Managing China, the book written by Hans Roth examines the cultural challenges of management and leadership in China. The book was finished in 2005 and published in 2008, hence the findings of the book are no longer up to date. This paper investigates whether changes in leadership and management in China over the past 16 years have altered the original findings.

To inspect if leadership practices have changed, knowledge from secondary literature provided a basis of information on the topic. For the validation of findings of Managing China, the former questionnaire was revised as the format was changed to an online survey. Online surveys are accessible, faster to complete, and easier to distribute. These aspects are important as the participants of the survey had to be managers and leaders working in China. Questions were added to the survey, questions were deleted, and others reformulated for comprehensive reasons.

32 responses were analysed using the grounded theory. The collected data served as an overview. An open coding approach was used to group the data. A comparative study between the findings of the survey and the results of Managing China was conducted. To be successful, leaders must know that empathy is desired, as to not affect someone’s state of face. Managers are required to offer guidance to their employees as they act as a decision maker, while simultaneously controlling them. The language, indirect communication, and culture need to be learned, as they can pose as obstacles in everyday life. Existing management practices, whether person-oriented or task-oriented leadership, must be revised and adjusted to the factors of the Chinese work environment. Updates could be considered for Managing China especially concerning communication technologies. However, the paper outlines that the main findings of our research are very similar and, in some cases, identical to Hans Roth´s conclusions. Many facts were confirmed, either through the literature review or the survey results of our recent survey.