Manaakitanga and Renqing (人情): Linking Māori and Chinese Business Models
27 August 2025
Raised in rural Yangxin County, China, Xiaoliang Niu is a PhD Candidate at Waipapa Taumata Rau, the University of Auckland who has lived in Aotearoa New Zealand for 15 years. Xiaoliang talked to Dr Anita Perkins about his journey to New Zealand, his research on cultural similarities between the way Māori and Chinese do business, and what New Zealand and China have to learn from one another. He also discusses the centrality of building strong relationships where parallel cultural expressions of aroha are central: manaakitanga (care for others) and Renqing (humaneness).
From rural China to busy Shanghai to quiet Hamilton
Seeing a white family for the first time as a child is imprinted in Xiaoliang Niu’s memory. This occurred when he was 10 years old and at a family outing at a park in Beijing during the national holiday 国庆节 (National Day in English referring to the National Day of the People's Republic of China). He explains, “I grew up during the period of China's most rapid economic development, a time when Western products, ideas, and lifestyles were becoming incredibly popular. There was a powerful narrative of ‘catching up with the West’, which created an almost obsessive curiosity about foreigners, particularly white foreigners.”
Xiaoliang was keen to learn more about the wisdom outside of China. His parents, recognising their son’s curiosity to know more about the West, later found a programme whereby students could study for half of their undergraduate at Shanghai International Studies University and the other half at the University of Waikato. “I agreed immediately even though I knew almost nothing about New Zealand's history or exactly where it was on a map”, Xiaoliang recalls. Thus began a tertiary education journey from a rural town in Hubei province to the skyscrapers and busy lifestyle of Shanghai to the shock of being welcomed by sheep and amazing scenery in Waikato.
While Hamilton wasn’t quite the Western city Xiaoliang (in the image supplied/amc) had seen in the movies, over time the quiet, open spaces, unique landscape and the different pace of life led him to have a deep appreciation for New Zealand. “In many ways, learning to see the value in those differences set me on the path to the work I do today. As an introvert and someone who enjoys working independently, the lifestyle here got me to slow down and pay attention to what’s surrounding me rather than living life as though there’s a mission or somewhere else to be all the time.”
Diving into indigenous perspectives and the human side of business
After gaining a Bachelor of Business Analysis in Accounting from the University of Waikato, Xiaoliang worked as an accountant, then returning to academia and graduating with a Master of Management Studies looking at the correlations between green innovation and internationalisation in Chinese manufacturing firms. “But after finishing my MA I felt a real sense of emptiness. My research was all data and statistics. I realised I had a strong urge to actually talk to people, to understand their personal perspectives”, Xiaoliang says.
His current doctoral research at the University of Auckland Business School focuses on parallels between traditional Chinese and te ao Māori (Māori world views) and the way both cultures treat concepts, such as environmental sustainability, within their businesses. Xiaoliang explains how he ended up looking at this topic: “Focusing on te ao Māori was inspired largely by my partner's own decolonising journey. I was struck by the incredible similarities with Chinese cultural values—how they are expressed and how they shape people's lives.”
A traditional steam box in Whakarewarewa—Māori living village, utilising underground thermal power for cooking kai. image supplied/amc
Meeting his supervisor, Professor Jason Mika, truly opened Xiaoliang eyes to te ao Māori—the worldview, the principles of kaupapa Māori, and the importance of tikanga and te reo, which gave him the academic pathway to formally explore parallels between the two cultures.
The importance of the collective
One example from Xiaoling’s research is that both Māori and traditional Chinese businesses place an emphasis on caring for people and relationships. Manaakitanga, the commitment to genuine care and aroha for workers as whānau, echoes the Confucian virtue ‘Renqing’ (人情) or humaneness, the “people-first” management approach in China. “When businesses centre the well-being of employees, of your people and community, then everything else will just flow through. In my interviews with Māori business owners I was able to observe how they really embed and incorporate these cultural values into the roots of how they operate. From the Chinese side, even though some of these values are expressed differently, genuine care and love of your employees is really important, as they form the essential part of the business owners’ reputation, legacy, and face (面子).
A steamer in TengChong (腾冲), Yunnan Province, China, where locals also use thermal power, like hot spring water to steam food. (credit:思思今天去哪儿吃 on RedNote)/amc
The future impact of Xiaoliang’s research
Xiaoliang is part way through his PHD and will travel to China and within Aotearoa for further interview fieldwork. Looking ahead, the main thing he hopes to achieve from his research is making Māori models of business more visible to the Chinese community and fostering better mutual understanding. This is about building longer-lasting relationships through understanding each other’s cultural values more. “To me that’s the foundation of a good relationship; it’s not just transactional connections but actual relationships built upon respect and reciprocity. I find that not many Chinese scholars or business investors know much about Māori ways of doing business, but once I tell them they’re really interested to know more about the similarities behind frameworks, such as the 500 year business plans (like that of Wakatū) or the concept of kaitiakitanga (guardianship of the environment). They see opportunities to develop strong relationships through such value alignment.”
The ongoing responsibility of being an Asian immigrant and tauiwi (non-Māori / foreigner) in Aotearoa
Xiaoliang believes he has a lot of responsibility to carry both in terms of his identity and his role as a tangata tiriti researcher: “What is unique about this experience is navigating my identity as tauiwi, a visitor to this land. Echoing Auckland academic, Lincoln Dam, there's a common perception that Asian immigrants are outside the central Māori-Pākehā tension because we were not part of the original signing parties of Te Tiriti. But I believe that view is too binary and simplistic. I was raised with the Chinese saying "入乡随俗 (rù xiāng suí sú)," which, in a Western sense, simply means, "When in Rome, do as the Romans do." To me, living in Aotearoa means my responsibility is to respect and uphold the foundational covenant of this land, being transparent about my positionality, centring te ao Māori and Māori voice and researching in ways that can mutually benefit the community where I gained the mātauranga from. That’s what being a person of the Treaty, a tangata tiriti, means.”
Asia Media Centre