Managing for customers and employees in Hong Kong: The quality and teamwork challenges

Service marketing, total quality management, and human resource management researchers have proposed that employee teamwork is a foundation for service quality. North American research suggests that developing cooperative relationships and constructive controversy among employees can empower employees to serve customers and to strengthen their work relationships and commitment to the organization. Chinese employees in an American-style restaurant in Hong Kong were interviewed on specific incidents that affected service quality. Correlational and structural equation results support the hypotheses that cooperative goals help employees discuss their diverse views open-mindedly and that this constructive controversy results in quality customer service. Competitive and independent goals were largely negatively correlated with dynamics and outcomes. Results were interpreted as suggesting that service teams should develop strong cooperative goals and the skills and procedures of constructive controversy. Deutsch's theory of cooperation and competition, although developed largely through North American research, seems useful for understanding and developing service quality teamwork in Asia.     

Ethical perceptions of organizational politics: A comparative evaluation of American and Hong Kong managers

This paper presents a cross-cultural analysis of ethics with U.S. and Hong Kong Chinese managers as subjects. These managers were given the Strategies of Upward Influence instrument and asked to evaluate the ethics of using various political strategies to attain influence within their organizations. Differences were found between Hong Kong and U.S. managers on a variety of dimensions, indicating important differences between these two groups on their perceptions of ethical behavior. In the paper, we identify potential reasons for the findings, and suggest directions for future work in this area.David A. Ralston is Associate Professor of Management at the University of Connecticut. His management development programs have been presented in both China and Russia. His research interests include cross-cultural managerial issues including work values, influence strategies and stress. Recent research has focused upon Asia and the Pacific-Rim nations. His most recent research has been published in theJournal of Applied Psychology, Journal of International Business Studies, and theAsia-Pacific Journal of Management.Robert Giacalone is currently Associate Professor of Management Systems at the E. Claiborne Robins School of Business, University of Richmond, and is a consultant to both the private and public sectors. He is the author of over 40 management articles and two books, and is the editor of the special issue in theJournal of Business Ethics on behavioral approaches to business ethics. In 1992, he was named editor of the Sage Series in Business Ethics.Robert H. Terpstra is Senior Lecturer of Finance at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He has consulted for companies in both Hong Kong and China. His current research interests include cross-cultural studies of managerial decision making and risk-taking behavior. His recent work has been published in theJournal of International Business Studies, Asia-Pacific Journal of Management, Pacific-Basic Finance Journal, International Journal of Management and theJournal of Applied Psychology.     

Hong Kong as a complex adaptive system

In this contribution, the post-war economic development of Hong Kong is considered from a complexity theory perspective. It is argued that over the last 50 years Hong Kong has displayed many of the signature qualities of a complex adaptive system in its transformation from dusty entrepot port to the secondwealthiest Asian economy. Insights from theories of complexity are used to shed light on a range of empirical phenomena. In contrast with the orthodox laissez faire account of Hong Kong's ascendancy, a complexity based explanation can be used to account for the presence of endogenously induced systemic disruptions and does not discount the role of external intervention in those areas of the economy prone to escalating feedback.     

Advertising in China and Hong Kong

A study of a selection of major US corporations was undertaken to determine how advertising budgets are appropriated. The relationship between profit and sales and the size of the advertising budget was examined to see if advertising allocations are being increasingly arrived at using ‘modern’ techniques such as mathematical decision rules or whether simple rules of thumb are still predominant in practice. Budget allocations for 80 companies to six media and their relations to sales and profit were also evaluated. Advertising budgets were examined in three matched categories: for brand advertising, for corporate advertising and for mixed advertising.     

HRM in Hong Kong since 1997

A diverse set of human resource management (HRM) practices became institutionalized during Hong Kong's industrialization from the 1950s through the 1970s within the context of an open economy, a government disinclined to intervene in business decisions or the labour market and a weak trade union movement. Economic restructuring, labour market changes and rising labour costs during the 1980s and 1990s pressured employers to find more effective ways of using their human resources. We focus on how the economic downturn following the Asian Financial Crisis has impacted on employment practices including employment security, compensation, skill formation, work reorganization and employment relations. We discuss changes in the public as well as private sector and argue that reforms in the former are loosening the rigidities of its highly structured internal labour market system. Public sector employment practices are thus likely to converge increasingly with the ‘best practices’ of private sector and overseas government HRM systems.     

Welcome to Hong Kong!

With the approaching 2008 Olym- pics,Hong Kong SAR,as one f competition hosting place ac- cumulates attention as well.At the mean time,this July 1 welcomes the Hong Kong SAWs l lth anniversary.To elaborate the charm of this city,China's Foreign Trade holds an interview with Mr.Mike ROWSE, Director-General of Investment Promotion at InvestHK.     

2004 Hong Kong Arts Festival

Every year during February and March the Hong Kong Arts Festival presents ashowcase of the best international, regional and local artists over a four weekperiod in Hong Kong. Established in 1972, the Festival's first Director hadbeen the director of the world renowned Edinburgh Festival. Since then the HongKong Arts Festival has gained a reputation as a leading international event. Theprogramme always includes a wide range of opera, classical music, dance, theatre,jazz and world music and it well reflects the cosmopolitan nature of Hong Kong andits status as an international city.     

Hong Kong 1997–a look back at Hong Kong's future

July 1st, 1997–the date on which Hong Kong reverted to Chinese sovereignty, an event with a world-wide audience: Did the date symbolize the long-awaited end of Western imperialism in Asia? Or a retreat from freedom? Or, now that it's in the past, was the whole thing just a case of journalistic overkill? It all depends on your point of view. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Culture's Consequences for Management in Hong Kong

In a recent review of Hofstede's comparative study of business practice and national cultures, 61 works replicating his methods are identified, and the critical four differences in the cultural dimension are ‘largely confirmed’. The only replication of Hofstede's study within IBM (his original sample vehicle) has largely validated the original model some twenty years later. These results seem to confirm the valuable contribution of Hofstede's work, although his model contains the limitations of all models; the simplification of reality into an understandable form cannot do justice to its complexity. In this paper, the main consequences of Hofstede's work for Hong Kong are reviewed. His proposition that culture and particularly social values influence economic activity and management, which is consequently ‘culture-bound’, is restated and supported by more recent studies.     

Economic Restructuring and HRM in Hong Kong

This article discusses the human resource implications of' business readjustment and advances in Hong Kong as its economy is restructured into a post-industrial centre of tertiary service industries. Corporate reforms are benchmarked against Western practices of exploring flexibilities and competitiveness which emphasize labour performance and cost savings. However, job security does not appear to have been eroded, possibly betraying an Oriental importance placed upon trust and commitment between employer and employee. As a meeting-place where Eastern and Western cultural practices interface, Hong Kong probably remains economically resilient by keeping its normative and institutional permissiveness in a hybrid mix of Western and Oriental practices.     

高效的中国香港船舶登记制度

根据国际公约和各国法规的规定。船舶登记是取得船舶所有权和船旗籍,确认其航行权的必要程序,同时也是确定船籍港,建立港航行政机关对于船舶的管辖关系,使船舶依法享受权利,承担义务的重要法定手续。     

Japanese managerial and organizational learning

The article describes how the external forces of Japanese culture, industrial organization, and government intervention support managerial and organizational learning. It provides an overview of the culturally explicit philosophies that govern and stimulate learning in Japan, then explains how these philosophies are exhibited in Japanese management practice today. A model is presented which demonstrates the relationships among external forces, philosophical origins, management practice, and managerial and organizational learning. The conclusion is that managerial and organizational learning constitute one of Japan's most valuable competitive advantages. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

回归十年:我们眼中的香港

<正>回归十年,内地的普通居民会如何来看待这样一个历史事件,而在他们的心中,香港又是怎样的一个城市呢?零点研究咨询集团也对这一热门话题展开了调查,结果显示,内地普通居民对香港回归这一历史时刻印象深     

Hong Kong,The Shopping Paradise

Hong Kong is a place with multiple personalities,as a result of being Cantonese Chinese with a long-time British influence. Today,it is a major tourism destination for China's increasingly affluent population. It is also an important hub in the Chinese Diaspora with global connections to many of the world's cities.It is a unique destination that has absorbed people and cultural influences from places as diverse as Vietnam and Vancouver.     

香港内地企业走向国际市场的跳板--香港/上海CFO2005论坛访谈录

由香港贸易发展局举办的“香港／上海CFO（首席财务官）论坛”，200511月1日在上海国际会议中心隆重举行。香港特别行政区财经事务及库务局局长马时亨．香港贸发局副总裁黄锦辉及上海市常务副市长冯国勤共同主持揭幕仪式。香港上海汇丰银行有限公司主席郑海泉．中国电力国际发展有限公司副董事长兼首席执行官李小琳．香港交易及结算所有限公司财务总监詹德慈、香港长江实业集团执行董事赵国雄等商界代表，就私募股本筹集．香港财资市场的优势．首次公开招股及房地产投资信托基金．海外并购等金融业热门议题，与参会者分享了精辟见解。逾300位内地著名企业的CEO及CFO出席了本届论坛，与香港顶尖的金融业精英进行了面对面交流。     

Hong Kong as a Trading Hub： Entrepot and Beyond

The author from Heng Seng Economic Monthly holds that, while Hong Kong's role as an entrepot for handling trade in physical goods will diminish over time, it will continue to excel as an important hub for managing invisible offshore trade and trading of capital and financial market instruments.     

Ethical Beliefs of Chinese Consumers in Hong Kong

In recent years, there has been increased awareness of unethical consumer practices in Asian countries. Asian consumers have gained a bad reputation for buying counterfeit products, such as computer software, fashion clothing and watches. In 1993, the estimated losses to US software companies due to Chinese counterfeiting stood at US $322 million (Kohut, 1994). The present study uses a consumer ethics scale developed by Muncy and Vitell (1992) to investigate consumers' ethical judgments from a Chinese perspective. The result shows that consumers in different cultures utilize similar rules to assess the ethicality of a given situation. However, findings also show certain cultural elements that are unique in influencing Chinese consumers' ethical judgments. The results also indicate the need for the continued development of and investment in consumer education in Asia.