Guanxi, Networks and Economic Development: The Impact of Cultural Connections
01 Jan 2013-
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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TL;DR: The authors explored the history of early-modern and modern China, from the seventeenth century to the present, examining the rise and fall of China's last empire, the emergence of a modern nation-state, the sources and development of revolution, and the implications of complex social, political, cultural, and economic transformations in the People's Republic of China.
Abstract: This course explores the history of early-modern and modern China, from the seventeenth century to the present. We will examine the rise and fall of China’s last empire, the emergence of a modern nation-state, the sources and development of revolution, and the implications of complex social, political, cultural, and economic transformations in the People’s Republic of China. Course materials include scholarly monographs, a memoir, primary sources, and visual and material artifacts that offer diverse perspectives. We will meet twice a week for a combination of lectures, discussion, and viewing of visual texts.
339 citations
Book•
01 Jan 1982
TL;DR: This paper analyzed Chinese commercial negotiating practices for two reasons: the first is to minimize future misunderstandings in such activities, and the second is to provide guidance for government-to-government negotiations.
Abstract: Abstract : This study analyzes Chinese commercial negotiating practices for two reasons. The first is to minimize future misunderstandings in such activities, and the second is to provide guidance for government-to-government negotiations. The research procedure used involved interviews with American businessmen and bankers with extensive experience in the China trade, and--in order to control for American cultural factors--interviews with comparable Japanese bankers and businessmen. What was learned from the experiences of businessmen is to value in government-to-government negotiations, even though there are substantial differences between commercial and diplomatic relationships. At present both Beijing and Washington seek a more cooperative and complementary relationship. (Author)
213 citations
TL;DR: The rational choice approach to social behaviour rationality, egoism and social atomism models of the actor rationality, action and deliberation individualism, and social structure was proposed in this article.
Abstract: The rational choice approach to social behaviour rationality, egoism and social atomism models of the actor rationality, action and deliberation individualism and social structure.
154 citations
TL;DR: A comprehensive critical examination of China's folk architectural forms is presented in this article, where the authors provide a study of the environmental, historical and social factors that influence housing forms for nearly a quarter of the world's population.
Abstract: A comprehensive critical examination of China's folk architectural forms. Together with its companion volume, \"China's Living Houses: Folk Beliefs, Symbols, and Household Ornamentation\", it provides a study of the environmental, historical and social factors that influence housing forms for nearly a quarter of the world's population. Both books draw on the author's 30 years of fieldwork and travel in China, as well as on published and unpublished material in many languages. The work begins by tracing the interest in Chinese vernacular buildings in the 20th century. Early chapters detail common and distinctive spatial components, including the interior and exterior modular spaces that are axiomatic components of most Chinese dwellings as well as conventional structural components and building materials that are common in Chinese construction. Later chapters examine representative housing types in the three broad cultural realms - northern, southern and western - into which China has been divided. Knapp completes his survey with an exploration of China's old dwellings in the context of the rapid economic and social changes that are destroying so many of them.
50 citations
References
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TL;DR: The authors discussed the implications of social inequality, social ritual, familism, guan xi (connections), face, and sun yung (mutual trust) for foreign firms.
Abstract: Explores Chinese culture and the problems foreign firms and governments encounter when dealing with China. Emphasizes Confucianism’s dominant cultural tradition in China and attempts to explain it to improve foreign firms’ chances of success. Describes Confucianism as a way of living, incorporating the principles of humanism and the notion of filial piety. Mentions the five cardinal relations, harmony and Neo‐Confucianism’s “Principle of universal truth, order, law, production and reproduction”. Assesses the implications of social inequality, social ritual, familism, guan xi (connections), face, and sun yung (mutual trust) for foreign firms. Concludes that foreign firms wishing to do business with China need to understand the labyrinth of Confucianism.
34 citations
34 citations
TL;DR: It was concluded that researchers must exercise considerable care in cross-cultural personality research, since constructs of Machiavellianism may not have similar meanings when applied to non-Western groups.
Abstract: Summary Although there has been considerable cross-cultural research on Machiavellianism in recent years, researchers have failed to examine the conceptual equivalence of the concept across cultural boundaries. Researchers have used measures of Machiavellianism (Mach IV) which were derived from Western concepts and which may not have similar meanings when applied to non-Western groups. The purpose of the present study was to examine the factorial structure of the Mach IV scale in matched samples (age, sex, education, social desirability) of 128 male and female Chinese and American college students. It was hypothesized that the groups would differ with respect to the factorial structure of the Mach IV because of ethnocultural differences in meaning of the factorial terms and in their behavioral referents, correlates, and functional implications. The results supported the hypothesis. It was concluded that researchers must exercise considerable care in cross-cultural personality research, since constructs ma...
33 citations
TL;DR: It is shown that exchange networks with dynamic structures can be analyzed using Network Exchange Theory (NET) even though that theory was developed with only static networks in mind.
33 citations
Journal Article•
TL;DR: The Struggle for Sustainability in Rural China: Environmental Values and Civil Society, by Bryan Tilt as discussed by the authors combines various methodologies including seven months of residence and participant observation in Futian, semistructured interviews, survey questionnaires with government officials, industrial workers, farmers and State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) scientists and bureaucrats, as well as attendance of township government meetings.
Abstract: The Struggle for Sustainability in Rural China: Environmental Values and Civil Society, by Bryan Tilt. New York: Columbia University Press, 2010. xviii +192 pp. US$89.50/£62.00 (hardcover), US$29.50/£20.50 (paperback). Bryan Tilt's remarkable monograph has an importance that cannot be overstated. The book portrays the often horrifying conditions precipitated by a confluence of development targets, privatization of industry and growing uncertainty amongst farming communities. Much of the literature on environmental pollution in China recites a macroscale mantra of the central state producing policies which local governments are too corrupt to enforce. By contrast, Tilt presents a much needed informative and detailed account of the lived realities of pollution victims, pollution perpetrators and regulatory agents. The study combines various methodologies including seven months of residence and participant observation in Futian, semistructured interviews, survey questionnaires with government officials, industrial workers, farmers and State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) scientists and bureaucrats, as well as attendance of township government meetings. Ethnographic methods in particular have enabled Tilt to provide a humanizing picture of actors all too often written off as corrupt. Here is an engrossing account of grassroots understanding of pollution, development and environmental values as they are situated in particular socio-political contexts. After a brief preface, the book is divided into 8 chapters, including an introduction and a conclusion. Chapters one and two provide some solid general background on China's recent history and how it has played out in the research setting of Futian, a township situated on the western edge of the heavily industrialized Panzhihua municipality, in Sichuan. Tilt traces the rise of a development imperative during the Maoist years, and its emphasis on rural industrialization. In the late Mao and early reform periods, Futian experienced what most locals remember fondly as a golden age of industrial development, when revenue from local industry was used to develop local infrastructure. By the late 1990s this communitarian ethic had fully given way to privatization, as local industries were sold to outsiders. The profit from small and low-tech polluting industries such as Futian' s zinc smelter, coking plant and coal-washing plant ceased to benefit the local community and government to the same extent, and these industries were eventually closed for noncompliance with environmental protection regulations. The effects of these changes on the relationships among the local community, industry and the local state are examined further in chapters three and four. Where previously critiquing local industries for causing pollution would have amounted to attacking the state itself, privatization opened space for a critical assessment of their impact. That benefits were no longer distributed to the local communities also increased incentives to complain about pollution. Other studies have already examined the complexities of enforcing environmental protection regulation due to inadequate staffing and ambiguous responsibilities. Tilt gives us a real sense of the scope of these problems. The size of the Renhe district's Environmental Protection Bureau's enforcement team - consisting of three technicians and the monitoring station chief and charged with overseeing more than 120 factories across 14 townships - is grossly inadequate. Despite this, the local population is shown to be acutely aware of pollution, belying assumptions that those in economic dire straits are too poor to care about the environment. A key strength of this study lies in its questioning of the very terms of the debate: what is deemed worthy of protection? What, in the discourse of sustainable development, is to be sustained? What is to be developed? Predictably, the answers vary with the speaker, as do the pathways of action which are premised upon them. …
33 citations