Why China’s biggest online nut vendor Three Squirrels takes management lessons from Mao

Red banners, rousing slogans and striking posters can be seen everywhere at the headquarters of Three Squirrels, China’s leading online snack food seller, ahead of a year-end shopping festival.

Its main product is nuts, but there’s method to management’s embrace of Maoist morale boosters.

Employees, most in their early 20s, said the decorations were an everyday presence. Daddy Squirrel, the nom de guerre of company founder Zhang Liaoyuan, is a fan of late Communist Party chief Mao Zedong and is keen to apply his management model to Three Squirrels’ daily operations.

The company, set up in Wuhu, a small city in the east of Anhui province, in 2012, has made a name for itself among young consumers with “cute” sales campaigns for imported pecans, almonds and other nuts, which are marketed in cartoonish packaging.

To an outsider visiting the firm’s modern, three-storey office building, the coexistence of stuffed squirrel toys, cute cartoon images and radical propaganda reminiscent of Mao’s rule half a century ago can appear odd. But 25-year-old product manager Shu Xiaolu, proudly wearing a yellow armband, said she felt comfortable with the workplace culture.

“I’m a member of the Pioneer Team, a hallmark of Daddy,” Shu said, beaming and pointing to her armband as she shuttled back and forth to coordinate special production, sales and customer service task forces on a November afternoon. “Given this great honour, I take on additional responsibilities, and I feel proud.”

Professor Hu Xingdou, an economist at Beijing Institute of Technology, said many Chinese internet and e-commerce companies adopted strong corporate cultures to mobilise employees amid fierce competition at home and abroad as they sought to expand – developing from online to offline or integrating businesses in related industries.