Businessmen from Japan and South Korea believe the two nations must understand each others' cultures and customs to strengthen both economic ties and links with China, according to a recent poll. Their Chinese counterparts, on the other hand, stress the importance of governmental economic cooperation.
Organized by Dentsu Institute for Human Studies, the poll shows 77 percent of Japanese and South Korean businesspeople support cultural understanding as the most important factor to improving economic ties. In contrast, 61 percent of the Chinese pollees gave top billing to economic cooperation by the three governments.
Establishing common rules with enterprises of each country was ranked second by Japanese and Chinese pollees, winning 62 percent and 53 percent of their support, respectively, while 66 percent of South Koreans ranked governmental economic cooperation second. The Survey of Japanese, Korean and Chinese Business Leaders of Tomorrow aims to discover the values of future business leaders in each of the three countries, according to the institution.
In Japan, 512 mid-level managers at companies listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange and 300 of their South Korean counterparts were polled. In China, 301 executives at state-run, private and joint-venture companies were surveyed. Conducted in conjunction with the Hanbek Foundation in Seoul and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing, the poll was broken down into four categories: lifestyles, work styles, social views and mutual understanding.