This book examines a topic of paramount importance to those doing business with China: the impact of personal relationships (guanxi) on business affairs. It shows that the commercial utilization of guanxi with suppliers, customers, competitors and authorities yields significant sustainable competitive advantages. Coverage also assesses guanxi-based business strategies in terms of compliance with legal and ethical standards.
This insightful book provides a much-needed explanation of Guanxi - a system of Chinese business relationships often described but rarely understood - integrating various disciplines into a coherent and concise explanation.
Guanxi (interpersonal relationship) is one of the major dynamics of Chinese society. It has been a pervasive part of the Chinese business world for the last few centuries. It binds literally millions of Chinese firms into a social and business web. It is widely recognized to be a key determinant of business performance, because the life-blood of the macro economy and micro business conduct in the society, including local firms as well as foreign investors and marketers, inevitably faces guanxi dynamics. No company can go far unless it has extensive guanxi in this setting. In China's new, fast-paced business environment, guanxi has been more entrenched than ever, heavily influencing Chinese social behavior and business practice. Despite the current academic and practical interest in guanxi, there is no book-length treatment systematically and vigorously exploring the concept and practice from the business perspective. This book fills that gap by exploring the various social economic cultural, and business issues relating to the complex concept and practice of guanxi.
Develop a network of successful business relationships in China!This systematic study of the Chinese concept of guanxi--broadly translated, ”personal relationship” or ”connections”--offers a comprehensive social and professional model for doing business in China. In addition to a clear analysis of the origins and meanings of this vital concept, Guanxi: Relationship Marketing in a Chinese Context empowers you with practical tools for establishing guanxi in order to facilitate successful business relationships. Guanxi is based on an original research study as well as the authors’twenty years of experience of doing business in China. Their understanding of the implications of face, favor, reciprocity, honor, and interconnectedness--all vital parts of guanxi--will enable you to understand the unstated assumptions of Chinese business culture. Moreover, the book discusses the legal implications of guanxi as well as cultural expectations.This valuable handbook offers a wealth of information on guanxi: case studies of guanxi in action managerial implications of saving face and reciprocity measuring guanxi quality and performance indicators step-by-step instructions for building guanxi detailed strategies for penetrating the Chinese market Guanxi is an indispensable tool for anyone wanting to do business in China, for students of international business or Chinese culture, and for scholars interested in international business culture.
How do social relations, or guanxi, matter in China today and how can this distinctive form of personal connection be better understood? In Guanxi: How China Works, Yanjie Bian analyzes the forms, dynamics, and impacts of guanxi relations in reform-era China, and shows them to be a crucial part of the puzzle of how Chinese society operates. Rich in original studies and insightful analyses, this concise book offers a critical synthesis of guanxi research, including its empirical controversies and theoretical debates. Bian skillfully illustrates the growing importance of guanxi in diverse areas such as personal network building, employment and labor markets, informal business relationships, and the broader political sphere, highlighting guanxi’s central value in China's contemporary social structure. A definitive statement on the topic from a top authority on the sociology of guanxi, this book is an excellent classroom introduction for courses on China, a useful reference for guanxi researchers, and ideal reading for anyone interested in Chinese culture and society.
Does guanxi still matter in 21st century Chinese business and management? Is it really still a culturally distinct form of social interaction, impenetrable by outsiders? Or does it simply resemble the countless other elite networks embedded in business and political spheres across the globe? This book answers these questions through a combination of new empirical insight and nuanced conceptual development. Research examples include investigations of multinational enterprise corporate performance, governance structures in Chinese private firms, organisational justice in Chinese banks, entrepreneurial learning and knowledge acquisition, and the gendered and sexualized nature of guanxi in the workplace. In terms of firm performance, there is still much to be gained by MNE and Chinese firms through cultivating guanxi in different domains, including the political sphere at both the local and national level. However, in terms of employee performance, there is evidence that some younger employees have a strong desire to move towards more merit-based systems and resent being judged on guanxi connections. Similarly, some women may find themselves shut out when attempting to navigate conventional guanxi relationships based on Confucian paternalism. In brief, these practices may also exclude a large pool of emerging talent. This book clearly shows that guanxi is a complex concept that holds a persistent power in Chinese societies. To understand it fully we must acknowledge the dynamic nature of both its dark and light sides. The chapters in this book were originally published in a special issue of the Asia Pacific Business Review.
Deeply rooted in Chinese culture, the concept of guanxi has been widely researched from historical, cultural and political perspectives. As Chinese multinational corporations (MNCs) expand, expatriates are increasingly carrying guanxi with them to host countries, yet little has been written on how this indigenous construct is employed in the Western world. This book takes a theoretical approach to the examination of this phenomenon and proposes a conceptual framework for the ‘guanxi capitalism structure,’ illustrating its fundamental role as the invisible hand in China. Providing empirical analysis, the author demonstrates how guanxi affects intra-firm multicultural group dynamics involving Chinese expatriates and host-country natives in Chinese MNCs. With insights for scholars researching Asian business and globalisation, and practitioners working in Chinese MNCs, this book argues that guanxi significantly alters an expatriate’s adjustment, and offers practical suggestions for cross-cultural management and the process of initiating, building, and utilising guanxi in a Western context.
This volume includes the full proceedings from the 1998 Multicultural Marketing Conference held in Montreal, Canada. The focus of the conference and the enclosed papers is on marketing to various ethnic groups in both a US and global context. It presents papers on various multicultural issues across the entire spectrum of marketing activities and functions including marketing management, marketing strategy, and consumer behavior. Founded in 1971, the Academy of Marketing Science is an international organization dedicated to promoting timely explorations of phenomena related to the science of marketing in theory, research, and practice. Among its services to members and the community at large, the Academy offers conferences, congresses and symposia that attract delegates from around the world. Presentations from these events are published in this Proceedings series, which offers a comprehensive archive of volumes reflecting the evolution of the field. Volumes deliver cutting-edge research and insights, complimenting the Academy’s flagship journals, the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science (JAMS) and AMS Review. Volumes are edited by leading scholars and practitioners across a wide range of subject areas in marketing science.
The China Business Model: Originality and Limits emphasizes transformation of the Chinese Business Model over the last decades. The impact of the financial crisis on China helps the reader understand its evolution towards capitalism. Topics covered include CSR, leadership, and management in China, how do these organizations impact the performance of companies, the financing policy of Chinese firms and its evolution till the slowdown, finance and business in China, and how could the banking sector and/or the financial markets help the development of Chinese companies? - Helps the reader understand the impact of the financial crisis on China and its evolution towards capitalism - Contains coverage of CSR, leadership, and management in China - Answers the question "how can financial markets help the development of Chinese companies?"
