The first step, recording philosophical sayings, turned out to be quite
straightforward because most of the interviewees made explicit
philosophical statements either before or after describing their
management practices. Those statements typically used well-known
Chinese maxims such as ‘‘Harmony begets wealth’’ (he qi sheng cai),
‘‘Harmony is precious’’ (he wei gui) and ‘‘the Golden Mean’’ (zhong
yong zhi dao). In the four cases where the executives described their
management practices without making explicit philosophical state-
ments, philosophical notions of management were inferred from
descriptions of management practices. The first author and his
research assistant conducted the first step of the content analysis
separately for twenty-five interviews, with an inter-rater agreement
of nearly 90 percent. They discussed their differences and achieved
agreement. Afterwards, the research assistant analyzed the remaining
ten interviews.
A total of 152 distinct sayings was recorded and the average number
of sayings per participant was 4.34 (s.d. = 1.85). Those sayings were
sorted into distinct philosophical notions according to their thematic
similarity through discussion and consensus among three of the
authors of this chapter. For example, all sayings about the importance
of harmony such as ‘‘Harmony begets riches’’ and ‘‘Harmony is pre-
cious’’ formed the philosophic notion of ‘‘Harmony is precious’’. This
method created seven general categories of management philosophy
that are mutually exclusive.
Results
Philosophical notions of management held by business leaders
Table 8.1lists the seven philosophical notions of management and the
frequency with which each was nominated by the business executives.
Sincerity is essential (yi cheng wei ben)
Sincerity is essentialwas the philosophical notion most frequently
cited (66 percent) by the participants. It means being honest and
honoring promises in dealing with people and business. This notion
was expressed in terms such as ‘‘honesty and no deception,’’ ‘‘earnest-
ness,’’ ‘‘be tolerant of others,’’ ‘‘self-discipline,’’ ‘‘set an example with
one’s own conduct,’’ ‘‘trustworthy,’’ and ‘‘being honest to others.’’
Chinese traditions and Western theories 243