occurs in a process of social interaction. Therefore she concludes there is a need to create "learning communities where ideas from the West are discussed and reinterpreted and reintegrated with Chinese values, to create a unique bundle of management knowledge deeply embedded in the unique social, political, cultural and economic context of China".

The importance of this approach is emphasised in a fascinating account by Sally Chan, of the influential power of Chinese cultural values in education, and how Chinese learning styles have been shaped over centuries of Confucianist philosophy as well as its permeability through different generations. It is this weight of generations that forces intense pressures for academic performance among Chinese young people. The practical ethics of Confucianism today is about the correct observation of human relationships within a hierarchically-oriented society. Confucianism emphasises "the value of harmony, urging individuals to adapt to the collectivity, to control their emotions, to avoid conflict, and to maintain inner harmony". Sally Chan examines how the emphasis on the concrete and practical in Chinese education explains why they excel at accounting, computing and engineering. The corollary is that abstract thinking and problem-solving skills tend to remain undeveloped.

The complexity of the issues confronting modern managers cannot be resolved by isolated disciplines, but requires an integrated interdisciplinary analysis. Zhichang Zhu considers the importance of the capacity to integrate the economic, political, social and technical elements of analysis for effective management decision-making, and how Western approaches to decision making often are one-dimensional and unilinear. Zhu suggests a mode of decision making, reconstructing ancient Eastern wisdom, which "may have the potential to search for synergy among goal-seeking, cognitive learning, and relationship maintaining approaches to management decisions".

Having examined some of the conceptual foundations of the drive towards management education in China, the second part of this special issue examines the ways in which an institutional infrastructure is developing in China to provide for the massive expansion of the provision of management education and training. Zhong-Ming Wang provides an authoritative analysis of the creation of a national system of education and training for Chinese managers from the 1980s to the present day. In a context of the dramatic restructuring and downsizing of the vast state-owned enterprise sector in China, with the release of tens of millions of people onto a previously undeveloped labour market, the importance of adequate technical training is being emphasised, with proposals for ten million people to participate in technical training announced in 1998, to equip them for new occupational roles. A similarly ambitious programme is being adopted for the expansion of MBA programmes, there have been 152,829 enrollments on MBA programmes around the country up-to-date, but a new national part-time programme launched in 1997 by the State Economics and Trade Commission in co-operation with the Ministry of Education, has set the traget of 200,000 MBA graduates from the scheme. As experience of delivering MBA programmes has developed in China, there has been a move away from a technical orientation to a more managerial focus, with a greater emphasis on competency development and tailoring programmes to particular enterprise needs. Increasingly it is hoped these courses will adopt a more international orientation.

Wai-Ming Mak examines an initiative of Zhejiang University and the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, to establish an International Executive Development Centre, and to offer executive programmes in different locations in China, including a Diploma in Enterprise Management. Zhejiang University is one of the best known universities in China, originating in 1897, and has over 20,000 students and 4,500 academic staff. Hong Kong Polytechnic University is of a similar scale, and highly experienced in providing specialist management programmes. As part of the restructuring taking place in higher education in China, Zhejiang University has recently merged with Hangzhou University, Zhejiang Agricultural University and Zhejiang Medical University to create a new Zhejiang University which will be the largest in China with the greatest range of disciplines. The International Executive Development Centre will aim to offer executive training to international standards adapted to suit the needs of Chinese enterprises. This example illustrates well how the great academic institutions of China are attempting to quickly transform themselves to meet the urgent need for qualified executives and enterprise managers to run China's rapidly changing economy.

The significance of international initatives is further emphasised by David Southworth's account of the building of the China Europe International Business School. CEIBS had powerful sponsors in the European Union and the Shanghai Provincial Government which allowed a degree of autonomy in the design and delivery of management programmes never before experienced in China, backed with substantial resources and considerable goodwill. As a leading institution confronting almost unlimited demand, CEIBS faced the perennial debate in higher education between quantity and quality. This controversy in China has greater resonance because of the sheer scale of the numbers involved, and the acute perception of informed Chinese people concerning what constitutes academic excellence in the universities around the world. With the help of the European Foundation for Management Development (EFMD) and a large, dedicated group of international faculty, the CEIBS executive were able to demonstrate that it is possible to educate large cohorts of students while striving for international standards. CEIBS is undoubtedly the precursor of many similar international initiatives to launch business schools in China, that hopefully will benefit from its invaluable experience.

The increasing interest in setting up international business schools in China, follows in the wake of the considerable and continuing foreign direct investment in China by international companies. (The OECD records a cumulative foreign direct investment in China in the period 1985-1995 of US$92 billion, and though this tremendous interest has now levelled off, China remains a more attractive location for investment than the rest of the developing world or Eastern Europe.) For these companies, international companies operating in China, the only alternative to home-grown talent is to import very expensive expatriot managers. As Stephen T.K. Li explains, expatriot managers practices are heavily driven by the imported style of the home companies, and the cultural beliefs of their own countries. This is exacerbated by the fact that managers place greater reliance on their value systems when making decisions in uncertain situations. But the consequence for Chinese people working in international companies and forced to accept practices which run counter to their traditional values is the experience of a form of cultural imperialism. To overcome these problems the development of a culture of trust and respect is imperative to allow both parties to learn from each other in a relationship where constructive values can be created.

This is made more difficult by the fact that Western concepts of interpersonal communication do not translate easily into Eastern patterns of relationships. However, the Chinese management system is moving away from the certainties of the iron rice-bowl derived from a feudal-Soviet model, towards the flexibility and motivation of Western employment and reward models. However, the impersonal business transaction mode of Western commercial organisations remains remote from the collective culture of China in which individuals interpret their organisational relationships from a moral perspective. Stephen Li concludes the inability to change management skills and the reluctance to abandon ethnocentric views may limit the potential of international companies to grow in China.

The final contribution provides the essential economic context in which the educational and training reforms of China are being worked out. Though economic reform has encouraged sustained economic growth, there is evidence to suggest the existing model of management of the Chinese economy is reaching its limits. The recent Asian financial crisis is a forewarning of what could happen to the Chinese economy unless firmer institutional foundations are laid. Further transformation in the economy and society of China is necessary if the values of innovation and creativity are to be encouraged to meet the challenges of a knowledge economy. Though there are some signs of an official acceptance of the need to change, some business schools in China are still finding their course development, recruitment, entrepreneurial and international initiatives are continuing to be constrained by the regulations of central and provincial government in a frustrating way. The greatest resource of China is its people, and the extent to which the educational and training system is successful in equipping them to face a complex and uncertain world will determine whether China fulfils its great potential in the modern world or not.

Thomas Clarke

Further reading

Berger, S. and Lester, R. (1997), Made in Hong Kong , Oxford University Press, Hong Kong.Clarke, T. and Yuxing, D. (1998), "Corporate governance in China: explosive growth and new patterns of ownership", Long Range Planning, Vol. 31 No. 2, pp. 239-51.Enright, M., Scott, E. and Dodwell, D. (1997), The Hong Kong Advantage, Oxford University Press, Hong Kong.Goodman, D.S. and Segal, G. (1997), China Rising , Routledge, London.Lingle, C. (1997), The Rise and Decline of the Asian Century, Asia 2000, Hong Kong.Rohwer, J. (1995), Asia's Rising, Nicholas Brealey Publishing, London.