Jason Patent Blog: China's Business Culture

I recently became a regular reader of the Jason Patent blog. Patent is a PhD linguist with a ton of teaching and writing experience regarding Chinese culture. Patent now offers coaching and consulting services, mostly relating to Chinese business culture and that is what he usually writes about on his blog as well.

His welcome page describes his blog:

All organizations in China work in an unpredictable environment. What few realize is that much of what determines your success or failure is completely predictable. Decades of on-the-ground experience and validated research have shown that when Westerners go to China, certain things will come up as a result of the unfamiliar cultural environment they find themselves in.
A hitter in baseball knows the difference between a fastball and a curveball, and knows which one they’re better at hitting. Nobody should go to China without knowing the cultural basics, or without knowing their own strengths and weaknesses as leaders and as venturers into the unknown. Why lose out for failure to prepare for what you can prepare for?

There is one reason for my being here: to help you succeed in China. The formula is straightforward: by being ready for the mental traps awaiting you in China, you will save precious time, money and goodwill, giving yourself the best possible chance at success.

His posts often explore a particular way Westerners view Chinese and then details how the perception might have arisen, and analyzes its validity/invalidity. The posts also usually set forth how to deal with these perceptions to more smoothly allow business to go forward. I particularly liked his series on trust:

-- Truth and Trust: Prove it
-- Truth and Trust: Absent malice?
-- Truth and Trust: American lies
-- Truth and Trust: Chinese truths

If you are doing business in or with China, you should be reading the Jason Patent blog and I just added it to our blogroll.