Lewis Model: Comparison Between France And China

Other than political aspects, I think the Lewis Model have clearly showed the huge difference at active styles in between France and China, in the graph, France is in between multi-active and linear-active meaning that French are more task oriented and highly organized because they are linear-active, in additionally, French are more emotional and positive social atmosphere because they are as well as multi-active. China is all the way to opposite -- reactive, meaning that they are mostly good listener and usually their reaction is based on other’s positions. For the differences at their active styles, I would say this could be a advantage for French managers because they are on the higher position in the whole business process, and Chinese

For instance, in France, there are strong separation in between personal and professional life, they work hard but they are not workaholic, in most of the case, they will put their personal life in first order. There is no surprise that Chinese are nearly the other way around, there is not separation in between personal and professional life, they work hard and when there is conflict on schedule for personal life and professional life, they will likely sacrifice their personal life in order to achieve their professional appetence. Work hard is one of the most important factor to success in Chinese corporate culture however, indeed, relationships are king, in Chinese corporate culture, relationships are more important than hard working, it might sound ridiculous but it’s fairly true. For foreigners, just need to be aware that and keep in mind, making a good impression are definitely

French people don’t like to speak about their personal life in business however for Chinese, this is their favorite topic, in Chinese cultural, people talking and sharing about their personal life showing that you are willing to continue the conversation and this can bring people closer in very short period of time at the beginning of the communication. Furthemore, for French people, they often interrupt to express their opinions, for them, these kind of acts showing that they are participating in the conversation which aim to show they are respectful but for Chinese people these kind of acts are just interrupting and disrespectful. When we talk about direct and indirect verbal communication, French people will always try to don’t offence you and that is why they are not always direct unless sometimes they really need to be direct. Compared to French, Chinese are even more indirect, they will never say no to you but that don’t mean they agree. Even if they say Yes it doesn’t mean that they are totally agree with you. To find out what is really in Chinese mind, you have to pay attention to their non verbal communication(such as facial expression) to really know what they are thinking during the conversation. Last but not the least, eye contact meaning really different in China than France, for French, eye contact is needed to show