Book review: Understanding management in China: past, present and future

In view of the increasing prominence of China on the world scene, both scholarly and popular books and articles about that country have become highly topical. Yet our knowledge on China in general and its contemporary management in particular, remains fragmented, given its long history with its many important transformations, diversified philosophical strands, and more recently, foreign influences. Although it is often debatable what ‘Chinese management’ may imply, anyone who has direct or indirect experience with Chinese managers would agree that management practice in China is quite different compared with that in the West. A new book, ‘Understanding Management in China: past, present and future’, is indeed timely and enables us to considerably advance our insights. From the perspective of the longue durée, the author of the book Professor Malcolm Warner, an Emeritus Fellow at the University of Cambridge, a veteran of Chinese management field, guides the readers to approach the underlying question throughout the book: what makes ‘Chinese management’ Chinese management