Linking the taniwha and dragon: Māori primary exports into China and culturally aligned value chains

Abstract

Māori primary producers have focused their export attention to China, with many seeking to turn supply chains into value chains. Little attention is paid to the role of culture in value chain literature yet much has been made of the cultural similarities between Māori and Chinese in a business context. In this article, the concept of culturally aligned value chains is developed and explored, specifically examining how business cultures can help with chain governance and relationships, audit and authentication cultures can help with chain tracing, verification, and provenance, and food cultures can help with consumer-orientation of the chain. While the analysis is focused on Māori and Chinese cultures, the findings have a wider applicability for Indigenous and East Asian cultures, and more generally, the concept of culturally aligned value chains is viewed as an important insight for the value chain concept.