Ford Library Blog

Midler, Paul. Poorly made in China : an insider’s account of the tactics behind China’s production game. Wiley, 2009.

Paul Midler could be said to be biting the hand that feeds him. After all, he has built a lucrative career as a China-based manufacturing consultant, using his expert knowledge and insight into Chinese history, language, and culture. And yet, he has penned a work that, while frank in its admiration for many Chinese cultural idiosyncrasies, is also sharply critical of both the questionable ethical basis on which the Chinese have built their gargantuan export economy, and the impatience and greed of American businesses in rushing to embrace the perceived advantages of having their product lines manufactured in China.

In the 240 smoothly written and eminently readable pages of Poorly Made In China, Mr. Midler recounts his daily experiences in creating and managing relationships between Chinese factory owners and American importers, giving us example after example of why the Chinese, in his opinion, win at every hand dealt at the negotiating table of price and quality. Thus the importer and the U.S. consumer often have a good chance of ending up with a product that either degrades in quality over time or increases in cost without benefit to the consumer, or both.

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Ford Library presents a new database based on the widely popular series Kiss, Bow or Shake Hands: The Bestselling Guide to Doing Business in More Than Sixty Countries.

This new database also includes Dun & Bradstreet’s Guide to Doing Business Around the World and articles written for publications like Industry Week and American Way Magazine, as well as the 2008 World Holiday and Time Zone Guide for over 100 countries.

Connect to Kiss, Bow or Shake Hands

E-books on Culture, Business Etiquette, and Global Business Practices: (These e-books are available through the Duke online catalog via NetLibrary.)

• Managing Complexity in Global Organizations (IMD Executive Development Series): Drawing together insights from across the expert faculty, Managing Complexity in the Global Organization presents IMD’s framework on how to understand complexity and its four key drivers (diversity; interdependence; ambiguity and flux), along with solutions on specific issues in a variety of functions, industries and markets. The focus is on providing practical solutions based on real-life examples.

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Gifford, Dan. China Road : a journey into the future of a rising power. Random House, 2007. Available in both Print or Audiobook

China Road is a travelogue about a journey across China, from Shanghai to the outer most reaches of the country, to the border with Kazakhstan, a journey of three thousand miles. Author Rob Gifford is a reporter with National Public Radio with extensive experience working and living in China. He travels along Route 312, the Chinese Mother Road, stopping at cities and towns along the way, interviewing Old Hundred Names, the common people, the regular Joes, about their lives and what it means to live in China’s heartland today.

The book begins in Shanghai, China’s most modern city. The urban economy is booming and for professionals there, life is good. There is no question that the future is even brighter. But China is a huge country and as he leaves Shanghai and travels west, Gifford finds a growing gap between urban rich and rural poor. He speaks to migrant workers, impoverished peasants, prostitutes, truck drivers, Tibetan monks, and even a hermit. He finds that the old cradle to grave provision by the state has collapsed, leaving many people worse off than before. For them, life is “Ren chi ren,” or “Man eat man.”.

Gifford skillfully interweaves both humor and history throughout his story, making China Road an informative book and a very entertaining read. His observations are insightful and personal, yet the book also presents many strategic and political issues that effect China’s economic development.

China Road is available at Ford Library in both Print or Audiobook format.

© Reviewer: Meg Trauner & Ford Library – Fuqua School of Business. All rights reserved.

The Ford Library would like to wish you all a very Happy Chinese New Year

Xin Nian Kuai Le (Happy New Year — Mandarin)

Sun Nin Ffy Lok (Happy New Year — Cantonese)

Below is a list of new books in the spirit of this holiday and a tip for using the online catalog to find titles in non-roman scripts. (As usual, you can click on any of the titles below to check availability or to place a hold.) Please also see our Chinese New Year display and special features areas in the library for more information on the holiday and even more titles.

• Asian Business, Customs, and Manners: A Country-by-Country Guide by Mary Murray Bosrock
• Chinese leadership wisdom from the Book of Change by Mun Kin Chok
• Doing Business in Beijing by China Knowledge Press
• The Business and Investment Environment in Taiwan and Mainland China: A Focus on the IT and High-Tech Electronic Industries by by Chen-Min Hsu, Wei-Guo Zhang and Leslie Lok
• Guanxi and Business Strategy: Theory and Implications for Multinational Companies in China by Eike A. Langeberg
• The Chinese Economy: Transitions and Growth by Barry Naughton
• Harmony versus Conflict in Asian Business: Managing in a Turbulent Era edited by Oliver H.M. and Raymond P.M. Chow
• Debt Capital Markets in China by Jian Gao
• The China Road by Rob Gifford (This is an audiobook.)

Did you know you can search the online catalog for non-roman scripts? Currently, some titles are available in Japanese, Korean, Arabic, Cyrillic, Hebrew and Devanagari scripts. Most of the catalog records in non-roman scripts are in Chinese, Japanese or Korean, but there are some in Arabic, Hebrew and Cyrillic, and more of these will be added in the future.

For more information on how to search in Chinese, please contact the librarian for Chinese Studies, Luo Zho

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