Management by Confucius

One of the most important tasks of every manager is the negotiation within and outside his own company. This book introduces negotiating methods influenced by Confucian thoughts but also by Sun Zi’s strategies. negotiation style. This book portrays the current economic situation in China, with an emphasis on foreign direct investment (FDI). This part is given as an introductory part. It introduces central aspects for a manager doing business in China: · conflict of interests, · privacy, · intellectual property rights, · management of personnel, · guanxi, · saving the “Face” · legality and morality, · contract and trust, and · the concept of yi. The final part examines the actuality of the Confucian management style challenged by Max Weber and will give an outlook to management by Confucius in a future China. Stefan Messman collected his initial experiences with China while participating at the first negotiations between VW and SAIC in Shanghai from 1979 until 1984. In 1991- 1993 he was Vice-CEO at Volkswagen Shanghai and representative of “Umform- Technik Erfurt” in China between 1993-1997. Having studied Law in Geneva, he currently is Professor for International Business Law at Central European University (Budapest).