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December 10, 2007
And Wahaha Laughs...
We briefly posted on the Danone-Wahaha scandal in June. Now comes the sound of the other shoe dropping. From the Wall Street Journal:
A Chinese beverage maker won a trademark arbitration ruling against joint-venture partner Groupe Danone SA, the latest legal twist in a closely watched case and one that is unlikely to end the dispute.
The Hangzhou Arbitration Commission said the period had lapsed during which Danone was eligible to file its case against Hangzhou Wahaha Group Co. The case was aimed at forcing Hangzhou-based Wahaha to honor alleged obligations to transfer ownership of the Wahaha brand to the companies' joint ventures, a key aspect of Danone's effort to re-establish control over the Wahaha business in China.
Paris-based Danone said it is "shocked" by the result and is studying its options.
Shocked!
On a related note, a Harvard Business Review study of the supposed influences of Mao on modern Chinese managers, refers to the CEO of Wahaha:
High-profile Chinese business leaders who have used...Mao-style tactics to dominate their managers include Zong Qinghou, the founder and former CEO of Wahaha, the French-Chinese beverage joint venture. Zong recently circumvented the formal organizational procedures during a dispute and mobilized Wahaha employees to publicly denounce the French management. As of this writing, no settlement of the dispute was in sight.
Is it accurate to state that managers emulate Mao? Any case, apparently analogous, requires one to trace an influence from cause to effect, which the authors do not seem to attempt. And what is the benefit of an analogy so tenuously tied?
Instead, it is more accurate to say that mainland Chinese in positions of authority, and to a lesser degree Chinese outside of the PRC, share a purposefulness in their methods, often ruthless, usually creative, straightforwardly ambitious, enormously resourceful and extraordinarily authoritarian.
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