Wu Xianghong: "Jordan" And Chinese Entrepreneurs' View Of Family Honor

American sports star Michael recently Jordan Sue Jordan for sports infringement in China. I am not proficient in the law of intellectual property. From a legal point of view, it is difficult for me to decide who is right and who is wrong. I just want to be silly and naive to ask a question: "why is it that a Chinese local enterprise should take a foreigner's name as a registered trademark?"

Do by name Registered trademark Or the name of an enterprise is a common practice in the business world. But generally speaking, they are the names of those who are closely related to themselves or themselves. As the saying goes, a tree lives a skin and a man lives a face. Putting your name on an enterprise or a commodity is a guarantee of your company's reputation and credibility with your personal reputation. If you do it well, you will have a long face and a brilliant family. If you do it badly, you will make yourself and your family ashamed. In the long run, our bodies will be destroyed sooner or later. Only the names may be handed down by posterity. To make a company with its name on the basis of everlasting prosperity is essentially to make yourself immortal. The scissors we used today have nothing to do with the Zhang Xiaoquan family, but we still know that Zhang Xiaoquan had such a bull in history.

Chinese ancient people attached great importance to family honor. Zhang Xiaoquan scissors, Wang Zhihe stinky tofu, these famous enterprises are the witnesses of ancient Chinese business achievements and family honor and disgrace. The same tradition is also seen in western commercial society. A slight difference is that in the developed countries of Europe and America, this tradition is still fashionable today. For example, WAL-MART, the world's largest company, is the founder of Sam Walton's family name embedded in the company name. In fact, WAL-MART has also maintained the structure of family businesses. Similar examples are numerous: the founder of McDonald's fast food is the McDonald brothers, the founder of Ford automobile is Henry Ford, and the founder of Boeing Aircraft Co is William Boeing. In the modern high-tech enterprises, Hewitt Puckett is the name of the two Hewlett-Packard Co. The founder of DELL computer is Michael Dale. As for the industry of consulting, auditing, law, investment and banking, which takes personal credit as an important competitive power, there are a lot of companies directly bringing the names of the founders and even the names of many founders listed as the names of the companies.

In such a business tradition, a businessman who has a slight sense of family honor, even if he doesn't use his name as a company logo, can not name his company at the name of a neighbor or even eight poles, not to mention his competitor's name. Bill Gate really doesn't call his company "Gates software". However, regardless of whether there is a name right, can you imagine that he named his company "Jobs software" or "Allison software"? (the last two are the founder of Apple Computer and Oracle Software).

Over the years, although there are also such brands as "Lining" and "Da Wu group", in the best and most successful enterprises, it is strange that few of them are willing to place their family names in the company and products. On the contrary, obviously it is Chinese, but deliberately to give products a foreign name. Rather called "Da Finch" furniture, it must not be called "Xiu Hua furniture"; rather called the "Metersbonwe", it must not be called "Zhou's fashion"; rather, it is called "hongxingerke" that is incomprehensible, and it must not be called "Han Jie sports". So Jordan shoes industry is really a natural result of this atmosphere. Just Jordan, China footwear industry Do a little bit more and take the name of a real life sports star directly.

Some people may argue that Chinese enterprises are at the initial stage and learn from the western developed countries. I would like to say that a man's husband does not change his name and does not change his family name. This sense of family honor is entirely different from yours and is not mutually exclusive. Japan's automobile, electronics and other industries also rely heavily on the technology of Europe and America in the initial stage. However, Japanese entrepreneurs in the name of their own businesses still openly show the founder's family name -- "TOYOTA", "Honda" and "Panasonic". Instead of copying the United States, they are renamed the "John automobile" and Panasonic is called "Mike electric". The Japanese can imitate and draw lessons from it so that they can have such a backbone. Why can Chinese people only itch to see a foreign name on their heads?

Now some entrepreneurs are worried about the inheritance of enterprises. They worry that the "two generation rich" will not be enterprising and enterprising. I want to say, if you are rich, there is no strong sense of family honor, and do not respect the names handed down by your ancestors. Can you blame your next generation for not being able to keep your business or listen to you?