This paper reports a study of Chinese Christian
executives in Hong Kong. The purpose of the
study is to determine the effectiveness of
Christian witness in the marketplace. It is an
exploratory study that adopts an inductive
approach to understanding some of what has
been happening in the marketplace. The reflection
is based on interviews with 119 Chinese
Christian executives who provided their personal
experiences as a database for reflection and
theorizing. There were two criteria for inclusion.
First, those invited to participate are known to
uphold a serious Christian commitment. This
qualifies them as “Christian.” Secondly, those
participating have in-depth business and management
experience. This qualifies them as
The research methodology is the Critical
Christ and Business Culture:
A Study of Christian
Executives in Hong Kong
Journal of Business Ethics
© 2003
Kam-hon Lee is Professor of Marketing at The Chinese
University of Hong Kong. His research areas include
business negotiation, cross-cultural marketing, marketing
ethics, social marketing and tourism marketing. He
obtained his Ph.D. in Marketing at Northwestern
University. Professor Lee has published in
Marketing
Business Ethics
serves on the editorial boards of various international and
regional journals.
Dennis P. McCann is the Wallace M. Alston Professor of
Bible and Religion at Agnes Scott College in Decatur,
Georgia. McCann’s research interests include comparative
religious ethics, business and economic ethics, and
Christian social thought. McCann received his Ph.D.
from the University of Chicago Divinity School in
1976. The author of several books and numerous
articles, he is a former member of the Editorial Board
of
MaryAnn Ching is Special Project Staff of Hong Kong
Professional & Educational Service, Ltd., a non-profit
organization that sponsors business ethics projects among
other professional and educational programs in Asia. She
obtained her MBA in Management at California State
University, Sacramento.
43: 103–110, 2003.Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.Journal of, Journal of Management, Journal of, and other refereed journals. He alsoThe Journal of Religious Ethics (1981–1996). Kam-hon Lee
Dennis P. McCann
MaryAnn Ching
Incident Technique. It is a proven methodology
in several rigorous research projects in marketing
(e.g. Bitner et al., 1990, 1994). A typical critical
incident has two characteristics. First, it is critical
because it recalls significant behavior that the
interviewee thinks made a difference in achieving
his or her designated objectives. Second, it counts
as an incident because the behavior is sufficiently
complete for observation and interpretation, and
its results are clear and predictable.
This paper makes use of data collected from
Christian executives through the Critical
Incident Technique to develop a conceptual
framework for reflection on the effectiveness of
Christian witness in the marketplace. While the
data was collected in Hong Kong, Christian
executives in other business communities may
find the results equally instructive. In addition,
executives of other religious convictions may use
this framework to develop a corresponding
paradigm for handling their own ethical challenges
in the marketplace.
Research method
Hong Kong Professional and Educational
Services, Ltd. (HKPES), a non-profit organization
sponsoring various professional and educational
programs in Asia, was the sponsor of this
study. MaryAnn Ching identified prospective
interviewees, secured their consent for interviews,
and enlisted the help of Kam-hon Lee and
Dennis McCann to conduct the interviews.
An interview would cover four topics. They
include the interviewees’ conversion and church
life, their business and management experience,
their general remarks on faith and work, and the
critical incidents in their experience that featured
significant encounters between their faith and
work. For each critical incident, the interviewees
would deliberate on the background of that
challenge, their response to it, the rationale
behind their response, and the consequences of
their response. All interviews were tape recorded
for subsequent analysis.
Nine executives were identified as initial cases
for testing the research methodology. Kam-hon
Lee interviewed them in Chinese. Dennis
McCann interviewed them in English. Based on
the interview results, it was concluded that while
the interviews were conducted under different
situations (Chinese vs. American interviewer,
Chinese vs. English as communication medium,
Protestant vs. Catholic interviewer, applied social
science vs. religious studies background, etc.), the
interview results remained virtually the same.
Only Kam-hon Lee or only Dennis McCann,
but not both, conducted the interviews for all
subsequent interviewees. Kam-hon Lee did 82
more interviews. Dennis McCann did 28 more
interviews.
In preparing the interview transcripts, Kamhon
Lee and MaryAnn Ching handled together
the 82 cases Kam-hon Lee interviewed alone.
Dennis McCann and MaryAnn Ching handled
together the other 37 cases. For the first 82 cases,
Kam-hon Lee prepared the drafts for 64 cases
based on his interview tapes and MaryAnn Ching
did the validation work after listening to the tapes
independently. MaryAnn Ching prepared the
drafts for 18 cases based on the remainder of
Kam-hon Lee’s interview tapes and Kam-hon
Lee listened to the tapes independently and did
the validation work. For the 37 cases Dennis
McCann and MaryAnn Ching worked together,
Dennis McCann prepared all the drafts and
MaryAnn Ching did all the validation work.
Altogether, 119 interview records were validated
as data for reflection and theorizing.
Theoretical framework
An important priority was to develop a theoretical
framework to capture the meaning for
business ethics of the critical incidents we had
collected in our interviews. The critical incidents
reveal a basic pattern that we understand, generically,
as an encounter between Christ and
business culture. The executive who identifies
himself as a Christian represents Christ in this
encounter. The challenge the executive faces is
to resolve conflicts between his or her Christian
discipleship and certain practices characteristic of
the prevalent business culture. The Christian
executive thus takes a critical stand toward the
business culture, with respect to either certain
104
Kam-hon Lee et al. practices normally accepted within it, or the
culture as a whole. Otherwise, the executive
cannot be qualified as a Christian executive. In
the meantime, the business culture in which the
executive operates does not coincide with the
norms and ideals implicit in Christian discipleship.
Otherwise, the encounter would have to be
regarded as occurring between Christ and Christ
instead of between Christ and business culture.
Nevertheless, the critical incidents that we collected
suggest a range of responses on the part
of Christian executives participating in this
encounter. We thus needed to formulate a
typology that would allow us to interpret the
significance of the full range of their responses.
H. Richard Niebuhr’s treatment of Christ and
culture proved to be especially promising for
developing such a typology. He identified five
types of strategies by which Christianity coped
with the practical challenges emergent in the
history of Western civilization. Niebuhr’s book,
Christ and Culture
source of literature for this research project.
However, careful study of the critical incidents
reported to us also allowed us to conceive this
encounter as an issue of conflict resolution.
Conflict resolution has been an important
research area in business. In the business negotiation
literature, Rubin et al. (1994), focusing on
contrasting the interests of two opposing parties,
developed a research area called styles of negotiation.
They also proposed a typology for
mapping the range of negotiating styles that is
consistent with the broadest paradigms of human
interaction. Their work thus also serves as one
major source of literature for this research
project. Our own hypothesis is that interpreting
the data we have collected requires constructing
a new typological framework that integrates both
these sources of literature. Within that new
typological framework we hope to capture and
understand what our data indicate concerning
Christian witness in the marketplace.
(1951), thus is one major Niebuhr’s Christ and culture
Following the work of H. Richard Niebuhr, van
Wensveen Siker (1989) extrapolated five types for
understanding the Christian encounter with
business culture. These are based in Niebuhr’s
original five types: Christ against culture, Christ
of culture, Christ above culture, Christ and
culture in paradox, and Christ the transformer of
culture. Following Niebuhr, van Wensveen Siker
sees the theme of Christ against culture as
opposition, and uses it to anchor one pole in the
typology. The theme of Christ of culture is
agreement, and it is used to anchor the other
pole. The other three types belong to the realm
between these two extremes. They seek to
respect the great differences between the two
principles, Christian discipleship and business
culture, while also holding them together in
some unity. They differ in the way each attempts
to combine the two principles. The theme of
Christ above culture is synthesis. It features a
pattern in which Christian discipleship assimilates
some elements of culture while maintaining
its own distinctive agenda. The theme of Christ
and culture in paradox is polarity and tension. It
features a pattern in which Christian discipleship
is experienced as living in an uneasy coexistence
of two powerful conflicting forces. The
theme of Christ the transformer of culture is
conversion. It features a pattern in which
Christian discipleship intends a systematic transformation
of culture towards Christian norms
and ideals. Niebuhr’s typological framework and
the five types of encounters with business culture
can be presented graphically, as in Figure 1.
Christ and Business Culture
105 Figure 1. Richard Niebuhr’s typological framework.
Negotiation styles
Lewicki et al. (2001) also identified five types in
their proposed framework of negotiation styles.
Their five types are dominating (also known as
competing or contending), yielding (also known
as accommodating or obliging), avoiding (also
known as inaction), integrating (also known as
collaborating or problem solving), and compromising.
Dominating, compromising and yielding
represent three positions along the path of
distributive bargaining, understood as the winlose
mode in negotiation. On the other hand,
avoiding, compromising and integrating represent
the three positions along the path of integrative
negotiation, understood as a path towards
win-win. The five negotiation styles may be presented
graphically, as in Figure 2.
Figure 2. Negotiation styles.
A new typological framework
If we position the five types featured in the
Niebuhrian Christ and culture paradigm within
the Lewicki, Saunders and Minton framework of
negotiation styles, Christ against culture corresponds
to avoiding. Christ of culture corresponds
to yielding. Christ above culture corresponds to
integrating. Christ and culture in paradox corresponds
to compromising. Christ the transformer
of culture corresponds to dominating. As
a result, the Niebuhrian Christ and culture
paradigm can be positioned in the negotiation
styles framework. In a way, the two paradigms
are integrated into one framework. The new
typological framework may be presented graphically,
as in Figure 3.
The new typological framework will still
feature five types. They include Christ against
business culture, Christ of business culture, Christ
above business culture, Christ and business
culture in paradox, and Christ the transformer of
business culture. If it happens that a Christian
executive is dealing with another Christian executive
in business, and the other Christian executive
is also a practicing Christian, more likely
than not, the Christian executive is going to
encounter a business culture that is compatible
with Christian faith. This may be regarded as a
special case of the type Christ of business culture.
While the new typological framework will still
feature five types, when these five types are positioned
in the context of the negotiation styles
framework, the implication becomes different. In
the new typological framework, it becomes
possible to understand explicitly the interrelationships
among these five types. It also becomes
possible to trace the possible strategies to switch
one’s response from one type to another.
Five representative critical incidents
When we use the above typological framework
to interpret the interview materials, it is appro-
106
Kam-hon Lee et al. Figure 3. A new typological framework.
priate to use a critical incident, not an interviewee,
as a unit of analysis. H. Richard Niebuhr
observes, “When one returns from the hypothetical
scheme to the rich complexity of
individual events, it is evident at once that no
person or group ever conforms completely to a
type.” (Niebuhr, 1951, pp. 43–44) The negotiation
between Christ and business culture may be
observed as something carried on publicly by
opposing parties, i.e. between the Christian
executive seeking to uphold Christian norms and
ideals and the counterpart upholding the prevalent
business culture. The negotiation may also
be observed as something carried privately in the
conflicts of the Christian executive’s own conscience.
Once interpreted within the revised
Niebuhrian typological framework, the critical
incidents thus may yield an empirically based
study of Christian ethics in business life. The
following five critical incidents are meant to
demonstrate the usefulness of our proposed
typology. There are five parts under each critical
incident. The first four parts (background,
response, rationale and consequence) are directly
copied from the respective interview transcripts.
The last part (remark for incident classification)
presents the justification to classify an incident in
a particular category.
Christ against business culture
Background.
Hong Kong to Taiwan and I then moved the
company to County FGH, China. That was a
natural way to reduce costs and improve efficiency.
China was close to Hong Kong, a better
location than countries in Southeast Asia. My
firm became probably the biggest operation in
this industry in Asia. I ran the firm for five to
six years. Two to three years ago, I faced a tough
decision whether I should close down the firm
completely because the way of conducting
business in China was just intolerable.
My father moved the company from Response.
firm although it meant that I would lose a lot of
money.
Eventually, I decided to close down the Rationale
my decision. When handling simple customs
matters, my colleagues had to face numerous
challenges regularly. While we were doing
nothing wrong, we would have problems from
customs officials, who accused us on different
issues. If we did not bribe, we could not settle
the disputes. However, I could not tolerate that.
. Corruption was the issue that led to Consequence.
up a new firm, the current firm, and together
with my daughter I run it at a much smaller scale.
After closing down that firm, I set Remark for incident classification.
demonstrates a case in which the Christian executive
chooses to stay away from a prevalent
business culture. There is avoidance, and there is
no more encounter.
This incident Christ of business culture
Background.
was more on the positive side. According to my
observation, in most cases in business, there were
no black and white issues. They were not moral
choices. I could see integrity most of the time.
However, in Hong Kong, one could see a
problem of failing to serve the customer, the
target for rendering service. This was especially
serious in the public sector, the not-for-profit
sector. When we planned to plant a church in
Area IJK, one hundred brothers and sisters
assembled our energy trying to do something
beneficial for that area. We took the initiative to
work out a detailed proposal. We were also
prepared to do all the work ourselves. Yet, when
we discussed that with the manager in charge of
the housing area in Area IJK, he gave us the
impression that he just did not care.
My observation of faith and work Response.
for Christians as well. The problem in the public
sector would be more serious than the profit
pressure problem in the private sector.
This problem might be very common Rationale.
was asking us to serve our master as if we were
serving Christ. In a modern society, the customer
The mandate from Biblical teaching Christ and Business Culture
was the master. There must be a drive to serve
the customer to the extent of exceeding his
expectations. Failing to do this would be failing
to observe the most critical ethical principle.
107 Consequence.
They just did not bother to think on
behalf of the customers. When I reviewed the
China enterprises, while there were not so good
performers, the top 10% of those enterprises in
China could also have a mindset to serve the
customers well. They were actually performing
at a higher level than the Hong Kong firms.
This observation made me quite disappointed. Remark for incident classification.
affirms that the prevalent business culture is
compatible with Christian values. As a result,
yielding to the prevalent business culture (for
example, exceeding customer’s expectations) is
Christian.
This executive Christ above business culture
Background.
motto of this company, Glorify God and Benefit
People, had a lot of attraction to me. When I
took over the company, I tried very hard to work
out the company motto. As a first step, I asked
the founder the way to work out the motto in
the company. However, he did not have an
answer for me. I had to figure it out myself.
Around that time, a friend also asked me what
was the mission of my company. Also, there was
a challenge for me to turn a small company
(US$300 000 to US$400 000 business a month)
into a big company. After trying very hard for
one to two years, in late 1989, I became quite
tired. There was not much progress although I
worked very hard. Business per month stayed at
about the same level. Around that time, I met
some brothers and heard their testimonies. They
were working in the business community and
they had previously faced sexual and monetary
temptation. But, since they followed Jesus, they
now had good relationships with their wives and
their families. They also experienced miracles of
healing and physical rescue even in their business.
My faith in God became renewed. I saw that
God not only did miracle in the past, he also
did it nowadays. Then, I got a message from God
that he could magnify and glorify Himself in my
business if I obeyed and trusted him in my
business.
I joined the company in 1987. The Response.
business that could glorify God and benefit
people. When we obeyed God, followed his way
and depended on God to run a business, a great
result would be glorifying God. When a business
had profits and used the profits to help others, it
would be a blessing bringing benefits to people.
I suddenly saw the way to lead a Rationale.
seeking. It answered my question.
This illumination was what I had been Consequence.
before and I prayed to God for my business, in
a way, previously, it was I who was the master.
God took up the role of an assistant. From then
on, God became the master and I served as the
assistant. When I shared this illumination with
my boss and other directors, since they were all
Christians, they accepted that perspective gladly.
While I was already a Christian Remark for incident classification.
executive upholds a total commitment to Christ.
When he took this position to run the business,
he put the business before the Lord and regarded
it as a prayer item. In ten years, this company
became the biggest graphic card company in
Hong Kong and one of the three biggest companies
in Asia in that industry. Business volume
grew from US$5 million to US$95 million a year.
This Christian executive was convinced that he
did a good job in business because of God’s work.
This Christian Christ and business culture in paradox
Background.
had a record showing that we had brought in
several thousand tons of certain materials to
China, and there was no record showing that we
used the materials to produce products and then
send them out. According to our record, we did
108
In one incident, the Customs OfficeKam-hon Lee et al. not bring in such materials. We wanted to check
with the Customs Office. However, it was in
vain. When we enlisted the help of a government
official in County DEF, he could only spend
money to smooth out the situation for us.
(Whatever money he paid on our behalf, we had
to pay him back.) In the meantime, the Customs
Office already stopped us from bringing in materials
to the factory. The production in the factory
was thus put on hold.
Response.
resolved properly, we were forced to file a complaint
to Beijing. In the meantime, we had to
allow the government official in County DEF
to clear things up for us.
We decided that if it could not be Rationale.
in the China operation. The Customs Office
would impose a penalty for no reasons. They
were accountable only to the central government.
However, based on others’ experiences, while the
Customs Office would impose a penalty for no
reason, they knew clearly whether a factory was
actually violating regulations. Thus, while
imposing a penalty, they would have differential
treatments towards those factories that were
innocent and those violating regulations.
Situations like this became a fact of life Consequence
a penalty for no reason.
. The case was later settled by paying Remark for incident classification
shows an uneasy co-existence of two powerful
conflicting forces. A Christian executive operating
in this situation will suffer for no reason,
because there is injustice in the prevalent business
culture. Yet, there is still a differential treatment
between those who are innocent and those
actually violating regulations. Justice, in a relative
sense, is still there.
. This incident Christ the transformer of business culture
Background.
receptive to the demand for rebates. They could
read the minds of those who have authority to
sign off on their work. Under the table arrangements
can easily get off the hook. Subcontractors
would usually ask, “How many percentages do
you want?”
In Hong Kong, subcontractors were Response.
policy although allowing rebates is quite
common in Hong Kong.
For me, I stick to the “no rebate” Rationale.
prices, but not for rebates. I want to nurture
professionalism.
I look for quality service and reasonable Consequence.
philosophy they would comply with it. As a
matter of fact, birds of the same feather flock
together. Over time, those subcontractors who
work for us tend to be clean ones.
When subcontractors knew my Remark for incident classification.
executive here transforms the way the subcontractors
deal with him. There is a conversion
process.
The Christian Conclusion
Thus, it seems that a typological framework consisting
of five logically distinct types for mapping
the Christ and business culture relationship in the
negotiation context has the potential to capture
the critical incidents that we have collected. It is
also hoped that this approach will enable
Christian executives to understand the possible
routes they may take in response to ethical challenges
in business.
References
Bitner, Mary Jo, Bernard H. Booms and Mary
Stanfield Tetreault: 1990, ‘The Service Encounter:
Diagnosing Favorable and Unfavorable Incidents’,
Journal of Marketing
Bitner, Mary Jo, Bernard H. Booms and Lois A.
Mohr: 1994, ‘Critical Service Encounters: The
Employee’s Viewpoint’,
54 ( January), 71–84.Journal of Marketing 58 (October), 95–106.
Lewicki, Roy J., David M. Saunders and John M.
Christ and Business Culture
109 Minton: 2001, E
Edition (Irwin/McGraw-Hill, Boston).
Niebuhr, H. Richard: 1951,
ssentials of Negotiation, SecondChrist and Culture (Harper & Row, New York).
Rubin, Jeffrey Z., Dean G. Pruitt and Sung Hee Kim:
1994,
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Social Conflict: Escalation, Stalemate and, Second Edition (McGraw-Hill, NewJournal of Business Ethics 8, 883–888. 110
Kam-hon Lee
Faculty of Business Administration,
The Chinese University of Hong Kong,
Shatin, N.T.,
Hong Kong SAR,
China,
E-mail: khlee@cuhk.edu.hk
Dennis P. McCann
Agnes Scott College
MaryAnn Ching
Hong Kong Professional and Educational
Services, Ltd.Kam-hon Lee et al. ABSTRACT. Does Christian faith matter in business?
If so, how does it affect the way executives handle
managerial issues, especially the ones that are ethically
controversial? This paper reports a study of Chinese
Christian executives in Hong Kong. The researchers
followed an approach known as the Critical Incident
Technique and conducted in-depth interviews with
119 Chinese Christian executives over a two year
period from 1999 to 2001. Each interview covered
four broad areas consisting of the interviewee’s
description of his or her Christian faith, business
experience, reported critical incidents and general
remarks on faith and work. For each reported critical
incident, the interviewee deliberated on the incident
and its background, his or her response, the rationale
behind the response and its consequences. Each
interview was tape recorded for transcription and
analysis. The major contribution of this study is to
propose and document a typology of the executives’
responses to ethical challenges in business. The
typology is based on earlier work on Christ and
culture (Niebuhr, 1951; Siker, 1989) and styles of
negotiation (Lewicki et al., 2001; Rubin et al., 1994).
Preliminary research findings indicate that the
proposed typology is an effective paradigm. It has the
promise of enabling Christian executives to reflect
critically on their ethical behavior and to guide their
thought towards more effective responses to ethical
challenges.
KEY WORDS: business culture, Christ, Christian
executives, Hong Kong
Introduction
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