Building a talent pipeline is not easy in China and you will need all the help you can get.

Those who get to know you or to know about you through a third party grant you a higher level of confidence, credibility and loyalty. According to Dr. Robert Cialdini in his amazing book; Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, this is social proof in action.

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In terms of human resources, the current debate is focused on the continued need for multinational corporations in China to increase hiring of local staff, particularly for operations management, while decreasing or completely removing expatriate staff. Reasons for this shift away from expatriate staff include the high cost of salary and benefit packages, questionable value (in terms of productivity and ability to drive the business), high failure rates and most recently, the large readily available talent pool of expatriates already based in China (“halfpats”).

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While massive amounts of money is being spent on marketing in the run-up to the Olympics to capture China 250 million strong emerging middle class, unfortunately most marketing campaigns are failing to deliver the results that the sponsors like Coca-Cola or Adidas were hoping for. My latest piece looks at the effectiveness of Olympics sponsorship and …

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J.P. Morgan’s recent decision to hire Elaine La Roche as its China vice-chairman may have not been a difficult one, given her qualifications as a former chief executive of China International Capital Corporation.

Leading the large, successful, foreign-owned investment banking business left no shadow of a doubt on her capabilities, with many public decisions and achievements made through her run.

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While domestic companies have a wide range of alternatives in establishing business operations in China, foreign companies are more restricted, with the most common business vehicles for foreign investors being:

- Representative Offices
- Wholly Foreign Owned Enterprises 
- Joint Ventures (Cooperative and Contractual)

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