Abstract
The article titled ‘Co-evolution of culture and technology: The business success of Lee Kum Kee’ examines cultural and technological adaptation of business firms for its success as reputed global players. The study explores the case of Chinese family business group Lee Kum Kee in Hong Kong and how it evolves into a global manufacturer of well-known brand of oyster sauce. The article finds that the success of Lee Kum Kee is mainly because of its ability to adapt with the cultural and technological changes demanded by the global market and also by transforming the business strategy. By citing the example of Lee Kum Kee, the author argues that the global success of an emerging business enterprise is greatly determining its ability to learn and adopt new technology. Here, the role of culture is significant enough since business strategies are formulated based on the knowledge and life experience of the entrepreneur which is culturally embedded.
The article has two parts. In the first part the article examines the impact of culture on Lee Kum Kee’s business. It explores this cultural impact in four major areas, namely, oyster sauce production, trade practice, corporate governance and marketing strategies. In the second part, the article analyzed the impact of technological change on the mindset of Lee Kum Kee’s successors as well as on their organizational culture. The article begins with an exploration of the roles of culture and technology in business strategy formulation in the context of China. The study observes that since the culture can impede or facilitate the entrepreneur’s decision on the adaptation of new technology in business, cultural background of the entrepreneur and his ability to adjust and adapt with changing culture is significantly important. In order to substantiate the argument of culture as a facilitating and impeding factor, the author cites example of Ch’ing dynasty of China and Meiji regime of Japan. In the former regime, Chinese officials and mandarins (bureaucrat scholar in the government of imperial China) prevent any kind of foreign technology as vice or evil, while in the Meiji period, the country frequently learns and adopts new technology from overseas.
After giving a brief description of the emergence and growth of Lee Kum Kee in China, the article has given a few sentences for the methodology used for the study. The article says that methodology employed is interpretative method by storytelling and case study. The data and materials in the study are exclusively based on secondary sources such as websites of Lee Kum Kee, newspapers, magazines and journals. Although the article claims that storytelling via case studies allows a deep understanding of the issues over time, there is no description about what interpretative method is and how it can be effectively utilized through storytelling approach.
The article traces the history of culinary skills of China especially the popular soya sauce, dates back to third century. Oyster sauce appeared in china by an innovation of chance by Lee Kum-sheung, the founder of Lee Kum Kee business group. The teaching of Confucianism especially the teaching of Jen influenced the trade practice of the Lee Kum Kee firm. The essence of Jen teaching is considering others’ interests. The founder of Lee Kum Kee has an opinion that entrepreneurs who pursued profits should also consider the interests of other people. The article observed that Lee Kum Kee managed the company according to their ancestor’s teaching with Confucianism and paternalism. It is reflected in the relationship between employees and senior management of the company. The article argued that the company used traditional Confucian values to ensure their heirs/staffs to live up to the family expectations as well as to conform to the goals of family business. In order to catch the local and global customers and marketing its products, the company strategically used cultural symbols of China such as chopsticks and panda.
The article says that in later phase, technology transformation has a great impact on Lee Kum Kee’s business management strategy and corporate governance. As a result, the company changed from a traditional Chinese family business to a Western-style corporation. The younger generation of the company was not hesitant to borrow management ideas and concepts from overseas. Yet, the new generation of the company respected traditional Chinese values of pragmatism, integrity and conscientiousness. The recruitment strategy of the company is rigorous even to people from Lee Kum Kee family.
The article concludes that by remixing the best of Chinese and foreign culture with new technology, Lee Kum Kee has successfully transformed into a globally acclaimed business firm. By doing this kind of cultural amalgamation, Lee Kum Kee practiced its vision ‘Building a cultural bridge between East and West with our sauce products’.
The research paper is an original work by giving some interesting and insightful information about Chinese culture and its positive influence for the success of a globally acclaimed business firm, Lee Kum Kee. Some of the arguments and claims made in the article such as entrepreneurs strategy formulation in business is greatly determined the culturally embedded stocks of knowledge and life experience of the entrepreneur, offer the psychological and sociological rigour of the findings and also the research arguments. It also offers a great possibility to explore further the linkage between cultural adaptation and success in business. One such referencing material is the study of Protestant Ethics and Spirit of Capitalism by Max Weber (Weber, 1930). In his book, Weber examined how the protestant ethics contributed for the emergence and growth of Calvinist (a sect in protestant) businessman in Europe. The present study also offers the potential of a scholarly enquiry of how the teaching of Confucianism and paternalism in Chinese culture influence the business entrepreneurs of Chinese origin and how they address the requirements of technological adaptation for business improvements. Such a study can also analyze the relationship between socio-cultural environment of the Southeast Asian countries and its food habits.
The article claims that storytelling via case studies allows a deep understanding of the issues over time. However, there is no description about what interpretative method is and how it can be effectively utilized by storytelling approach (Buchanan and Bryman, 2007). Since the study follows a qualitative research design, there should be mention of how the findings ensure validity and reliability (Miller, 1986). It is advisable to refer any other articles which used this research design for analyzing the success of business firm in South Asia or Southeast Asia. The scepticism of qualitative methodology adopted in the research paper, can also be overcome only through an adequate explanation of the phases of secondary data searching, inclusion and exclusion criteria of data and also the time frame of the data searching.
The case study of Lee Kum Kee can be a benchmark for future study. In future, the study may be extended on the following points: First, scholars can study the significant changes in the existing business of Lee Kum Kee, after the bilateral trade agreement of 2003 (Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement) Hong Kong and mainland China (Antkiewicz and Whalley, 2005; Cabrillac, 2004). Second, perceived usefulness and perceived ease-of-use are two important factors of new technology acceptance. The present case study may be reexamined in the light of technology acceptance model (TAM) (Bagozzi, 2007; Davis, 1989). Future study can also suggest a working model for cultural adaptation of technology (Ward and Kennedy, 1999). Finally, the study can be compared with other studies related to advanced manufacturing technology (AMT) implementation and limitation of family owned business (McDermott and Stock, 1999; Tsang, 2001; Yeung, 2000).