Business Relationship Management and Marketing in a European-Chinese Context

Abstract

Contemporary research of relationship marketing and management increasingly focuses on businesspeople and organizations, whose behaviors and interactions are greatly influenced by the cultural backgrounds. It is therefore crucial to understand the culturally determined behavioral patterns and values of foreign business partners for business people who are involved in international business. This chapter uses the European Union and China, the two most important economic powers in the world as examples to show how the two cultures differ and how these differences affect the business and business relationships between them. Moreover, we also introduce approaches to manage Sino-European business relationships. As Chinese business culture has its own specificity that is still not so well known by the westerners, managerial implications for doing business in China are provided at the end of this chapter, aimed at Western practitioners how to run their business relationships smoothly and successfully with their Chinese business partners.