Can We Do Business? A Study of the Attitudes of Chinese and Australian Business Students

Australia’s business relationship with China is growing. However, there are culturaldifferences between the residents of the two countries that may lead to differences inattitudes and actions. These differences can present obstacles to optimising thebenefits to be gained from mutual business cooperation. In order to understand howthe future business leaders (present students) view the potentiality for doing businessin each others’ countries, groups of commerce students in Australia and China weresurveyed using the same set of questions. The results identified interesting similaritiesand differences. Analysis of the responses helps us to detect the knowledge gaps anddifferences in perceptions and future outlooks between Australian and Chinesestudents which may impact on the future business relationship between the twocountries.