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We conceptualize corporate social capital within the context of Chinese guanxi culture. We assert that the formation and mobilization of corporate social capital are culturally and institutionally contextualized. Building upon a relational approach to corporate performance, we examine culture-sensitive properties of Chinese guanxi and compare guanxi social capital with non-guanxi social capital. We then explain why guanxi-based corporate social capital is of growing significance to the Chinese transitional economy in an era of increasing market competition and institutional uncertainty. We conclude by proposing a research agenda about the roles that guanxi-based corporate social capital plays for boosting corporate performance.

This chapter presents systematic evidence on the persistent power of guanxi, the Chinese phrase for informal social relations and networks, in transitional China. I draw heavily on my previous publications reporting findings from a series of probability sample surveys of the Job-Search Network (thereafter JSNET) project in Chinese cities, and job histories of the survey respondents combined cover a span of 37 years from 1978, the beginning year of China's market-oriented reforms, to 2014, the year of last JSNET survey completed.

Thirty years of rapid development and economic change have created organizations and work relations in China that would have been unthinkable at the start of transition. In December of 1978, the Chinese Communist Party agreed with Deng Xiaoping to allow agricultural privatization, a stark contrast to the communes of Mao Zedong's era. This change established the financial foundation that would lead to development in eastern, coastal cities and that would ultimately fuel an extraordinary transformation of China's economy and its global position. As a result, organizational structures have changed, and new organizational forms have emerged. There have also been dramatic changes in the way work organizations behave and in the nature and implications of work. This volume provides a glimpse into the state of organizations and work at the 30-year mark. The contributors are top scholars in the field, including many who have observed and studied China's transition for decades, who are drawing on some of the most up-to-date and innovative data sources available. The chapters are samples of the current work of these researchers that, taken together, provide a snapshot of the state of research on China's organizations and work behaviors as transition enters its fourth decade.