Commercial guanxi in the context of Chinese native culture: An exploratory research

Abstract

Recently, guanxi has become one of the hottest topics in domestic academia. Although relationship and guanxi are the same in Chinese characters, significant differences exist between the “relationship” in the western academic context and what Chinese people are familiar with, the Chinese “guanxi”. The indiscriminate imitation of the western relationship marketing in China neglecting the Chinese native culture context is detrimental to a true and thorough understanding of the Chinese relationship marketing practice. Therefore, it is of great significance to conduct research on guanxi in the Chinese native commercial context. Based on domestic and foreign literature review, this paper uses a qualitative research method including content analysis and focus group to get a thorough understanding of guanxi both from the academia and from the practitioners, followed by quantitative analysis methods including questionnaire investigation and factor analysis to develop a native commercial guanxi concept scale. After comparison of the qualitative and quantitative research results, an integrated guanxi concept system is built, which lays foundation for the future guanxi research.

摘要

近年来, 对关系的追踪成为国内学术界的研究重点. 然而, 西方学术语境中 的“关系” (relationship) 与中国人熟悉的“关系”(guanxi) 却有很大差别. 不 考虑中国本土关系主义的文化环境, 一味地转述西方式的“关系”, 是无从真正理 解和把握以及在中国本国实践关系营销的, 因此系统研究中国本土商务“关系” 概念至关重要. 在回顾国内外文献的基础上, 通过质化研究—内容分析和专题 组访谈来全面了解学术界和实业界对商务“关系”的理解, 在此基础上进行量化 研究—问卷调查和因子分析, 发展出了一个本土商务关系概念量表, 建立了一个 整合的中国本土营销环境中商务“关系”的概念体系, 从而对今后的关系研究奠定 良好的基础.