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2008 Melbourne projects

Waleed Aly	Australian Voices of Asia

Clive Callaway	Jetstar’s Engagement of the Local School Community on Cross-Cultural Awareness at a Jetstar Destination city

Bernie Clifford	Access Asia – Cultural Icons and Events

Stefan Cross	Understanding change management in a Japanese Organisation

Arthur Ha	Feasibility Study of Accessing Offset Credits in Asia

Lisa Hayman	The Australia India BRIDGE (Building Relationships through Intercultural Dialogue and Growing Engagement) project.

Dian Islamiati Fatwa	Jakarta Climate Exchange (JCX)

Dr Marie Karamesinis	Living Well with Turner’s Syndrome: A global story

Dr Andrew Kennedy	Development of a pathway for elective placements for paediatricians from Cambodian, Laos or Vietnam at the Royal Children’s Hospital Melbourne

Alex Knigge	Enhance the mutual cultural understanding among the staff that are involved in the cooperation and coordination of Commercial Services between Jetstar Airways located in Australia, Jetstar Pacific located in Vietnam and Jetstar Asia located in Singapore

Brett McDonald	Communities in a Climate of Change

Magdalena Moreno	CULTURENAV: Arts professional mentoring in Melbourne (pilot)

Roger Ouk	Lets Chat

Iain Roy	On-field diplomacy? Using cricket to strengthen the Australia-Indian relationship

Maha Sukkar	Building Cross-Cultural Competence in Victoria Police Probational Constables

Neil Waters	Engaging Chinese Australians as Blood Donors

Ben Waymire	Pre-Departure Orientation - Managing transition issues for the inbound international student.

Stuart Whitman	Feasibility Study for Delivery of Mental Health Education Program Vietnam

Carmel Williams	Cultural dialogue for lateral hires to Melbourne Tax and Legal

Zhining Yang	An Overarching Investment Attraction and Facilitation Action Plan for China Market

Juan-José Zentner	Index for how to do business in China guides

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Waleed Aly

Project: Australian Voices of Asia

This project takes the form of a documentary-style radio broadcast that aims to tell the stories of three Asian Australians and bring them to life. The aim will be to identify three people of diverse backgrounds, representing three different countries in Asia, different educational and professional backgrounds, and preferably different ages: ideally one elderly migrant, one middle aged person, and one young (probably Australian-born) person.

The medium of radio is chosen for two reasons: 1) it is arguably the easiest of the media to access on a community basis; and 2) it is the most intimate popular medium, and is therefore well suited to the aim of this project: to increase familiarity with the diverse stories of Asian Australians, thereby humanising them. This is inspired in large part by observing the impact of my community media experience with Salam Cafe. While this is a different style of project, the underlying technique is the same: to provide stories not often told to an audience likely to benefit from hearing them. The broadcast will either be 30 or 60 minutes (including any necessary advertising). The preference is to secure a position on a mainstream broadcaster, possibly on the ABC's network. It is recognised, however, that this is unlikely, and community radio avenues have already been explored with some success.

At this stage I intend to undertake the writing and production personally, and am in the process of arranging the relevant technical training. However, another possibility for the project might be to find young people within the various Asian communities in Australia and place them in these roles as a form of community building, in the hope that this will lead to more meaningful, long-term cross-cultural engagement.

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Clive Callaway

Project: Jetstar’s Engagement of the Local School Community on Cross-Cultural Awareness at a Jetstar Destination city

Background:

Jetstar (International) has been operating within a number of South East Asian countries for almost 2 years. The increased cultural awareness we have gained through our experience provides Jetstar with a great deal to offer. Jetstar has decided the timing is right to offer some of the skills we have acquired, especially in SE Asian cultures, back into the community. Where better to commence this initiative than at a local school level. Jetstar in collaboration with Department of Education and Eummering Secondary College introduced a pilot program, the OSP tour project, as part of the Overseas Study Program (OSP).

The OSP tour project was announced by the Minister for Education, Bronwyn Pike, at Government House during International Education Week.

Some of the key areas we have focused on are:

reviews of Asian destination cultures prior to departure:
developing an awareness and respect for different customs, cultures and courtesies;
providing basic tips on intercultural communication and protocols of international travel, and
to generally broaden the students’ outlook beyond their local area.

The pilot program was rolled out at Eummering College and consisted of a short presentation to the students and teachers. These was followed by a question and answer session and concluded with a more informal talk over lunch.
The Jetstar Customer Service/Cabin Crew Department, which includes International Cabin Crew across all bases, is excited and committed to supporting the future of this programme.

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Bernie Clifford

Project: Access Asia – Cultural Icons and Events

The principles of accessibility apply not only to people with mobility, hearing, vision or a sensory impairment they also encompass parents with prams, business people), large pedestrian flows, sporting teams with equipment, travelers and the issues relating to the growing aging populations of Asia and Australia. There are OHS benefits for workers, deliveries and general operations and emergency efficiency from an accessible environment

Cultural icons like the Great Wall of China and the Forbidden City have become ‘universally accessible’ to millions of people including those with disabilities for the first time in history. The ‘Accessibility’ of these cultural icons is created through both new policies and infrastructure and is a lasting legacy of the Beijing Olympics and Paralympic Games in 2008. Morris Goding Accessibility Consulting provided China with assistance to develop understandings of the benefits of providing access to these tourist features, especially as new tourist markets grow particularly as populations age.

From the recent experience with China and currently providing similar services to India, we have seen that there is a possibility for Accessibility Consulting to grow within Asia particularly in creating access to cultural Icons and events. Through the Asialink Leaders Program I have newfound understanding of the regions’ marketplaces and business cultures. I have produced an ‘Access Asia’ pilot program focusing on the Taj Mahal. From site visits and advice and discussions with key stakeholders I have developed an Access report and recommendations.

Further, I hope to apply the same methodologies within other Asian countries and develop the operational guidelines for their cultural attractions.

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Stefan Cross

Project: Understanding change management in a Japanese Organisation

Following the acquisition of Mayne Pharma by Hospira Inc, the two largest offices in the Asia Pacific region became Melbourne and Osaka. Working with Japanese culture proven challenging for the Australian organisation during the integration period. It has become clear during the year of integration that the Japanese approach to change was different to that of the Australian office.

The ‘challenge’, as seen from the Australian regional head office, was to encourage the Japanese office to seek ways to increase the speed of activities, establish relations with government agencies and officials, and operate more collaboratively outside the Osaka office. There was a perception of slowness, or even at times a lack of willingness, to change.

The first objective of this Asialink project was to understand change management, from a Japanese perspective, compared to that of Hospira’s Australian office. It was acknowledged from the beginning of this project that Japanese culture is ‘change-willing’, as evidenced by firms such as Toyota. However the ‘willingness’ to change appeared to be different to that of an Australian firm. Following an in-depth understanding of ‘change’, this project sought to recommend and implement ways to strengthen inter-office relationships in order to foster a more adaptive, ‘change-willing’ culture.

The project has been a unique way of deepening our company’s understanding of Japanese workplace culture. Given the ‘independent’ nature of the Asialink program, staff was extremely open during interview and discussions.

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Arthur Ha

Project: Feasibility Study of Accessing Offset Credits in Asia

Australia’s economy is highly dependent on fossil fuels for domestic energy generation and for exports. Australia intends to implement a Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS), this is likely to have significant cost impacts on fossil fuel dependent industries. Victoria is particularly vulnerable because of dependence on brown coal for energy generation. One potential means of reducing the cost impact of the CPRS would be to access offset credits from Asia – particularly Indonesia or Papua New Guinea as suggested by some commentators.

Indonesia and Papua New Guinea are seen as potential major providers of offset credits because of the large areas of forests present on their land area. For example, Indonesia possesses the third-largest forested area in the world. Forests produce offset credits because of their carbon absorptive capacity. By preserving or re-planting forests, there is the potential to increase the world’s carbon absorptive capacity and therefore improve mitigation efforts. Furthermore, use of forests to sequester carbon is seen as one of the lowest cost means of mitigation. Given this, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea could be seen as Australia’s natural partners to maximise progress towards any carbon mitigation targets. However, significant barriers need to be overcome in order for Australia to access offset credits from these two countries. This feasibility study will analyse these economic, political and cultural issues and will attempt to provide options on how to make this idea a reality.

This study will examine how the Federal Government’s CPRS will affect Australian businesses’ ability to access offset credits sourced from Indonesia or Papua New Guinea.

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Lisa Hayman

Project: The Australia India BRIDGE (Building Relationships through Intercultural Dialogue and Growing Engagement) project.

Managed by the Asia Education Foundation, teachers from India and Australia participate in the Australia – India Teacher Exchange Programme annually. Indian teachers spend time in Australian schools and this is reciprocated with Australian teachers pending time in Indian schools. A key plank of this programme is the aspect of homestay for both the Indian and Australain teachers.

The aim of the BRIDGE project is to build the professional learning relationships between Australian and Indian teachers participating in the Australia – India Teacher Exchange Programme and to build collaboration between students in Australian and Indian classrooms through the use of web 2.0 technology.

To support this project a full day professional learning program for teachers from India and Victorian teachers was facilitated in May. This program provided the opportunity to explore the questions which Indian teachers had regarding education systems in Australia. Further to this teachers generated possible topic areas that would allow students to work collaboratively to develop greater cultural understanding.
Training in the use of wikispaces (a web 2.0 tool which enables easy creation of a webpage, uploading of files and includes functions such as online discussion) was also provided as a key element of this program to support student online communication and collaboration.

Teachers are now in the process of participating in online discussions, email contact and sharing of resources to support professional learning and classroom collaboration.

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Dian Islamiati Fatwa

Project: Jakarta Climate Exchange (JCX)

The carbon market has expanded rapidly within five years and is predicted to increase substantially during the next few years. According to New Energy Finance, a clean energy research and analyst firm, the global carbon market will be worth in excess of $116 billion in 2008 and reach $ 512 billion by 2012 (New Energy Finance, 2008). The value of the market was only $59 billion in 2007 and more than $24 billion in the 2006 value (World Bank, 2008). The growth of the global carbon market is attributed to the high price of carbon allowance and credit in European markets and other markets that participate in a voluntary capacity.

The Jakarta Climate Exchange (JCX) project focuses on developing a practical framework which will be used to establish environmental exchange in Indonesia. The exchange would enable companies and entities from developed countries, and local companies and communities within Indonesia to trade greenhouse credits and allowance particularly from the forestry industry. The exchange would provide the buyers with a project which is designed by local community - the best people who know about the requirements and need. Their expert local knowledge ensures that the environment, and any impacts, are considered. The framework seeks to encourage all banks/developers and carbon brokers to buy and sell through the JCX. The JCX focuses on greenhouse credits as well as biodiversity including flora and fauna that is almost extinct. As the project is designed and developed by the local community it considers that it will be well supported and will provide the best outcome. Therefore, it would make Indonesia a large primary supplier for CER (Certified Emission Reduction) for the compliance market and VERs (Verified Emission Reductions) for the voluntary market.

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Dr Marie Karamesinis

Project: Living Well with Turner’s Syndrome: A global story

Turner’s Syndrome (TS) is a common random but little-known chromosomal abnormality, with an incidence worldwide of 1/2000 females born. It can cause several medical, learning and social problems, which if undiagnosed or untreated lead to severe limitations of life experience. Awareness of the condition by clinicians, knowledge and active management of the associated chronic problems, and access to appropriate medication contribute substantially to improved quality of life.

The project will produce a short DVD providing information about this condition, and distributing it to relevant Asian communities. Four individuals in various life stages, talk about how they manage their lives with TS. The visual and auditory cues effectively communicate the health checks, medications or strategies used. The DVD is relevant within Australia as there is no multilingual or comparable resource available, and when translated into several Asian languages, can be distributed to various Asian countries with the generous assistance of CLAN (Caring and Living together as Neighbours).

Another significant aim of this collaboration is to promote availability and access to ethinyl oestradiol (hormone replacement), listed as one of the WHO’s essential medications. This medication alone contributes substantially to quality of life, as the premature menopause that occurs in TS otherwise affects growth, heart, bone, brain function, sense of femininity and body image.

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Dr Andrew Kennedy

Project: Development of a pathway for elective placements for paediatricians from Cambodian, Laos or Vietnam at the Royal Children’s Hospital Melbourne

The Royal Children’s Hospital has worked with South East Asian countries for many years providing training, knowledge and experience. One department specifically serving this role is RCHI with visits to the region and through assisting doctors and other health professionals from the region to complete elective placements at the RCH.

The centre for adolescent health has had 2 paediatricians from Asia (Malaysia and Singapore) spend 12 months on government funded placements recently. Paediatricians from resource poor nations are unlikely to be able to secure the funding required for such placements. In 2006 RCHI helped a paediatrician from Vietnam spend 3 months at the RCH including much time at the centre.

This project aims to assist in making these placements possible by securing funding and developing a standardised pathway for such placements. The issues central to adolescent medicine e.g. mental health, health risk behaviours and sexual health are emerging in many Asian countries so training paediatricians in this field is both important and timely.

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Alex Knigge

Project: Enhance the mutual cultural understanding among the staff that are involved in the cooperation and coordination of Commercial Services between Jetstar Airways located in Australia, Jetstar Pacific located in Vietnam and Jetstar Asia located in Singapore.

In line with its Pan-Asia expansion strategy, Jetstar Airways has entered into a strategic partnership with Jetstar Pacific in Vietnam and with Jetstar Asia in Singapore.

As part of this cooperation, several Commercial services have been centralized and are now provided by one of the three carriers on behalf of the entire Jetstar Group (e.g. Revenue Management in Melbourne, API system support in Vietnam).

As a direct consequence, the coordination of tasks and decisions among the Jetstar Group has increase substantially and Managers located in different locations (Melbourne, Saigon, Singapore) communicate now on a daily basis. Being a value based airline, face-to-face contacts are rare and most communication is over the phone.

This project aims to create awareness of cultural differences and to enhance the effectiveness of communication between staff located in different locations.Different cultural backgrounds and value systems can easily lead to conflicts and frustrations caused by cultural misunderstanding and miscommunication. To mitigate this risk, we will conduct cultural training in different head office locations (Australian Culture Training to Vietnamese and Singaporean staff located in Saigon and Singapore; Vietnamese and Singaporean cultural training to staff located in Melbourne).

Trainers have been identified and a small budget was approved. The first training is planned to take place early next year. The response to the project by our management team was very positive and there is a strong opinion that these trainings represent a valuable first step to shape a strong corporate culture for the entire Jetstar Group.

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Brett McDonald

Project: Communities in a Climate of Change

Efforts to balance the growing demand for energy, food and natural resources, and to promote economic and social development, both within the context of addressing climate change, pose a fundamental challenge for all communities throughout the Asia-Pacific region.
The specific aims of the “Communities in a Climate of Change” project were to provide the opportunity for local governments and community groups to learn from each other through sharing information and expertise, and to develop locally relevant, community-based approaches that reduce greenhouse gas emissions and enable these communities to adapt to the impacts of climate change.

To facilitate this process, the project developed workshop materials and case studies that showcased initiatives and provided information on the experiences of local government and community groups in Asia and Australia. In addition, the workshops encouraged the transfer and replication of climate change projects by directly assisting local government and community groups with project development and planning and, as part of this process, identifying opportunities for future engagement and relationship building in the region.

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Magdalena Morena

Project: CULTURENAV: Arts professional mentoring in Melbourne (pilot)

The South Project has a four-year trajectory of delivering international programs across the South: Melbourne, Wellington, Santiago and Johannesburg. The organisation’s international strategy for the next four years will be launched in 2009, delivering its first international program in Asia. With the current government’s emphasis on people to people engagement, and the importance of sustaining strong and meaningful dialogue with our Indonesian neighbours, it is appropriate that the South Project’s first engagement in Asia be Yogyakarta, Indonesia.

The objective of CultureNav is to connect artists and arts workers with peers, professional art workers and organisations in their town and more broadly, with the outcome of advancing their professional careers and enhancing their future as well as developing the depth of the cultural sector. Local Indonesian communities in Victoria will be one of two key target groups. The project will be conducted as a two stage process: Stage One will identify potential mentees via their cultural community groups, determining their artistic needs and developing tailored programs with the appropriate industry mentors. Stage Two will be the mentorship program itself.

CultureNav will contribute to the overall South Program of engagement with Indonesia in Australia, ensuring that Australian audiences (including Indonesian Australians) have access to these cross-cultural programs.

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Roger Ouk

Project: Lets Chat

DLA Phillips Fox and DLA Piper have entered into an exclusive alliance. A barrier to the successful development of the relationship between DLA Phillips Fox (which has offices in Australia and New Zealand) and the DLA Piper (which has offices throughout Asia, Europe, the Middle East and the US) is a lack of familiarity with each other's people, practice areas, clients and cultures.
Whilst meeting in person is the best way of getting staff to get to know each other, the cost and environmental impact of travel represent significant constraints.

This project proposes a cost effective way for DLA Phillips Fox and DLA Piper's lawyers to introduce themselves to each other, share knowledge and share experiences. The project will use the internet and/or intranet as a way of profiling selected lawyers. It is intended that short, snappy video clip interviews of selected lawyers be placed on DLA Phillips Fox and DLA Piper's intranet and/or extranet homepage for viewing by DLA Phillips Fox staff and DLA Piper staff (initially in DLA Piper's Asian offices). The interviews would contain key messages about particular practice groups, fee earners and the local office. A new media clip featuring a different lawyer will be added to the intranet/extranet regularly.

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Iain Roy

Project: On-field diplomacy? Using cricket to strengthen the Australia-Indian relationship

On 4 January 2008, during the Australia – India 3 mobile Test match in Sydney, Indian player Harbhajan Singh was alleged to have racially abused an Australian player, Andrew Symonds. The resulting fallout from the incident had a deep and serious impact on the relationship between the governing cricket authorities in both countries. Arguably, the incident impacted on Australian-Indian relations in broader circles.

Jeopardising the relationship with India’s governing body – the Board of Control for Cricket in India – is problematic for Cricket Australia as the BCCI is now a global cricket powerhouse and strongly able to influence the direction of world cricket. Strategically, CA has been building off-field linkages with the BCCI to protect CA’s interests by becoming a good friend and an indispensable partner. This project is intended to be another linkage to continue to help enhance the relationship.

The project involves conducting an international annual cricket convention - based on similar sport business conferences in other sports - that will primarily provide meaningful cricket education to developing cricket nations (there are 103 cricketing nations recognized by the International Cricket Council) and other stakeholders. The convention is to be jointly owned and promoted by both CA and the BCCI.

The convention is planned to feature both (i) a program that provides information sharing and exchange on cricket and cricket administration topics principally to non-full member ICC nations but also to cricket partners (media and sponsors, for example) and (ii) an associated trade show, allowing existing or prospective commercial partners of cricket to engage meaningfully with the international cricket community.

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Maha Sukkar

Project: Building Cross-Cultural Competence in Victoria Police Probational Constables

Victoria Police is aiming to recruit members from diverse cultural and religious backgrounds. The recruitment drive attempts to widen the Police’s ethnic base to better deal with the increasing numbers of migrants attracted to Victoria. Victoria Police members do not currently receive tailored training to deal with new members from diverse cultural backgrounds. Having a CALD (Culturally and Linguistically Diverse) background herself, the author of this document has witnessed - first hand - the difficulties arising from the lack of cross-cultural training given to Police officers. In that respect, the author has repeatedly encountered difficulties in dealing with her colleagues in matters that directly related to her background.

This project suggests a specifically tailored training program to facilitate the introduction of new members from CALD backgrounds into Victoria Police. The project is targeted towards Probational Constables; it introduces future officers to cultural differences by building their cultural competence. The project aims to change many of the negative perceptions towards CALD people and thus creating a more suitable environment for cross-cultural understanding. Indirect deliverables of this project may include the increase of trust and the strengthening of cultural ties between Victoria Police and the wider CALD communities.

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Neil Waters

Project: Engaging Chinese Australians as Blood Donors

Patients from varied ethnic and racial backgrounds often have specific blood transfusion needs related to their inherited blood types. In order to meet these transfusion requirements and ensure the continued supply of blood for transfusion into the future, the Australian Red Cross Blood Service must actively recruit donors from across all sections of the Australian community.

Australia has a significant migrant population with almost one quarter of Australians born overseas. There are currently 1.2 million Australian residents who were born in Asia, 27% being recent arrivals. Chinese born Australians constitute the third largest migrant group, after the United Kingdom and New Zealand (Australian Bureau of Statistics).

Research into the motivation of donors has highlighted the central importance of social networks as a means for recruitment of blood donors. Community support for blood donation programmes is a significant factor in modulating an individual’s decision to begin donating blood. In addition studies have shown that continued participation in blood donation is most likely to be influenced by community attitudes. Therefore there is a need for new strategies to encourage members of Australia’s ethnic communities to donate blood.

Through the active involvement of the Australian Chinese community this project aims to:

Examine any cultural, societal and systemic factors preventing Chinese Australians from donating blood.
Develop strategies that will engage the Chinese community in blood and tissue donation.
Evaluate the utility of these strategies for engaging other ethnic groups in the Australian population.

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Ben Waymire

Project: Pre-Departure Orientation - Managing transition issues for the inbound international student

Globally, it is estimated that at least 2.7 million students are currently studying outside their home countries. Australia is a major provider of international education and ranks third behind the USA and UK with 194,393 [as of 2007] international students currently undertaking higher education studies in Australian tertiary institutions [IDP Australia, 2008]. International students are increasingly making up larger and growing proportions of Australian universities student bodies, proportions which, compared to 20 years ago, are becoming an expectancy rather than an exception.

While Australian universities and tertiary institutions are becoming more highly recognised globally for academic, teaching and research quality, there is continuing pressure for Australian institutions to improve the level of orientation and support provided to in-bound international students.

The aim of this project is to build upon Trinity College Foundation Studies’ existing orientation program that students undertake upon their arrival by providing in-country Pre-Departure Briefing seminars to students and their parents.

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Stuart Whitman

Project: Feasibility Study for Delivery of Mental Health Education Program Vietnam

The proposal to develop and deliver a postgraduate certificate in mental health through RMIT University Vietnam was inspired by both a personal connection to the history of that country and with a family member who suffers a mental illness. An awareness of the challenges of mental health support in Australia and even greater challenges posed by the lack of human and material resources in Asia framed the project rationale. RMIT University has two campuses in Vietnam and this seemed to be a good match between a significant community need with an organisation’s capacity to deliver.

The goal was to provide data and justification to the RMIT Executive in both Australia and Vietnam to approve an application in 2009 for the establishment of a new course in 2010. The first phase of this project was to survey human and material resource needs for a new program delivery. While colleagues in the health sector in Vietnam and at RMIT Melbourne supported the project goals the lack of financial support to undertake research, the high competition for university grants to undertake feasibility studies and to launch new programs, different cultural understandings of mental illness and competing priorities and interests for a presence at RMIT Vietnam significantly constrained progress in this project. At this stage I am unable to outline any successful outcomes and, while disappointed, reflection on issues of timing, cultural difference, achieving buy-in by a range of stakeholders and negotiating organisational politics have contributed significantly to my personal development and skills for future project management.

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Carmel Williams

Project: Cultural dialogue for lateral hires to Melbourne Tax and Legal

With a global workforce, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) always has people on the move between locations in their global network, and client sites around the world.

The PwC Global Mobility Programme provides specialist support to PwC employees and their clients, ensuring they make a smooth transition into their new teams and locations - both personally and professionally. The program is crucial to the success of global assignments, ensuring secondees are equipped with clearly defined assignment objectives, vital cultural orientations and language training, real time support whilst away, and post deployment repatriation to ensure a smooth return home at the end of their deployment.

As more staff and new recruits move around the global, and the Asian network, this programme offers a vital support infrastructure designed to ensure the best outcome for the individual and the business. In particular, when new starters join the firm and move to a new location, there is an added complexity in coming to terms with not only the local culture, but the PwC culture.

Carmel has developed a pilot Cultural Dialogue for lateral hires into the PwCs' Tax & Legal business in Melbourne, to facilitate a smooth assimilation for lateral hires moving to Australia.

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Zhining Yang

Project: An Overarching Investment Attraction and Facilitation Action Plan for China Market

Invest Victoria is Victorian Government’s lead agency for inward investment attraction and facilitation. In the past few years, the amount of investment from China into Victoria is growing, and the Chinese Government has put policies in place to support Chinese companies investing overseas.

Investment attraction from China region, however, is becoming more competitive as the number of foreign government investment attraction agencies in China is increasing. This project aims to position Victoria as an attractive investment destination for Chinese investors by developing an overarching investment attraction and facilitation action plan for China market.

The Plan has been prepared by addressing service gaps of Invest Victoria in China market, and has outlined actions required by Invest Victoria in order to target more Chinese companies for in-bound investment and to deliver better services to Chinese clients.

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Juan-José Zentner

Project: Index for how to do business in China guides

Emphasis in negotiations whether domestic or abroad is always on strategies that revolve around the actual content of the negotiations without an appreciation of the context of those negotiations. Doing business overseas and particularly in countries where the local culture is very different from at home presents difficulties that few people appreciate and even fewer people successfully overcome.

With the continued growth of China as a global economic superpower there has been a huge growth in the literature relating to successful business relations with China and how to do business there.

The objective of this project is to provide a useful, concise and clear guide through the hundreds of different ‘doing business in China guides’ that would be useful for conducting negotiations in China. In particular, those that would be relevant to a large commercial law firm looking to negotiate large commercial transactions in China.

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Asialink, The University of Melbourne

2008 Melbourne projects

Waleed Aly

Project: Australian Voices of Asia

Clive Callaway

Project: Jetstar’s Engagement of the Local School Community on Cross-Cultural Awareness at a Jetstar Destination city

Background:

Bernie Clifford

Project: Access Asia – Cultural Icons and Events

Stefan Cross

Project: Understanding change management in a Japanese Organisation

Arthur Ha

Project: Feasibility Study of Accessing Offset Credits in Asia

Lisa Hayman

Project: The Australia India BRIDGE (Building Relationships through Intercultural Dialogue and Growing Engagement) project.

Dian Islamiati Fatwa

Project: Jakarta Climate Exchange (JCX)

Dr Marie Karamesinis

Project: Living Well with Turner’s Syndrome: A global story

Dr Andrew Kennedy

Project: Development of a pathway for elective placements for paediatricians from Cambodian, Laos or Vietnam at the Royal Children’s Hospital Melbourne

Alex Knigge

Project: Enhance the mutual cultural understanding among the staff that are involved in the cooperation and coordination of Commercial Services between Jetstar Airways located in Australia, Jetstar Pacific located in Vietnam and Jetstar Asia located in Singapore.

Brett McDonald

Project: Communities in a Climate of Change

Magdalena Morena

Project: CULTURENAV: Arts professional mentoring in Melbourne (pilot)

Roger Ouk

Project: Lets Chat

Iain Roy

Project: On-field diplomacy? Using cricket to strengthen the Australia-Indian relationship

Maha Sukkar

Project: Building Cross-Cultural Competence in Victoria Police Probational Constables

Neil Waters

Project: Engaging Chinese Australians as Blood Donors

Ben Waymire

Project: Pre-Departure Orientation - Managing transition issues for the inbound international student

Stuart Whitman

Project: Feasibility Study for Delivery of Mental Health Education Program Vietnam

Carmel Williams

Project: Cultural dialogue for lateral hires to Melbourne Tax and Legal

Zhining Yang

Project: An Overarching Investment Attraction and Facilitation Action Plan for China Market

Juan-José Zentner

Project: Index for how to do business in China guides