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Guanxi (literally interpersonal connections) is in essence a network of resource coalition-based stakeholders sharing resources for survival, and it plays a key role in achieving business success in China. However, the salience of guanxi stakeholders varies: not all guanxi relationships are necessary, and among the necessary guanxi participants, no...
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The concept of “ethical consumer behavior” has gained significant attention among practitioners and academic researchers, generating increasing but disjointed knowledge on the topic. By analyzing the empirical research on ethical consumer behavior, this article provides researchers with a map to guide future research. In total, we review 80 studies...
Citations
... Personal influence strategies identified were based on renqing (favour) and mianzi (face), and these were used to expand individuals' relational networks and to obtain resources from others. Su et al. (2007) explored guanxi from a public perspective, offering a classification to distinguish different forms based on the stakeholders involved. The authors also offered different types of guanxi strategies such as core, major and peripheral guanxi, adding additional insights into how personal influence manifests in South Korea. ...
Purpose
Personal influence is one of the most powerful strategies to influence publics’ behaviours. Yet, there is scant attention on how personal influence is leveraged for different public relations purposes in different cultural contexts. This study empirically investigates the presence and use of personal influence among Italian public relations professionals.
Design/methodology/approach
A survey was conducted through a self-administrated, web-based questionnaire and was developed from earlier studies investigating personal influence in public relations literature. Survey participants included public relations professionals across public, non-profit and private sectors.
Findings
The findings empirically show the presence and regular use of personal influence by professionals from all sectors to cultivate interpersonal relationships. Personal influence is considered a personal resource and used to leverage own influencing power. The findings also document four major manifestations of personal influence, which were named: relational closeness strategy, engagement strategy, expertise strategy and added value strategy.
Practical implications
This study enhances our understanding of personal influence in a specific cultural context and offers strategic insights for international professionals seeking to leverage influence in the socio-political environment of Italy. It also offers elements to improve public relations education and training.
Originality/value
The study offers some preliminary understandings of how Italian professionals leverage their personal influence in their daily public relations activities contributing with empirical evidence to the body of knowledge in public relations.
... Guanxi refers to having personal trust and a strong relationship with someone and can involve moral obligations and exchanging favors. Guanxi can be viewed as an extensive network of personal (Kao, 1993) or business relationships that allows parties access to valuable resources (Su et al., 2007), and involves the development of a network of relationships that promote the accomplishment of business tasks (Lovett et al., 1999). Hwang et al. (2008) suggest that individuals who do not fulfill their obligations within the guanxi network experience a decline in their social standing within the group. ...
This paper explores hypotheses based on Hofstede’s cultural framework showing that decisionmakers’
culture impacts their implicit choice. How people make decisions is tested through the
behavioral dimension preference for intuition/preference for deliberation based on data from 1,233
employees in China, Taiwan, the Philippines, and the USA. This study reveals significant variation in
individuals’ intuitive and affective decision-making in the public sector across different countries.
Individuals’ deliberative decision-making is impacted by long-term orientation and uncertainty
avoidance. The study finds that Eastern countries (China, the Philippines, and Taiwan) have higher
scores for intuitive/affective decision making than the Western countries (the USA).
... Guanxi refers to having personal trust and a strong relationship with someone and can involve moral obligations and exchanging favors. Guanxi can be viewed as an extensive network of personal (Kao, 1993) or business relationships that allows parties' access to valuable resources (Su et al., 2007), and involves the development of a network of relationships that promote the accomplishment of business tasks (Lovett et al., 1999). Hwang et al. (2008) suggest that individuals who do not fulfill their obligations within the guanxi network experience a decline in their social standing within the group. ...
This paper explores hypotheses based on Hofstede's cultural framework showing that decision-makers' culture impacts their implicit choice. How people make decisions is tested through the behavioral dimension preference for intuition/preference for deliberation based on data from 1,233 employees in China, Taiwan, the Philippines, and the USA. The survey design was confirmed applying explanatory (EFA) and confirmatory (CFA) factor analyses. This study reveals that there is significant variation in individuals' intuitive and affective decision-making in the public sector across different countries. Individuals' deliberative decision-making is revealed to be impacted by cultural dimensions like long-term orientation and uncertainty avoidance. The study finds that Eastern countries with Guanxi (China, the Philippines, and Taiwan) have higher scores for intuitive/affective decision making than the Western countries (the USA).
... Some authors view guanxi positively by suggesting that it builds mutual support and promotes positive attitudes among employees that help on organizations' operation efficiency and cost saving (e.g. Luo 2000;Ordonez de Pablos 2005;Su et al. 2007). Others view this connectedness as fueling unfairness and injustice (e.g. ...
... This form is one of the most critical trustworthy relationships in Chinese organizational settings (Chen and Bedford 2022). Apart from formal network relationships in organizations, peer-to-peer guanxi works as a private channel that can cultivate mutual support and information flow among employees (Su, Mitchell, and Sirgy 2007), which are expected to benefit organizations' operation efficiency and cost saving (Luo 2000;Ordonez de Pablos 2005). ...
This conceptual paper takes a dynamic view of culture to reexamine the tradeoffs between positive and negative aspects of guanxi in China. Because of cross-border collaboration and the wide use of the internet, Chinese employees are now exposed to more diverse values. Considering this cultural shift, the current paper discusses how the widely publicized negative aspect of guanxi relations in Chinese organizations can be mitigated. We suggest that employees are likely to withdraw from peer-to-peer guanxi relations that involve ethical concerns, and the likelihood and speed of this relation change would vary in part on the focal party's heritage of Confucian cultural values. This paper contributes to the literature by offering a dynamic approach to reconcile the controversy about peer-to-peer guanxi's role in Chinese organizations. This dynamic examination can invite further research on the complicated evolution of guanxi.
... Compared to firms led by CEOs without political connections, firms led by CEOs with political connections gain much more support from the government (Li & Lu, 2020). To understand this, we need to understand that the Chinese government, the empirical context of this study, still controls significant portions of strategic factor resources and has considerable power to approve projects and allocate resources (Bu & Roy, 2015;Guo et al., 2020;Su et al., 2007). Firms led by CEOs with political connections can obtain much more information and funding than firms led by CEOs without political connections (Li & Zhang, 2007). ...
In this study, we propose and test the relationship between CSR and firm financial performance, how this relationship differs between firms led by CEOs with political connections and those led by CEOs without political connections, and how this relationship differs between state-owned firms and nonstate-owned firms. Based on a sample of 1645 Chinese listed firms during the period 2011 and 2020 (inclusive), we find that CSR has an inverted U-shaped relationship with firm financial performance. As the level of CSR increases from slight to moderate, CSR is positively related to firm performance; as the level of CSR increases from moderate to great, CSR is negatively related to firm financial performance. Additionally, we find that this inverted U-shaped relationship differs between firms led by CEOs with political connections and those led by CEOs without political connections and differs between state-owned firms and nonstate-owned firms. That is, both the synergic effect (positive effect) of CSR on firm financial performance when the level of CSR is low and the competitive effect (negative effect) of CSR on firm financial performance when the CSR is high are more pronounced for firms led by CEOs without political connections and nonstate-owned firms than for firms led by CEOs with political connections and state-owned firms. The theoretical and managerial implications of these findings are discussed.
... Conversely, low-level supervisor-subordinate guanxi do not have a moderating effect. In guanxi-oriented Chinese society, people generally value informal social exchange relations between private individuals (Su et al., 2007). The results of this study confirmed that the effect of leader-signaled knowledge hiding on employees' emotional exhaustion was influenced by the unique situational factor of supervisorsubordinate guanxi. ...
Even though organizations encourage the dissemination of knowledge and information among organizational members, the phenomenon of knowledge hiding still exists widely in organizations. The consequences of leader-signaled knowledge hiding are more destructive to the workplace than the consequences of employees’ knowledge hiding. It is particularly necessary to explore the influence mechanism of leader-signaled knowledge hiding on employees’ work behavior. Drawing on Conservation of Resources theory, this study establishes a moderated mediation model with emotional exhaustion as a mediating variable and supervisor-subordinate guanxi as a moderating variable. This study focuses on the consequences of leader-signaled knowledge hiding and divides leader-signaled knowledge hiding into self-practiced knowledge hiding and explicit knowledge hiding. Based on the results of 440 questionnaires from tourism employees, it is shown that leader-signaled knowledge hiding has a positive impact on employees’ work withdrawal behavior. Specifically, leader’s self-practiced knowledge hiding has a greater direct impact on employees’ work withdrawal behavior, while leader’s explicit knowledge hiding has a greater direct impact on employees’ emotional exhaustion. Emotional exhaustion plays a key mediating role in the relationship between leader-signaled knowledge hiding (i.e., self-practiced knowledge hiding and explicit knowledge hiding) and employees’ work withdrawal behavior. Supervisor-subordinate guanxi significantly moderates the positive relationship between leader-signaled knowledge hiding (i.e., self-practiced hiding and explicit knowledge hiding) and employees’ emotional exhaustion. This study is an extension of previous research on knowledge hiding. The results provide a reference for leaders to deal with knowledge hiding and improve organizational knowledge management ability.
... SES variables are typically calculated by assigning scores ranging from 1 to 9 to different levels of, for example, occupation, and obtaining a single combined weighted SES score that exerts a collective effect on literacy. We considered that Chinese society represents a hierarchy of social relationships (Su et al., 2007), and the respective and integrated contributions of certain SES factors must be investigated. We discuss our approach in ''Methods.'' ...
Home language (HL) effects on academic language literacy have been extensively discussed. However, previous research has mostly focused on Indo–European languages. This study extends the literature by using data ( n = 17,600) collected in a diversified language area: Guangxi, China. We examined the effects of four HLs and four socioeconomic factors by using modern standard written Chinese literacy as an outcome across three developmental levels (ages 10.45, 12.31, and 14.72). School clustering effect existed and adding the predictors of HL and socioeconomic status did not change the variance proportion in literacy performance accounted for by the school groupings. The findings indicate that (a) Putonghua-only speakers performed poorest in school Grades 5 to 6 and 7 to 8, (b) dominant Putonghua speakers performed best in Grades 7 to 8, (c) heritage-only speakers performed best in Grades 5 to 6, and (d) the contribution of the parents’ socioeconomic factors depended on the participants’ developmental levels. Our study supports the bilingual literacy advantage and explains why a heritage-only acts as a type of bilingualism.
... Future research can collect data from other sectors, including the software industry, to reveal or compare the differences between configurations. Second, our research was conducted in Chinese projects, which are deeply immersed in Chinese culture, where employee well-being (Zheng et al. 2015) and relationships (Su et al. 2007) are different from those of Western culture. Therefore, future research may aim for a cross-cultural comparison to investigate the influences of culture on one's perception of wellbeing. ...
Project employees suffer increasing pressures brought by uncertainty, complexity, and temporality, especially in the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry. Complicated by both need-related factors and stress-related factors, a variable-centered approach to test the main effects of stressors on employee well-being cannot detect distinct configurations that may lead to the same outcome. Combining self-determination theory (SDT) and conservation of resources theory (COR), our study investigated the configural impacts of job stressors and psychological needs on employee well-being in Chinese AEC projects. By collecting 265 questionnaires from 27 Chinese AEC projects, we conducted a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA), and found that (1) the combination of SDT and COR provides multiple equifinal configurations sufficient to produce high or low employee well-being, and SDT is more salient than COR for the interpretation of well-being in AEC projects; (2) counterintuitively, role overload and role conflict can be contributive to employee well-being when certain psychological needs are satisfied; role ambiguity needs to be avoided for its salient threats to well-being; and (3) need for relatedness is particularly salient in all configurations for employee well-being in Chinese culture. We also found evidence for causal asymmetry for high and low well-being. Our person-centered approach yielded more theoretically consistent results than a variable-centered approach. Theoretical and practical implications were discussed.
... In China, enterprises often use their social network relationships to apply for government supports because social relationship (i.e. guanxi) is heavily rooted in the Chinese traditional culture (Su et al., 2007;Shu et al., 2012;Xian et al., 2019). Wu (2017) confirmed that SOEs have stronger connection with government than POEs. ...
Purpose-The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of intellectual capital (IC) and its components (human, structural and relational capitals) on the performance of manufacturing listed companies in China. This paper also investigates the impacts of company ownership, industry attributes and region on the IC-performance relationship.
Design/methodology/approach-The study uses the data of 953 manufacturing companies listed on the Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges over the period 2012-2016. The modified value-added intellectual coefficient (MVAIC) model is applied to measure IC efficiency. Finally, multiple regression analysis is employed to test the research hypotheses.
Findings-This study reveals that IC can enhance firm performance in China's manufacturing sector. Overall, earnings are affected by physical capital, human capital (HC) and structural capital (SC), and profitability and productivity are influenced by physical capital, HC, SC and relational capital. Physical capital is the most influential contributor to firm performance. In addition, state-owned enterprises have a greater impact of IC on firm performance than private-owned enterprises; high-tech manufacturing companies have higher IC performance than non-high-tech manufacturing companies; manufacturing companies in China's eastern region have higher IC performance than the counterparts in central and western regions.
Practical implications-The findings may help managers, stakeholders and policymakers in developing countries to effectively and efficiently manage their IC resources.
Originality/value-This is the first study to evaluate IC and its relationship with firm performance among Chinese manufacturing listed companies using the MVAIC model.
... Guanxi originated from Confucianism, the most influential Chinese social philosophy, and has evolved into the lifeblood of social interactions and business conduct in Chinese society (Hwang 1987). Guanxi is predicated on reciprocity norms that require one to be sympathetic and ready to help others in need, and recipients of the favor should be grateful and repay it when circumstances permit (Lee and Dawes 2005;Su et al. 2007). If one disregards this reciprocal obligation, she/he will lose face, hurt related parties' feelings, and even jeopardize the guanxi network (Millington et al. 2005 leverage in social exchanges (Park and Luo 2001). ...
... However, other scholars have argued that guanxi may hurt interfirm trust when boundary spanners exploit it for personal gain (Chen et al. 2011;Fan 2002;Huang et al. 2011;Millington et al. 2005). First, guanxi involves not only reciprocity but also personal obligations, which can lead to privileged treatment and back-door dealings (Provis 2008;Su et al. 2007;Zhang and Zhang 2006). When people weave guanxi networks, they also weave a web of obligations that must be repaid in the future (Luo 1997). ...
... We posit that interpersonal guanxi has a stronger impact on interfirm trust when the government-market relationship is better. In regions characterized by poor government-market relationships, local governments remain "visible hands," intervening in economic activities and business practices, and market forces have less influence on determining the supply and demand of resources (Su et al. 2007;Zhou et al. 2017). Under such conditions, guanxi is used to a greater extent to leverage preferential access to valuable resources from power holders Peng 2003;Sheng et al. 2011). ...
Despite the prevalent role of guanxi in conducting business in Chinese, it is unclear whether interpersonal guanxi fosters interfirm trust. Taking a contingency approach, this study examines how institutional (government–market relationship and Buddhism influence) and individual (relative role performance and the span of partner control) factors moderate the association between interpersonal guanxi and interfirm trust. Based on a paired survey between salespersons and sales managers and two secondary datasets, this study finds that interpersonal guanxi is positively associated with interfirm trust. Moreover, this positive effect is stronger when firms operate in regions with strong government–market relationships and strong Buddhism influence. In addition, the positive relationship is weaker when guanxi resides in boundary spanners who have relatively high role performance, but becomes stronger when boundary spanners have a broad span of partner control. These findings highlight the situations in which guanxi at an interpersonal level is more or less likely to foster interfirm trust.
