1. Trust and mutual respect are important values, family businesses and cliques are still very dominant, and bureaucracy and bribery are still prevalent in the Chinese workplace. Lazy workers and an unprofessional workplace environment are two other issues that need to be dealt with in this case. Do you think the new owners should adopt a ruthless method in their human resource management takeover to encourage, modify or eliminate these characteristics among workers in order to make the workplace more market-oriented? Alternatively, can you suggest any culturally harmonious methods of making these significant changes less damaging, yet effective, especially for older employees?

2. What role has guanxi played in this business? What significant advantages did it provide the employees at the Tiger Leaping Guest House prior to the takeover and what potential assistance to Mike, Guo, Kai and Li Ping does guanxi provide to successfully complete their takeover of the organization? Are these advantages productive or counter-productive?

3. What programs would you include in the training schedule in an effort to change employees who had worked under the old planned economy SOE conditions into more dynamic employees able to operate effectively under new market economy conditions?

4. Explain what characteristics would you advertise for when seeking new employees for the re-constructed Tiger Leaping Guest House? Why would you choose these?

5. Show how do the Chinese and Western systems of human resource management differ?