	SunFAITH Risk
Risk Management	Issue October, 2007
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新闻：发现亲密关系中的阴暗面服务项目联系我们新闻 ¨ 发现亲密关系中的阴暗面多年来，人们常常把公司与其供应商、客户，或者合资公司的2个投资方之间的亲密合作关系作为一种可以扩大各方利益份额的业务策略。然而，在这个所谓策略的背后，则往往隐藏着一个不容忽视的问题：关系密切不一定就等于关系良好，而关系良好不一定就意味着在关系中不存在冲突。事实上，有许多这样的合资项目或者是松散的联盟，都破裂了。过去一年里（2007年）有许多这样的合作关系破裂的例子，像法国达能与中国娃哈哈的倒戈。全世界各地的学者、咨询人员乃至心理研究机构已从不同的角度，对这一问题进行了研究，包括心理学、市场学、管理学以及经济学。而每种研究，都提出了基于本学科的因果关系理论，但是在这些研究结果中却表现出了惊人的相似。例如，心理学家发现，在某一关系中，如果越是感觉亲密和安全，就越有可能会提出一些令人讨厌的问题并最终引发各方的矛盾冲突。而研究市场的学者认为，随着亲密关系的保持，各方会对彼此越来越不满。也许他们向对方提供的产品和服务是保持不变的，而各自对于对方的期望值却变得越来越高。或许，这就是我们的祖先在几千年前就提出的一项伟大发现：分久必合，合久必分吧。因着这些研究，有一个新名词由此诞生——亲密关系中的阴暗面。承认亲密关系中存在着阴暗面，不等于说这样的关系就一定存在着土崩瓦解的可能性。如果某种关系充满了冲突、对抗、竞争和没完没了的分歧的话，那么显然这种关系是很容易破裂的。而阴暗面则是在双方对他们的协作怀有信心、持有乐观态度的时候，以一种微妙的方式破坏这种关系，破坏这种双方都比较感到满意并不断从中获得利益的关系。由于表面上看不到有任何问题，因此并不存在明显的理由对路线、战略或战术进行改弦易辙。在这种情况下，关系中的各方出现这种阴暗面的最初的迹象就是从一开始都会认为某个事件不应该发生，比如说，想当然地认为因为合作关系密切，对方不可能存在有违信誉的行为。即便是有一方存在此疑虑，在彼此信息不公开的情况下，如何去证明也是十分困难的。例如，在无法看到合作伙伴的财务账目的情况下，很难确知合作伙伴是否他们多收取了某笔不合理的费用。也很难确定某项工作出现的问题是由于合作伙伴在协调配合上的不作为还是其他的原因造成的。而既然无法证实问题的存在，合作的双方往往就会采取一种相对较为被动和消极的态度去延续双方的合作关系。在供应商与下游分销商之间的关系是如此，那么对于合资方或者投资方来说，就更难以一走了之的方式来简单而粗暴地终止合作关系了。那么，是什么在原本“美好”的亲密关系中埋下了阴影？在下一期的内容里，我们将详细地剖析缘由。来源：以上内容部分信息取材于《麻省理工学院斯隆管理评论》2005春季号

(诤信企业管理咨询崔琛供稿)

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Headline：

The Seamy Side of Intimate Relation

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¨ The Seamy Side of Intimate Relation

The intimate relation between companies and their suppliers or customers, or between two investors of Joint venture is always regarded as a strategy to expand all parties’ benefit. But in fact, a non-neglectable issue lurks in it: intimate relation doesn’t mean good relation, and good relation does not always mean no conflict exists in the relation. Actually, many joint venture projects or vendor-customer relationships result in break-up. Take the broken relation between French Danone and Chinese Wahaha as an example, many cooperated companies end up with failure in the past 2007

Scholars, consulters and psychology research organizations have made research on the matter from different standpoints, including psychology, marketing, management and economics. Causal sequences based on each study are put forward and the results are with amazing similitude. For instance, psychologists find out the relation which is more intimate and safer may lead to terrible problems and even conflict of all parties at last. Market researchers believe that the maintenance of intimate relation would cause dissatisfaction. The products and service they provide may remain the same, while the expected value to the other side is ever increasing. Perhaps the great discovery of our ancestors several thousands years ago can explain the phenomenon: the empire long divided, must unite; long united, must divide. A new term was born along with the research --- the seamy side of intimate relation.

Admitting the seamy side of intimate relation never means the relation will fall apart. The relation which is full of conflict, confront, competition and endless divarication is obviously easy to break up, but seamy side may destroy the relation which satisfy both sides and enable them to get benefit continuously through a subtle way when both sides have confidence and hold optimistic attitude to the relation. As no problem appears superficially, there is no obvious excuse to change the course, stratagem or tactics.

Under the circumstances, the initial evidence of seamy side is that something is deemed to be impossible to happen from the beginning. For example, one side takes it for granted that the partner won’t take actions which may damage the credit. Even though one side has such misgivings, it is very difficult to prove the illegality provided that information is not disclosed. For instance, under the circumstance that the partner’s financial account is unavailable, it is hard to confirm whether the partner has collected unreasonable cost, and also hard to confirm whether the problem of a project is caused by the incorporation of partner or other reasons. Now that both sides cannot confirm the problems, both sides always adopt a relative passive and negative attitude to maintain the relation. As suppliers and upstream distributors are so, it is even more difficult for JV party or investor to terminate cooperative relation simply and crustily through getting away from it all.

So, what cast a shadow over the originally good intimate relation? More details will be analyzed in the next issue.

Source: (Some content of the article is quoted from “MIT Sloan Management Review” No.1/ Spring issue)

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(Contributed by Sandy Cui, SunFaith Research)