Business

And never the twain shall meet . . .

Building business relationships in Asia, and then keeping them, is proving far harder than foreign companies imagined

|HONG KONG AND BEIJING

“THERE are only so many people you can have lunch with,” is a common refrain among western managers working in Asia. This dismissal of the importance of networking in the region has more than a tang of sour grapes. In a part of the world where who you know still counts for more than what you know, many foreign firms have failed to grasp what networking in Asia is really about.

This article appeared in the Business section of the print edition under the headline “And never the twain shall meet . . .”

From the March 29th 1997 edition

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