Search results

This paper aims to investigate the importance and prevalence of Guanxi in business interactions in network-based societies such as China, few studies have the phenomenon from a dyadic view. In a business dyad, one partner may not value Guanxi and take it as a template for actions as the other does.

The authors propose that such collective and asymmetric Guanxi orientation influence both the creation and distribution of relational rent in a Guanxi dyad. Furthermore, relationship-specific investments (RSIs) moderate the relationship between dyadic Guanxi orientation and relational rent creation and distribution.

Based on a matched sample of supplier-buyer dyads in China, the authors find that joint Guanxi orientation is positively related to joint pie creation, whereas Guanxi orientation imbalance has a positive effect on the pie distribution imbalance.

These results contribute to the literature by revealing how dyadic Guanxi dynamics and practices affect dyadic performance and providing managers with meaningful implications for dyadic Guanxi management.

Inter‐firm learning, or dyadic learning, has been studied extensively in recent years: however very little attention has been devoted to extending the concept to an international context and no formal definition exists. The purpose of this paper is to propose “cultural adaptation” as a special form of international dyadic learning and link it to supply relationship performance.

Case studies were conducted in four Chinese‐Western buyer‐supplier relationships, providing cross‐case replication, employing qualitative and quantitative methods. Data were triangulated by questionnaires, semi‐structured interviews, and documentation.

Qualitative and quantitative evidence shows that cultural adaptation can lead to mutual benefits (relationship rents) and inbound spillover rents for both parties in a supply relationship.

Using four cases and a small sample of key informants completing the questionnaire limits generalisability of findings.

The paper develops the causal relationship between cultural adaptation and mutual benefits motivating managers to adapt culturally. It emphasizes that the current relationship performance measures should include guanxi quality in order to adapt to the Chinese context.

Building on extended resource based theory, stating that strategic resources may lie beyond a firm's boundary and that relational and inbound spillover rents may be obtained from the relationship, the research contributes to dyadic or inter‐organisational learning literature by empirically building causal relationships between cultural adaptation (as a form of international dyadic learning) and associated mutual benefits (relational and inbound spillover rents), using multiple data sources and methods and tentatively redefining the dyadic learning concept.

This paper aims to explore why some Chinese subordinates will engage in building guanxi with their supervisor while others will not. The authors conceptualize subordinates’ initiative behaviors which aim at building up or improving guanxi with their supervisors through social interactions as supervisor–subordinate guanxi (SSG)-building behaviors. Guided by the theory of planned behavior (TPB), this study examines how three psychological antecedents (guanxi orientation as attitude, individual perception of group-level guanxi practice as subjective norm and person–supervisor [P-S] fit perception as perceived control) independently and interactively predict subordinates’ SSG-building behaviors.

The authors used a sample of 162 supervisor–subordinate dyads from four enterprises located in Southwest China.

Results indicated that P-S fit perception is most strongly related to subordinates’ SSG-building behaviors, followed by guanxi orientation and individual perception of group-level guanxi practice perception. Guanxi orientation is also found to strengthen the positive effect of P-S fit perception on subordinates’ SSG-building behaviors.

The authors’ findings shed light on the psychological mechanisms of Chinese subordinates’ behaviors to build up or improve guanxi with their supervisors, and advance the current understanding of SSG development from a planned behavioral perspective.

This paper aims to illustrate how institutional factors, such as Guanxi (connectedness) mechanism in a transition economy, could impact managerial cognition and their temporal orientation at individual level as well as induced change on corporate environmental strategy (CES). More specifically, this paper explores the micro foundation of corporate strategy change in an attempt to examine how corporate strategic choice and actions evolve with managerial cognition of “Guanxi” with various temporal orientations.

The paper reviews the extant literature focusing on Guanxi and CES with special attention to the temporal orientation in strategy formulation. A conceptual framework is proposed to analyze the underlying mechanism of Guanxi in mediating and shaping CES. A multi-case study with four companies operating in two industry sectors were investigated considering their relative long foothold as well as their different postures and dynamic change of corporate environment strategy in the past decades.

The findings support recent critiques on the likely shift in strategic choice of firms from the traditional Guanxi-based to a rule-based format. The interactions between entrepreneurial cognition and strategic activities toward environmental issues were still influenced by deep relational embeddedness. The findings proved that managerial Guanxi cognition impacts managers’ temporal orientation and their strategic choice on CES. Foreign-invested enterprises in the process of localization face the potential risk of emerging backdrop of their CES, i.e. from more active strategy to more reactive strategic posture, whereas local private-owned enterprises show a transformation from reactor to follower and even pioneer in the wave of those entrepreneurs’ changing cognition on the role of Guanxi in their businesses.

One main limitation of the study is the lacking of quantitative measurement of corporate environment performance. Although the paper used multiple cases to explore the dynamics of Guanxi on impacting CES, only with further development of effective scale measurement to test corporate environment performance can increase the explaining power of the proposed theoretical model in this study. It is important to note that with data of longitudinal measurement of corporate environment performance, it would be more convincing to show the outcome of the temporal lens of Guanxi on CES. However, the lacking availability of qualified disclosed data on indicating corporate environment performance constrains another limitation for the study. Considering the complexity of corporate environment strategy, the focus cases in the paper might still lack powerful and convincing illustration to prove the impact of Guanxi on CES despite the enriched contextual data and description. It is necessary to conduct deeper analysis to exclude the impact of other possible factors on CES to highlight the direct impact of Guanxi on CES.

The results of the in-depth analysis and interpretation of the exploration of the cases suggest that Guanxi still seems to dominate managerial thinking process as the norm is deeply rooted in their mind sets. However, Guanxi is no longer considered as a mere reactive cultural norm rather a positive mechanism through which Chinese firms can achieve their sustainable environmental strategic goals as well as economies prosperity in the rapidly competitive business landscape in modern China.

Previous research on CES largely neglected the context factors. This paper presents a conceptual model to deepen our understanding of the contextual factor of Guanxi with a temporal perspective and its consequent influence on CES. This helps policy makers as well as strategic management researchers and academics to reconsider the mechanism of adaptation and selection in shaping CES in the event of large scale institutional change.

The purpose of this study is to reconcile the positive, non-significant and even negative effects of guanxi on firm performance from two aspects. First, it explores the linear and curvilinear relationships between guanxi and distinct performance dimensions. Second, it examines the moderating effects of both exchange-related behavioral risk (reflected by contract enforcement in this study) and market-related environmental risk (reflected by market turbulence in this study) on the above relationship.

Based on data for 206 samples collected from distributors of house furnishings, computers and their components, a moderated regression is used to test the hypotheses.

The empirical test generally supports the conceptual model and demonstrates three findings. First, guanxi has a linear, positive effect on financial performance and an inverted U-shaped effect on strategic performance. Second, contract enforcement decreases the effect of guanxi on financial performance and enhances its effect on strategic performance. Third, market turbulence enhances the effect of guanxi on financial performance and weakens its effect on strategic performance.

First, this study collects data only from China. Future studies should collect data from other emerging markets to allow for either model validation or cross-country comparisons. Second, the data come only from buyers, and suppliers’ viewpoints are not included. Third, in addition to contract enforcement and market turbulence, other important contingencies should be considered in the guanxi–performance link.

The results provide important implications for managers to manage guanxi in an emerging economy. Managers should be very clear about their primary goal (i.e. pursuing short-term financial revenue or long-term strategic targets); next, they should understand how to match guanxi with various levels of contract enforcement and market turbulence to achieve that goal.

First, prior research has documented guanxi’s role in channel relationships, but it has not achieved consistent conclusions. Second, although existing studies have analyzed the contingencies of guanxi at the firm level, market level and institutional level, another important contingency “the dyadic relationship condition” is rarely considered. Third, although the extant research has realized the value of guanxi contingent on various market conditions, conflicting views exist. This study contributes by addressing these issues.

Guanxi is the foundation of business success in Chinese and other Eastern cultures, but little is known about the extent to which guanxi influences brand outcomes in channel relationships. The purpose of this study is to propose a novel theoretical framework of interpersonal and interorganizational guanxi relationships in a sales channel context and how these relationships influence brand outcomes.

The authors conceptualize, develop and validate new scales measuring interpersonal and interorganizational guanxi and test the proposed model with a field study to validate the effects of guanxi on brand loyalty. The causal relationships between interpersonal guanxi and brand attitudes and affect are confirmed in a separate field experiment.

Findings show that interpersonal guanxi is antecedent to interorganizational guanxi, and these two constructs have significant and differential direct and indirect effects on brand attitudes, brand affect and brand loyalty.

New multidimensional scales measuring both interpersonal and interorganizational guanxi were developed. Both interpersonal and interorganizational guanxi are conceptualized as second-order reflective constructs measured by the reflective first-order guanxi elements of personal and firm trust, personal and firm long-term orientation, xinyong (integrity), reciprocity, interaction and face.

The current study examines the relation of guanxi human resource management (HRM) practices with subjective evaluations of creative performance by direct supervisors, as well as conceptualizes the employee ambidextrous behavior as a mediator, and social comparison orientation and leader–member exchange (LMX) as moderators for understanding the relation.

Survey data were collected from 211 employee–supervisor dyads in China. Hierarchical regression analyses, Preacher and Hayes’ (2008) indirect effects PROCESS macro, and Preacher et al.'s (2007) moderated mediation analysis approach were conducted to test the hypothesized relationships.

Guanxi HRM practices were negatively associated with employee creative performance, mediated by the employee ambidextrous behavior. The authors also found that social comparison orientation showed a strong moderating effect, such that it amplified the indirect relationship between guanxi HRM practices and employee creative performance via ambidextrous behavior. In contrast, LMX showed a weak moderating effect, such that it attenuated this indirect relationship.

This study provides evidence that the extent to which employee ambidextrous behavior mediates the relationship between guanxi HRM practices and creative performance depends on LMX and social comparison orientation. It represents a promising new direction for the guanxi HRM practices and creative performance literatures.

The implementation of sustainable supply chain management (SCM) calls for an acknowledgement of uncertainty inherent in complex environment. Confucianist society forms social networks in Confucianist society, called guanxi networks, influence economic behaviours and business practices in the workplace. The purpose of this study is to explore how these social networks influence the implementation of sustainable SCM. In doing so, this study aims to critically investigate the constructs of guanxi networks, their impact on flow of supply chain capital and how this leverages the implementation of sustainable SCM.

Two systematic literature reviews are conducted to understand the constructs of social networks in Confucianist culture and their impacts on the flow of supply chain capitals. The reviews also analyse evidence related to the economic, social and environmental practices to reveal the current state of the literature and research gaps. Propositions and a framework are developed to support future research in this area.

The constructs of ganqing, renqing, xinren and mianzi in guanxi networks have expanded the contexts of social networks in Western literature. Guanxi networks increase the flow of supply chain capital and generate trust between players, thus enhancing capabilities to implement sustainable SCM. Guanxi networks also create the mechanism of network governance with which to increase sustainable SCM implementation under the institutional logics of sustainability.

The conceptual framework and justification are based on the reviews of current studies in the field. Future empirical study is encouraged to test the propositions, both in Confucianist culture and other countries with culture of social networks.

Social networks are socially constructed concepts. The constructs of guanxi networks revealed in this study have developed the knowledge of Western-based social network theory. Besides, arguments from a social network perspective provide an alternative answer to explain increased behavioural commitment and companies’ investment in sustainable SCM. This study helps practitioners understand the logic of this social norm and to use it to maximise their operation outputs, including sustainable SCM implementation.

This study aims to examine distinct influences of two dimension job stress on job satisfaction and the moderating effects of guanxi-oriented attitude on the relationship between job stress and job satisfaction under cognitive appraisal theory and transactional theory.

In this study, surveys are conducted among state-owned younger bank employees. The author uses the scale of job challenge stress and hindrance stress developed among Chinese younger bank employees to measure the two dimension job stress. After demonstrating guanxi-relative concepts, the moderating effects of guanxi-oriented attitude are examined in this study.

The results demonstrate that guanxi-oriented attitude does not significantly moderate the influence of challenge stress on job satisfaction, while it significantly moderates the noxious influence of hindrance stress on job satisfaction. Theoretical contributions are also discussed.

First, this study suggests specific procedures to conduct hierarchical regression analysis and confirms the effects by parameters. It also proposes and summarizes specific procedures on how to calculate regression equations and draw regression lines to check the interaction received from the hierarchical regression analysis visually. Second, based on cognitive appraisal theory, guanxi-oriented attitude, a Chinese indigenous cognitive concept, was verified in this study. According to the importance of guanxi in Chinese society, the paper shows that employees who value guanxi more will buffer the noxious effects of job stress. Trainings and counseling should be designed to regulate the normal guanxi-oriented-related cognition.

Although China is beginning to emerge on the world economic stage, many Chinese workers are newcomers to the Western notions of leadership. Those examining leader behavior and follower motivations should consider unique traditions that influence the motivation process in other cultural settings. The purpose of this paper is to address this issue.

The approach is the theoretical adaptation of the congruent temperament model based upon personal experience and study of Chinese history and culture.

A valid criticism of the congruent temperament model is the exclusion of distinctive cultural norms, as Western ideas of leadership, personality, and motivation may not be congruent with other cultures. This article, modifies this paradigm by acknowledging the influence of various culturally specific work motivation catalysts (e.g. guanxi, mianzi). Although the original model lacks universality, the general framework can be adapted to account for cultural differences.

The greatest limitation is the conceptual nature of the graphical representations provided. As such, empirical testing of the proposed relationships should commence to ascertain support.

As China moves rapidly towards global integration, an attempt to understand leadership and work motivation in relation to Chinese workers is certainly warranted. Western leaders must consider cultural variables as they strive to provide effective leadership.

Cultural diversity and globalization mandate the development of models appropriate for unique cultures. This is the first attempt to adapt the congruent temperament model to Chinese followers and provides a defined conceptualization that lends itself to intellectual debate and empirical inquiry.