Reflective Journal Entry 2

Time flies and now week 5 has passed. Until now, I have been through several CDE lessons, and I have learned a lot from these lessons. For the first few lessons, Mr Karplus told us that we would be learning about the Western and Eastern cultures. Indeed, the CDE lessons until now have touched on many aspects of the differences of the Western and Eastern cultures. For the past few lessons, we have looked into the different managing styles of the East and West, focusing more on the Western managing styles. Mr Karplus touched on examples such as Apple and Google and introduced us to their management styles and indeed it was an eye opener. I also realiseded that although these 2 companies are both Western companies, they do not necessarily have similar management styles. Another example given was Lenovo, a Chinese company that has prospered in the West. This case study us allows to see and understand how a Chinese company is able to thrive and prosper in the Western world.

Using this new learned knowledge about the varying management style of both worlds and their pros and cons, we were then asked to use this information and what we have learned in CDE so far to assume the role of management consultants and provide advice to help a China based firm to expand into the US market. We are tasked to create a presentation on the suggestions that we have for the Chinese company that we have chosen and also include what they could adopt from Apple and Google.

For this presentation, our group decided to work on the Chinese sportswear company Xtep. Our rationale for choosing Xtep was that it is one of the leading domestic fashion sportswear brands in China, but has little to no presence outside of mainland China. We researched and looked into the current state of Xtep and its business model, then comparing it with other companies. By looking at the success stories of companies such as Li-Ning and Lenovo, we were able to come up with some major points that can possibly help Xtep for their venture into the US market. Other than that, we also included some points that Xtep can learn from Google.

The suggestions that we came up for Xtep was to adopt some of the American management styles and employ Americans so as to get some insight into the American market. Other than that, Xtep can also try to sponsor some famous athletes to let their product reach a wider range of audience.

Through this presentation, I also got the chance to look at the other groups present on the various different companies that they have chosen. They choose companies such as WeChat, Li-Ning, Geely, Meizu and Qihoo 360. From their presentations, I was able to understand more about these companies and what their group thinks these companies should do to expand into the US market. It was interesting to here some of the suggestions that are different from what our group proposed and I think that I learned a lot more from their presentations. Since all these companies range from sports companies to tech companies, I was able to understand more about the different industries and how they operate.

In conclusion, I have learned a lot from these 5 weeks of CDE lessons. For the last few lessons, I was able to learn much more about the different management styles of the east and west through the case studies on Google, Apple and Lenovo. Other than that, the presentations also provided a deeper insight on how to adapt Chinese companies into the US market in order for them to thrive. They also allowed me to see the problems that they face, which clearly demonstrates the differences between the Eastern and Western management styles.

Overall, I am looking forward to the next few CDE lessons and I hope that CDE will continue to be enriching and enjoyable at the same time.

Reflective Journal Entry 1

It has been 2 weeks since school has started, and I have been through 3 lessons of CDE. At the start for the first lesson of CDE, I totally had no idea of what CDE was and did not know what to expect. Well, after some explanation from Mr Karplus, my impression of CDE was to help us understand the cultures of the east and west, while also giving us an insight of their differences. I personally believe that understanding these will allow us to better view this world and understand people from other societies. This knowledge will also allow us to have a edge next time when we enter the workforce as when we interact with people from USA or China, we will be able to know what to take note of during the interaction. 

For the first lesson of CDE, other than telling us about the curriculum, Mr Karplus also showed a few HSBC advertisements that displayed the importance of understanding the culture of people from other countries. For example in one of the advertisements, a foreigner went to China and had a business dinner with his Chinese counterparts. The main course of the dinner was a bowl of eel soup. He felt that it was rude to reject and decided to finish the whole bowl. However, he did not know that in Chinese culture, finishing your food shows the lack of generosity of the host. Thus, he was offered 2 more bowls of eel soup. This hilarious episode showcased the importance of understanding the culture of others. 

After that, Mr Karplus also told us that a lot of the things we think we know about another culture often are only the tip of the iceberg, and there is a whole lot more about a culture than what we perceive. We definitely have to dig deeper to have a more all rounded view of the culture of others. We also have to try to minimise the amount of stereotypes that we chose to believe in about the other culture so as to better understand it.

For the second and third lesson, we looked into the 15 different values in the American culture. After analysing them, we also looked at the differences between these values and our traditional Chinese values. After that, we also looked at Google as a case study and try to understand their work cultures. The Google work culture is very different from many companies around the world in the fact that theirs is more relaxed and allowed their employees to enjoy their time at work. They had many facilities that provided material comfort for their employees and also canteen that serve up top quality food for free. They also have the rule of "20% time". All these show that Google looks at improving the welfare of their employees in order to get the most out of them. 

Overall, I am looking forward for the CDE lessons this year and I truly hope that I can learn and understand more about the cultures of others. Other than that, I recognise the importance of CDE for BSP. As students learning to be bilingual and bi-cultural, CDE is crucial for us to accomplish that.