While managers from the mainland and Hong Kong both read Chinese, says Yikman Cheung, vice-director of the Hong Kong Financial Services Institute, culturally they are often poles apart in how they do business. This can lead to conflict when Hong Kong managers try to run a mainland outfit with little understanding of the culture of the workers they are overseeing, or when they are trying to promote middle management from the mainland.
These days, government officials, managers from both state-owned and private enterprises, and other executives are coming from the mainland to Hong Kong to learn how things are done here. Hong Kong managers are going the other way, taking courses up to degree level to learn about Chinese business culture and mainland law.
'Our mainland students are from government departments, financial services, state-owned enterprises, the private sector, and the education and medical sectors,' said Mr Cheung. 'The hardware on the mainland in terms of buildings and equipment has improved in recent years and some of it is better than in Hong Kong, but not the soft skills.'
The institute provides degree and doctorate courses of between two and six years in Shanghai for Hongkongers wanting to learn about and understand mainland business culture. But there are also courses as short as seven days and up to two months, where there is the opportunity for mainland managers to come to Hong Kong, or Hong Kong managers to head to the mainland to learn more about work practices there.
'If the mainland managers are on a hospital management course, then they visit a hospital in Hong Kong and ask the Hong Kong management team how they provide the medical services,' said Mr Cheung. 'Then they can learn and go back and change their own services. We also do the same for companies, schools and government departments.
Tony Hui Tsan-hing, appointment director of the China Education Group, said: 'Being a good leader you not only need to be able to lead a whole team and let them share the vision of the whole organisation, you have to take into account the different learning environments, interpersonal skills and diversity of team members.'