International Management
Issue 8: Manufacturing China: Mattel
The ability for Hofstede’s model of culture to provide insight can be seen in a specific problem in Chinese manufacturing .china is one of the major manufacturing centers in the world, and there is much discussion in mature markets that Chinese goods will displace all manufacturing. What is not recognized commonly is that in some industries, almost all manufacturing is in fact done by Western companies and then the products exported to mature markets in North America and Europe. Thus, in high-technology domains close to 90 percent of Chinese exports are actually products manufactured by Western companies to export to their home markets.