[vishaldpatel]

A friend told me that in China, reputation is very important. To do business with a reputed company, you have to have a good reputation. As the company that you're working with's reputation gets worse, so do your chances of getting work done / getting paid. Of course, well-reputed companies are probably in higher demand from both suppliers and customers, just like everywhere else, compared to say, cheaper firms.

[wisty]

> A friend told me that in China, reputation is very important.

There's two concepts here - "face" (literal translation) and "connections" (also a literal translation). Both are widely misunderstood.

AFAIK (and I'm not an expert):

Connections (guanxi) is fairly straightforward - it's all about who you know. However, there's a spectrum between casual acquaintances, people who do each other favors, extremely close friends, and family (in order of usefulness). It's often used as a bluff too (saying you know a guy, when it's all just a con).

"Face" (mian zi) is much more complicated. Since the term is used in English, it's easy to mistake what it really means. And it's also kind of vague - everything from "don't look undignified", to "don't let anyone disrespect you", to "have a good reputation".

Generally, Westerners think "face" means "be upfront, and willing to admit to an honest mistake". In China, this is rarely the case.

[PakG1]

Where in the world is what you said any different?

The unfortunate thing is that the reputation thing does not seem to extend to customer relationships. It boggles my mind how companies in China seem to be so willing to offer their customers substandard (or even unsafe) products for the sake of saving pennies here and there, especially in an age of weibo and capital punishment for the worst executives.