1 Introduction

Discussed the economic and cultural exchanges and cooperation between China and Germany under the "the Belt and Road" initiative, especially the investment of German enterprises in China. The article points out that German companies have a strong willingness to invest in the Chinese market and have become an important component of foreign-funded enterprises in China. At the same time, the article emphasizes the importance of cross-cultural communication and cross-cultural management in multicultural enterprises, and discusses the core position of respect in cross-cultural communication. Scholars have proposed ethical principles and adaptation models for cross-cultural communication, but further research is needed on how to specifically express respect and how different cultures understand respect behavior.

Theoretical basis for cross-cultural respect

Since the Enlightenment, the concept of respecting people has had a profound impact on modern society. Kant's moral philosophy emphasizes that humans are ends rather than means, providing a philosophical and ethical foundation for an equal personality. Under different cultural backgrounds, people have different understandings of respect, which has cultural characteristics. Therefore, studying cross-cultural respect is particularly important. Respect is composed of "zun" and "zhong" in Chinese, and "respect" in English comes from Latin. In German, it means admiration, politeness, and respect. Respect is the behavior of one person making another feel valued and recognized, and culture can influence respect behavior and perception. Respect is divided into horizontal respect and vertical respect. Horizontal respect is based on equal personality, while vertical respect is based on differences in abilities and achievements. Respect in multicultural enterprises refers to the respect between individuals, which has the characteristics of intersubjectivity and interpersonal communication in organizations, and affects company performance and efficiency. This study focuses on cross-cultural respect in Chinese and German funded enterprises, and obtains comprehensive research results from an interactive perspective through interviews with Chinese and German employees.

3 Research Methods and Processes

This chapter adopts qualitative interview method and designs a semi-structured interview outline based on cross-cultural communication theory, covering four perspectives: perceived respect and expression of respect, respect and lack of respect. The research subjects are Chinese and German employees in Huade funded enterprises, and a total of 26 people were interviewed through snowball sampling. After transcribing the interview content, MAXQDA software was used for analysis, and Gioia et al. (2013) encoding process was adopted, including three stages of tagging, comparative analysis, and aggregation dimension, to summarize the characteristics of respect behavior in an inductive manner.

Four principles of cross-cultural respect

In the context of the "the Belt and Road" initiative, we studied cross-cultural respect behaviors in multicultural enterprises. Through the three-level coding theory of Gioia et al. (2013), we identified 20 kinds of respect behaviors shared by Chinese and German employees, as well as 5 kinds of respect behaviors unique to China and 6 kinds of respect behaviors unique to Germany. Based on these behaviors, five cross-cultural respect principles are extracted: politeness, negotiation, cooperation, authority, and competence.

5 Conclusion and Prospect

This study revealed the respect behavior of Chinese and German employees in multicultural enterprises through semi-structured interviews, summarizing 20 shared and 11 unique respect behaviors, classified into five respect principles: politeness, negotiation, cooperation, authority, and competence. These principles manifest differently in cultural differences, such as German employees valuing eye contact, while Chinese employees do not. The Chinese side gave higher courtesy to the leaders, while the German side directly expressed criticism. Cross cultural adjustment of respectful behavior is crucial to avoid misunderstandings and should be accompanied by mutual respect and interaction between China and Germany. The adherence to the principle of respect is complex, and the absence of any principle may affect the perception of respect. With the promotion of the "the Belt and Road" initiative, cross-cultural training has become an effective way to enhance cultural understanding and help build a closely linked multicultural enterprise environment.