Global Supply Chain Compliance Issues: A Cultural Perspective

The intent of this research is to discover global supply chain issues in the context of cultural differences around the world. In specific, the relationships between American and Chinese corporations are examined in detail in order to demonstrate the concept. In the past decades, numerous United States corporations have experienced unexpected supply chain compliance issues with respect to their relationships with Chinese suppliers. Some of these compliance issues have led to undesirable publicity and outcomes with the consumers in the United States. At the beginning there was the pet food scare that allegedly had poisoned hundreds of domestic pets. Then toy manufacturers that outsourced to Chinese suppliers had to recall significant numbers of toys due to high level of lead and other unsafe features. When US government agencies were made aware of these issues, further investigations uncovered many other potential dangers regarding products from Chinese suppliers. In particular are products such as food ingredients that are being utilized by US food manufacturers. These issues, and many others soon to surface, are putting growing pressure on the global supply chains that US corporations have developed with Chinese suppliers over the years. And the root cause of these issues resides within the compliance aspect of the global supply chains due to cultural differences. Therefore, in a relatively short period of time, the fast-growing business relationships between US corporations and their Chinese suppliers that were built with great difficulties over the past two decades are now being jeopardized. And this situation has potentially tremendous impact on the overall economic well being of the two nations, which to a large degree are inter-dependent.