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Guanxi, Networks and Economic Development: The Impact of Cultural Connections

TL;DR: In this article, the authors explore the mechanics of guanxi in an organizational setting, focusing on the use of interpersonal relationships within Chinese firms to discover how firms initiate, build and use Guanxi networks.
Abstract: The purpose of this study is to explore the mechanics of guanxi in an organizational setting, focusing on the use of interpersonal relationships within Chinese firms to discover how firms initiate, build and use guanxi networks. Two richly detailed case studies document changes that take place over time in two distinct networks with respect to key actors and their contacts. This research also investigates patterns of social structure that emerge over time in these two distinct cases looking at brokerage relationships, network density, and dyadic redundancy in three waves at six month intervals. The cases are dissimilar in all aspects except absolute size demonstrating the universal use of guanxi across time, geographic location, specific industries, and firm experience. Dynamic network visualization is used to highlight the sequence and rate of activity in each network to identify salient changes. The findings show that firms seek to improve their organizational guanxi by improving existing employees’ guanxi quality within the firm and by recruiting new actors from outside the firm. Additionally, firms use organizational guanxi to expand their networks by forming cooperative partnerships with complementary organizations that enhance the attributes or potential of both organizations. And finally, firms initially exploit brokerage in organizational guanxi, then attempt to stabilize the network by fostering new ties to exclusive contacts.
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Book
01 Jan 1941

16 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present an overview of the history of the school system before and after the Cultural Revolution in China and its effect on higher education in the 1970s and 1980s.
Abstract: AcknowledgementsIntroductionI. The Sixties: Impending Crisis1. Up the School Ladder2. The Senior High School Bulge and Dwindling Career Openings3. Flawed Reforms: Rural and Urban Alternatives to the Regular Ladder4. Memorization and Tests5. Student Ideals and Competition: The Gathering Storm6. The Cultural RevolutionII. After the Cultural Revolution: The Disastrous Leap Into a New School System7. Back to School, 1968-19708. Down to the Countryside9. Troubled Schools, 1970-197610. The Fight Over Higher EducationEpilogue: The Return of the Old Order, 1977-1980Appendix A: The Debates Over TalentAppendix B: The Upper Reaches of the Pre-Cultural Revolution Ladder: Into and Out of the UniversitiesAppendix C: The Course Curricula and Daily Schedules of High Schools Before and After the Cultural RevolutionSources and Abbreviations Used in NotesNotesFor Further ReadingIndex

8 citations

Journal Article
TL;DR: The Tiananmen Papers: The Chinese Leadership's Decision to Use Force Against Their Own People -In Their Own Words as mentioned in this paper, is an insider's glimpse into the Chinese Communist Party's decision-making process.
Abstract: The Tiananmen Papers: The Chinese Leadership's Decision to Use Force Against Their Own People -- In Their Own Words.Compiled by Zhang Liang, Andrew J. Nathan, and Perry Link, eds. New York, NY: Public Affairs, 2001.513 pp. $30 hbk. Interested in an insider's glimpse into the Chinese Communist Party's decision-- making process, specifically a step-by-step guide on how the Communist Party decided to carry out the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown? If so, read The Tiananmen Papers. Although the credibility of this text's Chinese documents is in question, the fact that Chinese leaders are vehemently criticizing the text suggests it has hit a nerve. For example, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman recently responded to The Tiananmen Papers as follows: "Any attempt to play up the matter and disrupt China by the despicable means of fabricating materials and distorting facts will be futile." Perhaps the Chinese government's strong outcry against this work is one reason why Western critics are comparing The Tiananmen Papers to the Pentagon Papers. The Tiananmen Papers claims to expose, for the first time, the Chinese Communist Party's decision-making process that led to the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown. This text claims to be based on an anonymous Chinese source's compilation of thousands of Communist Party documents and records, including detailed Chinese security accounts of student demonstrations, highlevel Party meeting "minutes," and summaries of conversations between key political figures. Since Western scholars remain uncertain whether The Tianan men Papers are truly based on authentic, unaltered documents, this work may be founded on severely compromised and fictionalized data. However, renowned Western-based China scholars who have examined this data are gambling on their hunch that The Tiananmen Papers are the real thing. Three of The Tiananmen Papers' strongest supporters, all prestigious China scholars, have contributed to this text: Andrew J. Nathan and Perry Link edited it, while Orville Schell wrote its "afterward." Nathan is a political science professor and former director of the East Asian Institute at Columbia University, Link is a Princeton University professor of Chinese, and Schell is dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley. Although many Western academics, journalists, and foreign-policy makers appear to trust China scholars' conclusions that the Tiananmen documents are largely authentic, they continue to wonder aloud about the identity of the anonymous Chinese source who supplied these documents, who uses the pseudonym Zhang Liang, how he got these documents out of China, and how The Tiananmen Papers scholars determined the credibility of their documents. …

5 citations

Posted Content
Baogang He1
TL;DR: Consultancy has emerged in Chinese studies as a new gate into the field The aim of consultancy fieldwork is to work and engage with local actors, train local officials, and provide knowledge and resources for local projects as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: Consultancy has emerged in Chinese studies in recent years as a new gate into the field The aim of consultancy fieldwork is to work and engage with local actors, train local officials, and provide knowledge and resources for local projects This type of fieldwork involves frequent trips to villages, towns and townships, or urban residential committees, and scholars and experts are required to attend work meetings on concrete policy and planning, which are quite different from academic workshops or conferences

4 citations

References
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Journal ArticleDOI
30 Jan 1981-Science
TL;DR: The psychological principles that govern the perception of decision problems and the evaluation of probabilities and outcomes produce predictable shifts of preference when the same problem is framed in different ways.
Abstract: The psychological principles that govern the perception of decision problems and the evaluation of probabilities and outcomes produce predictable shifts of preference when the same problem is framed in different ways. Reversals of preference are demonstrated in choices regarding monetary outcomes, both hypothetical and real, and in questions pertaining to the loss of human lives. The effects of frames on preferences are compared to the effects of perspectives on perceptual appearance. The dependence of preferences on the formulation of decision problems is a significant concern for the theory of rational choice.

15,513 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Charmaz as mentioned in this paper presented a practical guide through qualitative analysis to construct grounded theory, using qualitative analysis, and showed that qualitative analysis can be used to understand grounded theory in a practical way.
Abstract: BOOK REVIEW: Constructing grounded theory. A practical guide through qualitative analysis Kathy Charmaz, 2006, 208 pp. London: Sage. ISBN 2005928035

11,206 citations

Book
01 Jan 1993
TL;DR: A Case Study of a Neighborhood Organization Initiation and Structure of the Organization Revitalization Activities and Their Support Relationship to Voluntary Associations and Networks Relationship to City Government Outcomes.
Abstract: Theory The Role of Theory in Doing Case Studies What is the Case Study Method? What is the Role of Theory in Doing Case Studies Exploratory Case Studies Case Selection and Screening: Criteria and Procedures Causal Case Studies I: Factor Theories Causal Case Studies II: Explanatory Theories Descriptive Scase Studies Conclusions Descriptive Case Studies A Case Study of a Neighborhood Organization Initiation and Structure of the Organization Revitalization Activities and Their Support Relationship to Voluntary Associations and Networks Relationship to City Government Outcomes List of Respondents and Annotated Bibliography Computer Implementation in a Local School System The Computer System in Operation Organizational Issues Explanatory Case Studies A Nutshell Example: The Effect of a Federal Award on a University Computer Science Department Essential Ingredients of Explanatory Case Studies: Three Drug Prevention Examples Simplified Case Example No. 1: "Town Meetings Galvanize Action Against Drug Dealing" Simplified Case Example No. 2: "Interagency Collaboration to Reduce BWI Incidents" Simplified Case Example No. 3: "Designated Driver Program, Delivered Through Vendors" "Transforming" a Business Firm Through Strategic Planning Company Profile and Conditions Leading to Change Strategic Plan Transforms the Business Chronology Sheriff's Combined Auto Theft Task Force The Practice and Its Funding Implementation of the Practice Outcomes to Date Chronology Cross-Case Analyses Technical Assistance for HIV/AIDS Community Planning Defining a Framework for Assessing the Effectiveness of Technical Assistance (TA) Documented Outcomes, Varieties of TA Studied and Possible Rival Explanations for the Outcomes Findings on Individual Hypotheses Regarding Reasons for Successful TA Delivery Proposal Processing by Public and Private Universities Introduction to the Study The Time Needed to Process and Submit Proposals Costs of Preparing Proposals Case Studies of Transformed Firms Why Study Transformed Firms? What is a Transformed Firm? What Kind of Transformation Did the Firms Experience? Did the Transformations Share Common Conditions Summary: General Lessons About Transformed Firms About the author

7,160 citations

BookDOI
TL;DR: For instance, King, Keohane, Verba, and Verba as mentioned in this paper have developed a unified approach to valid descriptive and causal inference in qualitative research, where numerical measurement is either impossible or undesirable.
Abstract: While heated arguments between practitioners of qualitative and quantitative research have begun to test the very integrity of the social sciences, Gary King, Robert Keohane, and Sidney Verba have produced a farsighted and timely book that promises to sharpen and strengthen a wide range of research performed in this field. These leading scholars, each representing diverse academic traditions, have developed a unified approach to valid descriptive and causal inference in qualitative research, where numerical measurement is either impossible or undesirable. Their book demonstrates that the same logic of inference underlies both good quantitative and good qualitative research designs, and their approach applies equally to each. Providing precepts intended to stimulate and discipline thought, the authors explore issues related to framing research questions, measuring the accuracy of data and uncertainty of empirical inferences, discovering causal effects, and generally improving qualitative research. Among the specific topics they address are interpretation and inference, comparative case studies, constructing causal theories, dependent and explanatory variables, the limits of random selection, selection bias, and errors in measurement. Mathematical notation is occasionally used to clarify concepts, but no prior knowledge of mathematics or statistics is assumed. The unified logic of inference that this book explicates will be enormously useful to qualitative researchers of all traditions and substantive fields.

6,233 citations