To an outsider, China today can seem schizophrenic.

Its society and business culture appear to be at once highly individualistic and deeply communal.

Signs of this dual identity can be seen both in the Olympic Games under way in Beijing and in a recent study of Chinese business school graduates.

The study, by consulting firm Katzenbach Partners, found that young Chinese MBAs are hungry to develop leadership skills and that they value entrepreneurial settings.

These sorts of young Chinese managers sometimes are dubbed the “little emperors”— they often are the sole child doted on by parents thanks to population control efforts. And the Katzenbach report indicates that they are focused on workplace pride to the point of self-absorption.

“I would leave my company because the job itself lacks challenges, and there are other opportunities that would allow me to realize my own value all the more,” a Beijing chemical company manager is quoted as saying.

Yet even as they come off as more individualistic than your average American, young Chinese leaders want to contribute to the greater good, according to the report. The Chinese MBAs in the study want competitive salary and benefits, says Katzenbach Partners consultant Stacy Palestrant.

“But,” she says, “they are also looking for work that is more than a job and that lets them make a difference, both in the company and in the future of China.”

The emphasis on both self and group was evident in the Beijing Olympic Games’ remarkable opening ceremony. Solo acts by dancers and singers were juxtaposed with the perfectly synchronized efforts of thousands of drummers and martial arts practitioners.

New York Times columnist David Brooks saw the ceremony as a statement about the potential economic power of a society with a collectivist, rather than an individualist, mind-set.

“The rise of China isn’t only an economic event. It’s a cultural one,” Brooks wrote. “The ideal of a harmonious collective may turn out to be as attractive as the ideal of the American Dream.”

Brooks cites studies showing that Asians focus on context rather than individuals.

It seems to me, though, that China’s communal mentality is in transition. That’s due partly to the generation of young people raised as single children as well as more than two decades of capitalistic reforms.

Chinese business leaders are wrestling with how to weave together the best of the West and the East—of the individual and collective. During a reporting trip to China last year, I met a Chinese HR manager who summed up the quest by suggesting a balance of “performance culture and family-oriented culture.”

Chinese political leaders, for their part, have taken steps to temper the country’s dramatic growth and new socioeconomic divisions with a concern for social “harmony” and environmental sustainability.

The Beijing Olympic theme “One World, One Dream” in effect imagines this sort of shared progress on a global scale.

At a luncheon before the opening ceremonies, Chinese President Hu Jintao called for the “building of a harmonious world featuring lasting peace and common prosperity.”

China, with its poor human rights record, is a very imperfect preacher. But amen to its hopeful vision—and to its push to unify what too often have been extreme versions of individualism and collectivism.