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留学生国际商务管理硕士论文international business review
International Business Review 17 (2008) 194–207
Changing Chinese values: Keeping up with paradoxes
Guy Olivier Faurea,, Tony Fangb
a China Europe International Business School, China
b Stockholm University School of Business, Sweden
Received 23 February 2007; received in revised form 23 March 2007, 17 May 2007; accepted 30 January 2008
Abstract
The impact of China’s modernization during the past three decades (1978–2008) on the changes of Chinese behaviours is
salient. However, these changes have had an even greater impact on Chinese values. Indeed, China seems to have never
given up its single most important cultural characteristic, the ability to manage paradoxes. Ancient Chinese society was an
oxymoron melting pot. In the current age of globalization, Chinese society has retained and reinforced this unique feature
even in the most significant sociocultural changes. Through the analysis of eight pairs of paradoxical values, referring to
business and society at large, the article argues that life in contemporary China has undergone significant cultural change.
Nonetheless, in terms of the thinking process, modern Chinese society remains anchored to the classical Yin Yang
approach.
r 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Change; China; Contradiction; Culture; Globalization; Modernization; Paradox; Values; Yin Yang
1. Introduction
In the 5000 years of Chinese history, the past three decades (1978–2008) of the People’s Republic of China
(PRC) have proportionally elicited changes that probably not a single Western observer has been able to
foresee. A direct consequence of China’s ‘‘open-door’’ policy since 1978 is that Chinese society is now in direct
contact with foreign concepts, technologies, cultures and lifestyles. Globalization, foreign direct investment
(FDI) and the Internet are exposing China, for the first time in its history, to unprecedented global knowledge
transfer, information sharing and cultural learning.
The impact of China’s modernization during the past 30 years on the modification of Chinese social and
business behaviours is salient. However, one must question the changes at a deeper level—that of people’s
values. Indeed, China seems to have never given up its single most important cultural characteristic, the ability
to manage paradoxes. Ancient Chinese society was an oxymoron melting pot. In the current age of
globalization, Chinese society has retained and reinforced this unique feature even in the most significant
sociocultural changes. A constant reality of China has been its outstanding capability for keeping up with
paradoxes throughout its history including the current period.
ARTICLE IN PRESS
www.elsevier.com/locate/ibusrev
0969-5931/$ - see front matter r 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.ibusrev.2008.02.011
Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: go.faure@free.fr (G.O. Faure), tony.fang@fek.su.se (T. Fang).

Paradoxical values, like Yin and Yang, depend on each other, exist within each other, give birth to each
other, and succeed each other at different points (Fang, 2006a). Chinese continuity builds on this Yin Yang
integration and dynamism. The Chinese evolution is not the passage from one system to another or from a
repertoire of values to its opposite. This evolution combines antagonisms, integrates contradicto本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。