Chapter III: Guanxi, Job Search, and Theories in the Literature
Summary: This chapter reviews the literature on the
use of social relationships in the job search.
Special attention is spent on defining relationships
in the Chinese context, especially the concept of
guanxi. In carrying through with the Sinologists-
globalists-culturalist theme of this thesis, this
chapter explores how using relationships in the job
hunt might be influenced by characteristics of
Chinese society. The final part of the chapter
theorizes from the literature and identifies several
expectations that might come from the data collected
for the Shenzhen case that will be presented.
Introduction
The qualitative method, discussed in a previous chapter,
often does not start with a theory or a set of hypotheses
to be tested. Rather, the data themselves generate a
certain amount of theorization. In the organization of a
thesis, the literature search almost always appears
before the presentation of the collected data and their
analysis. This exposition is traditional, for a review
of the literature is necessary at this stage to provide
the intellectual environment for the presentation of the
data. Otherwise, they would be presented in a conceptual
vacuum.
Conceptually, a most challenging aspect of this
study has been the attempt to define how using
relationships in Chinese society differs from what occurs
in other places. A comment that appears to be shared by
both Chinese and non-Chinese alike is that relationships
are more prevalent--some would argue pervasive--in
Chinese culture. Yet, the qualitative rather than the
quantitative differences can offer a research agenda of a
more fascinating nature. In this chapter, literature
will be cited to show that relationships have been found
to be important for both Chinese and American job
searchers. This chapter concludes with suggesting how
the thesis will try to explore the qualitative
differences.
The first part of this chapter explores the nature
of relationships in the Chinese context. It arrives at a
conceptual definition of guanxi, noting that relational
use is dependent on context and that it has changed over
time. Thus, the concept must be defined in the context
of modernizing China.1 The next section examines the
role of relationships in the job search, suggesting how
China's emerging graduate employment system, discussed in
the previous chapter, might affect the use of
relationships in the job search.
The Concept of Guanxi
Much has been written about the importance of networks in
Asian society. Japan's political economy can be analyzed
from the network perspective.2 The same kind of
viewpoint can provide the framework for studying Chinese
policy process.3 Two professors--raised in Chinese
culture--have even developed what they call a "new
classical Microeconomic Framework" that employs networks
to understand economic theory.4 In the U.S., building
relationships is called networking, a loose term that
covers the developing of acquaintenances which may prove
beneficial to both parties. The English-language term
suggests a deliberate action, which may or may not have
an instrumental goal. Social relationships and
networking, as the terms are used in this thesis,
represent a type of general social relations that outside
the immediate family. This happens across societies.
Also involved are concepts such as trust and face, which
will be discussed below. This concept--whether called
social relationships, networking, connections--in Chinese
is called guanxi. It might be considered the extension
of a family-based relationship network.
Both Chinese and Western-based observers have
considered guanxi basic to Chinese society.5 Part of the
importance of guanxi concerns how people relate to one
another in any given culture. But in China guanxi takes
on added importance. This is because of a scarcity of
resources, due in part to pressures exerted by population
size and density and also because of the state's
management of the political economy. Thus, in terms of
the provision of services, "[t]o the average Chinese
person, guanxi is still a major important source of
assistance, rather than formal government channels."6
These two factors help distinguish guanxi in China from
guanxi in other cultures.
Defining Guanxi
Across various disciplines, notably sociology,
anthropology, psychology and political science, academics
have pondered the phenomenon of guanxi. At least several
theses and numerous journal articles describe the Chinese
use of relationships and connections. Journalists and
other popular writers on China have much to add. Sun
L.J., an observer and noted endogenous critic of Chinese
culture, argues that a Chinese person does not exist in
the absence of relationships and that this concept of
person forms the deep structure of Chinese culture. He
writes:
A Chinese fulfils himself [sic] within the network
of inter-personal relationships. A Chinese is the
totality of his social roles. Strip him of his
relationships, and there is nothing left. He is not
an independent unit. His existence has to be
defined by his acquaintance.7
A not dissimilar view is generally accepted by many
Western academics as expressed by Michael Bond8 who sees
Chinese societies as high-context culture,9 one in which
context is more important than content, relationship more
important than truth. It is argued that Chinese culture
has a narrow group orientation, with fewer but more
intense relations. Some10 have voiced concern over such
cultural stereotyping; others11 have questioned China's
cultural uniqueness, citing the absence of empirical,
comparative studies to back up such assertions of China's
dissimilarity from the rest of the global community.
Suffice it to say that a given society can be viewed from
many different angles. From one particular vantage, it
might be argued that guanxi is the fabric of Chinese
society.
What is the definition of guanxi? This question
presents a problem: that guanxi is perceived differently
by different people. One would expect Chinese living in
China to view guanxi differently from foreign observers.
For one thing, guanxi is so much a part of Chinese
society that it does not receive much analytical comment
within China. The population seems to take guanxi for
granted and does not subject it to much intellectual
discussion. Academic journals, as indicated in the
reprint series in sociology (Shehuixue) from People's
University (Renmin Daxue), offer only a handful of
articles written per year over the last decade. Most
popular discussion, especially in the press, is
anecdotal.
In its broadest sense, guanxi is defined simply as
"interaction between people"12 or "conduits between
people."13 Any attempt at a more specific definition
will inevitably result in the realization that guanxi
must be viewed differently according to context. The
giving of a gift (a carton of Marlboros to the boss) in
one context (the boss and spouse have a baby) might be an
accepted part of the culture of gift-giving. In another
context (you are up for a promotion), it might be seen as
instrumental. In a third context (your shiftless brother-
in-law needs a job), it might be considered a bribe, a
corrupt practice. Thus, we must be careful when dealing
with general statements on guanxi. Individual contexts
are not fungible.
That guanxi as a concept is universally accepted
among Mainland14 Chinese as being important does not
imply that each Chinese individually views guanxi
according to a standard definition. T.C. Luk15 concluded
from his literature search that guanxi as a concept is
"vague, limited and superficial." Much popular and
academic commentary in China, especially during the mid-
1980s, has tended to focus on negative aspects of guanxi,
where benefits accrue to the individual economically or
politically and not to the prc. For example, Y.J. Yu16
suggested that guanxiwang (a term that means relational
net) arises out of the remnants of feudalism and the idea
of capitalist self-interest. A People's Daily article17
lamented the abuse of power when one takes unfair
advantage of guanxi. X.F. Zhang18 condemned guanxiwang
for being "particularistic, subjective and contingent,"
rather than "cosmopolitan, objective and essentially
human." X.P. Cai19 argued that guanxiwang must be broken
because it encourages the accumulation of self-wealth out
of state property. Likewise, N. Yan20 saw guanxiwang as
"regulating unscrupulous allocation of interests, in
opposition to the spirit of socialist cooperation, equal
competition, democracy and law." In one of the most
forceful indictments to date, L. Zhu21 accused guanxiwang
on several counts: it wastes social wealth and reduces
efficiency of social activities. It seriously affects
social norms and interferes with the normal functioning
of organizations. It cultivates an unhealthy social
atmosphere and destroys normal interpersonal
relationships, making them become more
particularistic/instrumental. In such a way, it provides
conditions for crime.
Other scholars22 have complained that the Chinese
media focus too much attention on the negative aspects of
guanxi. The emphasis among these academics is on the
affective aspects (renqing) and other positive features
that guanxi gives to social life, as described in Ambrose
King's sociological analysis.23 The debate on the
goodness-badness of guanxi is unlikely to subside; Zhu's
forceful indictment of guanxiwang may be one of the more
recent and most severe critiques, but it is unlikely to
be one of the last.24 Arriving at a definition is thus
made difficult by the fact that guanxi must cover a
spectrum of contexts that extend from the desirable to
the reprehensible.
In his ethnographic study of rural Shandong
villagers, Andrew Kipnis25 discovered that the term
guanxi covers a "range of meanings." The most
appropriate general statement Kipnis offers is that
guanxi involves particularized relationships with non-
family members. Even this, he submits, is problematic
because what determines family and what counts as
particularized are both imprecise. Kipnis attributes the
shifting referentiality of the term guanxi to several
factors. These involve the social context of village
China, the moral and political tensions that involve
guanxi networks, and the reinvention of the practices and
conceptions of guanxi in a radically changing social
environment. Indeed, for the prc as a whole guanxi has
changed over the past forty years as political culture
and the role of the Chinese Communist Party have
developed. T.B. Gold argued that "instrumentalism and
commoditization had supplanted both friendship and
comradeship as primary characteristics of personal
relations."26
Kipnis and other ethnographers27 have explored
guanxi in such depth that inevitably they find that a
simple definition fails to do justice to the richness of
the concept. Indeed, each of their theses in its
entirety serves to define the concept. Of course, the
more one knows about most any subject, the less
satisfying a dictionary definition is likely to be.
Also, for anthropologists, quantifying guanxi is not
terribly important. But for other social scientists,
especially empirical sociologists, this definitional
problem poses a more severe obstacle. Take two recent
major surveys that assess guanxi. G. Chu & Y.N. Ju28 in
their Shanghai survey instrument use the term "network
connections" and leave the definition up to the
respondents. Yanjie Bian29 specifically does not use the
term guanxi in his Tianjin questionnaire, because it was
politically "inappropriate" to use it. Guanxi is
implicit, he argues, in the phrasing of his questions.
Still, for analytical purposes he needs a general
definition and arrives at three separate usages that
appear to fall within it. First, the existence of a
relationship, such as "Did you graduate from Tianjin
Nurses School? I did, too. We have a guanxi." Second,
actual connections or contact between people. In this
context, guanxi refers to direct social ties, with an
emphasis on their strength and intimacy. "She is my
aunt. Although we rarely see each other, our guanxi is
good. Third, people with whom one has a strong
connection. "Do you have any guanxi in that factory? I
want my son to work there?"30 Given such a range of
intensity, all variously defined as guanxi, no wonder
Bian chose not to use the term in his questionnaire.
With his distinction between types of personal ties,
K.K. Hwang31 arrived at three different kinds of
relationships. The expressive tie is found mostly among
family members, close friends and other congenial groups.
It is "generally a relatively permanent and stable social
relationship. It can render an individual's feelings of
affection, warmth, safety, and attachment."32 Whereas an
expressive tie is a goal in itself, an instrumental tie
"serves as a means or an instrument to attain other
goals."33 Here, an "individual adopts a universal
principle, instead of a personal one, to treat all other
people in this tie equally."34 In contrast, the
particularistic tie (which Hwang also calls the mixed
tie) involves people who share a commonality:
schoolmates, colleagues, those from the same hometown,
even those of the same age (as Ichiro Numazaki35
discovered for Taiwan business tycoons). It is not as
short-lived as the instrumental tie, nor as long-lasting
as the expressive tie. In this third category, renqing
and mianzi, discussed below, come into play. It is the
most complex and culture-bound of the three
classifications, the one over which most confusion and
debate occurs, the one most fascinating for observers of
culture.
This struggle over definition is not a trivial
pursuit. A model of social networks, according to Scott
Wilson,36 brings together five important Chinese
concepts: guanxi (relations), ganqing (sense of
attachment), renqing (human sentiment), bao
(reciprocity), and mianzi (face). It is these
interrelationships that make for fascinating study, which
will only be mentioned briefly here.
One of the ways to get at the definitional issue is
to first ask: in what kinds of events is guanxi used?
Anthropologist Chiao Chien37 did just this in his
pioneering work, first published in 1982 when he looked
at Mainland China from a Taiwan outpost at the beginning
of post-Cultural Revolution reform. He listed fourteen
kinds of events in which guanxi occurs:
1. Marriage: if persons are under the legal age, they can
get married if one knows someone in marriage
registry bureau;
2. Birth: couples wanting a child must fall within the
quota for births in their work units;
3. Funeral: to avoid a delay, knowing someone at the
crematorium means you don't have to wait your turn;
or if you prefer a formal burial, you will need a
permit;
4. School admissions: from primary to university
(although in the post Cultural Revolution reforms,
guanxi is unlikely to work as it used to);
5. Residence permit: (hukou) and food and clothing
rations go with it;
6. Urban re-entry: after the cultural revolution
rustication;
7. Moving jobs: many permissions are needed if one wants
to move from a low to better paying job, or get a
better working environment in order to find more
promising future;
8. Travel abroad: if state-sponsored student, but grades
are not high, one can be recommended; travel in work-
unit delegations;
9. Banqueting: Having dinner, getting to know manager or
government officials;
10. Purchasing goods: if they are in short supply or
rationed, connections in the ministry of commerce or
acquaintance with the sales lady is helpful;
11. Housing: getting one quicker, or improving quality;
12. Medical treatment: so you don't have to queue, or in
order to get to a another physician, one needs an
introduction from another physician;
13. Transportation: getting train tickets, or knowing a
driver who can use the work car;
14. Entertainment: admission to a football match, or to
watch movie that is restricted.
Chiao's list serves as a useful point of departure for
this discussion. It permits a re-categorization
according to other criteria that will better enhance our
understanding of the concept. First, we remove the ninth
item in the list because it involves using connections to
develop better connections. The remaining items fit into
three broadly defined, and somewhat overlapping,
divisions: 1/ breaking the queue; 2/ confronting
bureaucratic regulation; 3/ bending the rules.
Most guanxi use identified by Chiao falls in the
break the queue category, in which one employs one's
connections to solve a problem of shortages. Numbers 10-
14 of Chiao's list clearly address the supply/demand
imbalance issue, a shortage of train tickets, housing,
doctors, tickets for athletic contests and the like.
Other items, number 2-8, also concern inequilibria but
ones imposed more by bureaucratic regulation than by the
market place. Government regulations restrict
population, urban residence, job changes and travel
abroad as well as the number of funeral homes and
schools. Often, there is no clear separation of market
forces and bureaucratic control. As China moves toward a
market economy, many of its markets develop as outgrowths
of bureaucracies. Not only are the former controls slow
to fade away, but in many cases they are establishing the
framework for the very market forces that are to replace
the controls. Only one item from Chiao's list, number 1,
clearly fits into my third category, bending the rules,
although again there can be an overlap with those items
controlled by bureaucratic regulation. The major
distinction between my three categories is that the third
involves some form of violation of rules or laws. It may
be only a minor infraction, but violation is a more
essential aspect than supply-demand imbalance. It is
this last category that includes extremes: from getting
around bureaucratic nuisances to large-scale corruption.
Chiao's analysis appeared as China was testing the waters
of the free market. Now, a decade later, she has waded
fully in; some might argue she is being submerged. It is
in this third category that money often plays an
important role in the relationship. Mayfair Yang, in
perhaps the first thesis on guanxi,38 presents a graph in
which she juxtaposes guanxi with renqing (human
sentiments), ganqing (emotional feelings), yiqi
(faithfulness) and money relationships39 (See Figure
3.1).
FIGURE 3.1: GUANXI IN ITS CULTURAL CONTEXT (M.M.H. YANG)
more | | | |
| | | |
emotional |yiqi | ganqing | guanxi |
and moral | | | |
commitment |________|______________|_____________| money
| | relationship
| renqing |
|_____________________________________|__________
less gain and loss calculation (lihai quanxi) more
While these are not, of course, discrete categories, the
chart suggests that guanxi, in one instance, can come
close to being a money relationship; in another instance,
it can more approximate emotional feelings. Recent
empirical work suggests a rightward movement along the
horizontal axis of Figure 3.1 as renqing loses its force
as a strong social bond.40
Guanxi and Corruption
When guanxi involves money relationship and is more a
part of a gain-and-loss calculation than an emotional and
moral commitment, the concept seems to be most subject to
corrupt practices. Chinese employees believe that
"excessive manipulation of network connections in
business transactions could easily lead to corruption."41
Definitional flexibility (in other words, a large grey
area) creates a situation quite different from those in
the West where there appears to be a clearer demarcation
between right and wrong. Here is an example:
You want to get your brother-in-law a job with a
large U.S. corporation. You meet the personnel
officer, lobby your in-law's case, and give the
corporate employee a bottle of Jack Daniels whisky.
Many Americans would find this to be a corrupt practice.
They would consider it to be a clear violation of
business ethics. In China, however, the case is not so
clearly cut. First, a matter that involves one's
relative implies an emotional/family commitment. Second,
the gift is not money per se. Corrupt practices such as
bribery generally involve money transactions. Jack
Daniels may be easily converted to banknotes, but the
fact it is not actually a banknote means it is not a
money exchange; hence, it is arguably not corruption42.
Although bribery is more narrowly defined in China to
include money but not other gifts, not all monetary gifts
involve corruption. In China's modernizing economy, cash
has begun to serve as a gift of renqing or human
sentiment.43 Thus, guanxi is fundamentally related to
the gift-giving mentality that is embedded in the
culture. Indeed, both Yang and Yan's thesis are
primarily concerned with guanxi as a gift-giving
phenomenon. This complexity that denotes guanxi offers a
contextual richness that seems to escape many Western
observers.
Consequently, guanxi is often seen by Westerners as
a manifestation of corruption. In his discussion of
Chinese management styles, J.A. Wall44 characterizes
guanxi as "influence peddling" and defines "excessive
guanxi" as corruption. Describing managers as caught
between unadjustable salaries and inflationary cost of
living, he views bribes and "shake downs" as standard
operating procedure, necessitated by the post-reform
economic environment. Focusing on the negative produces
a quite limited definition and begs the questions: if
there were higher wages combined with less inflation,
would there be no corruption? No guanxi? And what
exactly does guanxi as a cultural construct have to do
with the state of the economy?
Agreeing with the notion that "guanxi is not a
sociologically precise term," Andrew Walder45 says "in
common usage, it refers to instrumental-personal ties
that range from strong personal loyalties to
ceremonialized bribery." The "particularism" he
describes "involves showing favouritism toward people
with whom one has a preexisting personal tie. In this
kind of relationship, the personal element is
predominant, and the primary motivation is the affective
aspect of the tie."46
Painting a picture of the Chinese work-unit
relations as based on particularism and personal
loyalties, Walder puts corruption in wider perspective:
The party's ideology and organization have always
been hostile to these "unprincipled" personal ties,
which at one extreme shade into corruption. But the
system of political and economic organization, which
creates scarcity and leaves so many legal and
distributional decisions to the discretion of lower-
ranking officials, structurally encourages these
ties. In sum, instead of the totalitarian image of
impersonal mobilization and social atomization, the
neo-traditionalist image stresses a formally
organized particularism in the distribution of
goods, income, and career opportunities, a network
of patron-client relations maintained by the party,
and a rich subculture of instrumental-personal ties
independent of the party's control.47
A very different view is offered by Alan Smart,48 who
sees the instrumental nature of guanxi as less important
than it's being a social form. Building on this
argument, he observes the long-term nature of guanxi and
distinguishes this from the bribe. "The impropriety may
consist in breaking the law, or in explicitly
subordinating the relationship to the instrumental
aims."49 In a similar vein, Luk50 is critical of
discussions that consider the concept only in terms of
breaking the law or when it serves only to benefit the
self economically or politically. Indeed, the notion
that China is ruled by relations, more than by law, is
generally accepted by Chinese and Westerners alike.
Despite the expectations of many, it remains questionable
whether relational rule will ever be replaced by the rule
of law.51
In sum, guanxi does not equate with corruption.
Particularism, in whatever cultural context, provides an
"ethic of care" through trust and as C. Heimer argues, is
therefore important, inevitable and indeed desirable in
organizations. The important issue is how to distinguish
between bad and good particularism.52 Many aspects of
human relationships in Chinese culture provide a positive
force in societal development. Furthermore, one must
draw a distinction between the two terms guanxi and
guanxiwang. Guanxi should be used as a neutral term,
much dependent on the context in which it is used.
Guanxiwang, in contrast, tends to imply more pejoration.
It involves a deliberate act and implies more
instrumentality. Guanxiwang is usually translated as the
network of personal relations, or the relational net.
The concept of net itself has negative connotations.
Nets are used to catch, to limit, to contain--all
negative actions from the point of view of those caught,
limited or contained. In the academic literature
published on the Mainland, guanxiwang is usually used
when authors criticize guanxi.53 Thus, I use the term
guanxiwang very much as a negative aspect of guanxi.
Guanxi Nexi with Related Concepts
If the non-academic press (in the West as well as in
China) tends to view guanxi as an inevitable malevolence,
it gets a fairer review among Western-educated scholars,
who discuss its intricacies with other aspects of the
culture. Part of its complexity derives from its nexi
with such concepts as face, trust, reciprocity,
obligation, honour, reputation and loyalty. As such it
is an integral component of the socialization process, in
other words, how power is arranged between persons; those
who successfully socialize have mastered the art of
guanxi and its related concepts.
Yang54 identifies five movements or processes of
tactical engagement in each enactment of the art of
guanxi. These five, keyworded as transformation,
incorporation, subordination, appropriation and
conversion, define an overall concept of guanxi in terms
of how power flows between people, a "relational
construction of persons." Viewed in this light, guanxi
has little to do with instrumentality or corruption.
Rather, it concerns power. And in Chinese culture, face
(mianzi) helps define power as it combines a sense of
moral imperatives, social honour, and self-respect.55 It
is the key to understanding Chinese society56. The
notions of reciprocity and obligation by themselves
cannot completely enlighten us about guanxi. Those with
much face give gifts for which there is little
possibility that the receiver can ever adequately repay.
As J.P. Alston57 observes:
A singular feature of guanxi is that the exchanges
tend to favor the weaker member. Guanxi links two
persons, often of unequal ranks, in such a way that
the weaker partner can call for special favors for
which he does not have to equally reciprocate.
The receiver, therefore, is not left in a state of
permanent obligation. Exchanges do not require such
precise calculations (although both Yunxiang Yan58 and
Wilson59 point out that rural villages keep written
accounts of gift transactions). The act of giving
enhances the donor's face. The act of giving might have
more to do with building (or maintaining) one's
reputation than relating to the individual parties
involved. Favors that seem to make little sense in an
analysis that is primarily concerned with instrumentality
are better explained by the concept of face, itself quite
individualized. Platitudes such as "I scratch your back;
you'll scratch mine" provide little insight for analysis.
Face is part of the complicated way people deal with
one another. Observers report it has "not diminished at
all" with China's recent drive toward modernization.60
In examining the interplay of face, criticism and
evaluation in Shanghai middle school classrooms, M.
Schoenhals61 finds:
Face, an individual's feeling of well-being coming
from the public's recognition of his merits and
virtues, is central to social control in China,
since it is by giving or taking away public esteem
that the public is able to control an individual.
Each society has a complex cultural management system for
inter-personal relationships. China's encompasses
guanxi, face, loyalty and other highly-deemed values.
These concepts influence other social norms. Take face
and honesty, for example. Weighing "saving face" against
"telling an untruth" often results in more consideration
given to face. As E.L. Yao62 comments: "To conceal
mistakes or ignorance, Chinese often risk fabricating a
report, giving an incorrect answer or procrastinating
forever. They are much more concerned with protecting
their name and the reputation of their family than the
results and effectiveness of their work." This balance
often requires dealing in a subtle and indirect manner.
"The price for saving one's face can be pretty high at
times. For instance, in order to avoid giving a negative
reply, one might offer a `maybe,' `possibly,' `you are
right,' `approximately,' `we agree with you in principle'
or simply no response at all."63 This results in a great
deal of uncertainty: when does `possibly' mean `possibly'
and when does it mean `no.' Indeed, when values come
into conflict, confusion results. Referring to a proverb
that equates losing face with a tree losing its bark,
Yao64 discusses the corruption versus face conflict:
"...Chinese try to avoid any public embarrassment and
criticism by minimizing or covering up big mistakes and
ignoring small ones.
Face is very much part of process in which superiors
and subordinates deal with one another. This is the case
in the classroom,65 but no less true for the workplace
where relationships tend to be close and long-lasting.66
Often, a relationship is not severed when an employee
leaves for another job, as one would expect to be the
case if the relationship were purely instrumental. This
accounts for the fact that employees who leave a company
to set up their own businesses often subcontract for the
very company they once worked for.67 The
superior/subordinate relationship often forms a tight
bond:
As good relationships develop among superiors and
subordinates, subordinates tend to perceive the
superior as more than a mentor. The former may
expect the latter to help friends and relatives as
well. There is an old Chinese saying, "If a man
becomes an official, even his dogs and chickens will
ascend to heaven."68
Thus, loyalty and trust join the concept of face at the
core of guanxi, incorporating the notion that face can be
equated to one's reliability.69 Chinese society itself
is constructed with an emphasis on social bonds, not
individuals70. Chinese workers are less loyal to an
enterprise and more loyal to a specific individual.71
Businesses are often identified with single
individuals.72 It follows that personal trust is
critically important in the operation of businesses.
Among Chinese family firms in Singapore "...interpersonal
trustworthiness is of utmost importance...Chinese
businessmen usually only deal with those with whom they
are familiar."73 This all fits in with a management
system characterized by a low degree of delegation of
authority, a reluctance by managers to share information
with subordinates, and the indispensability of
proprietors who in order to maintain reputation deal
personally with business associates. The importance of
trust also holds true for large Taiwanese businesses
where "successful business relationships are only those
that are based on intimate and trustworthy guanxi."74
Connecting face with trust/loyalty is one thing. To
add complication, loyalty conflates with obligation and
the notion of reciprocity. From this vantage, exchange
is important. Wall75 sees Chinese manager/worker
relationships in terms of overpayment and credit-
building. But ledgers are not so easily kept. One of
the expatriate teachers at szu told me: "It's hard to
know who owes whom what. Am I a creditor or a debtor in
a relationship? At times, I think my friends and I don't
use the same accounting system." Reciprocity is not
unique to Chinese culture. Indeed, "the norm of
reciprocity is a concrete and special mechanism involved
in the maintenance of any stable social system."76 In
modern China the complex relationships between
trust/loyalty, obligation and reciprocity all exist.
Guanxi in Business
If there is a general Western view of Chinese guanxi, it
is that relationships are important if one is to obtain
business success in China (and Taiwan and Hong Kong as
well).77 This view is heavily subscribed to in the
business press. Guanxi is no less than the "secret to
success" for American companies in southern Taiwan.78
Dealmakers in Hong Kong are able to use their guanxi to
set up operations in the prc.79 In advertising,
"mainland research is tricky; suspicions are high,
connections are the only way to succeed."80 Not
surprisingly, an analysis in Asiamoney finds that leaders
of successful China-held corporations in Hong Kong have
well-placed Mainland connections.81 So when Deng
Xiaoping's younger brother visited Hong Kong, the colony
tycoons pulled out the red carpet.82 But the simplistic
notion that connections themselves are sufficient is
being replaced by a more sophisticated realism that
specifics concerning the profitability of a deal must
also be taken into account.83
The Western view of guanxi in the Chinese business
environment is sometimes negative, especially as
expressed by professionals who visit for short periods.
They see guanxi as undermining good business practices.84
American businesses who market their products in China
view guanxi as either "important" (59%) or "crucial"
(27%).85 In contrast, academics who study it in more
depth tend to note its positive functions.86 But
regardless of the extent to which it is viewed as
positive or negative, guanxi is accepted as important in
Chinese societies. Numazaki87 in a study of Taiwan
provides the fullest account to date of the importance of
networks among Chinese business elite. Taiwan's post war
political economy, of course, does not fully resemble the
Mainland's economy of modernization. Nevertheless, the
differing roles of state intervention between the
Mainland and its prodigal province, I suggest, tend to
help define the role of guanxi. In neither case is
guanxi unable to adapt to the structure of the political
systems.
The importance of guanxi as reflected in its role in
business success relates to the larger arena of power
relations. Guanxi's influence occurs in politics in
Taiwan88 and has been studied for Republican China.89
For the prc Cheng Li90 shows how a network associated
with Qinghua University dominates the nation's political
system. The way subordinates and inferiors relate in the
workplace, as discussed above, carries over to non-
workplace environments as well. This is especially true
in personal dealings with the bureaucracy which, despite
China's market reform, pertains to most dealings one has
in life (food, clothing, shelter, transportation,
employment, etc.). Alston91 goes so far as to say that
"the Chinese bureaucracy inhibits action while guanxi
facilities action...guanxi is anti-bureaucratic and pro-
person."
The informal (Guanxi) structure is there for a
reason: the official system does not work. The
unofficial system is a legitimate solution that
creates jobs and allows business to function.92
Pursuing material resources, an individual in China often
resorts to guanxi in order to "break the queue." This is
likely to persist even while shortages continue to
diminish and a market economy is established. Chu & Ju93
suggest that young people are today more prone to use
network connections than their parents or grandparents.
They report that "[s]ocial relations have lost their
traditional cultural moorings and seem to be heading in a
direction dominated by material concerns94...The young
seem to be more unscrupulous: when facing a problem, 75.7
percent of the young versus 54.4 percent of the old would
first try going through the back door."95
As a complex process, guanxi may be affected by
marketization and economic changes. Resource allocators
(e.g., those with access to train tickets) may become
less influential; yet, unless the other socialization
elements (face, etc) that serve as its foundation start
to disappear, guanxi itself is not likely to wane. As
Walder,96 Yang,97 and Gold98 have shown, guanxi has been
especially adaptable to the type of communism developed
in the prc. Y.S. Huang99 explores how new webs of
interests and patterns of behaviour have developed during
the Dengist reform period. Further economic systemic
changes are unlikely to make or break guanxi. Yan100
shows how well gift-giving adapts to change. In the
modernization period with its emphasis on population
control, gifts are now given for sterilizations.
Kipnis101 and Wilson102 also describe systems of guanxi
that have adopted to environmental change. Therefore,
there is no reason to suspect that guanxi is not
important in the most developed southern rim of China.
There, the mix between socialism and capitalism is more
tilted toward the latter than elsewhere in China, and
guanxi may take a different form, but its basic nature
can be expected to remain strong.
Guanxi--the Positive and the Negative
At this point to recap, in simplest terms, one can argue
that guanxi has two aspects: positive and negative. The
negative side, as discussed above, refers to
relationships based on ulterior motives. The positive
side includes guanxi as a means of engendering human
relationships and social norms.103 This side is closely
tied to the concept of face and trust and constructs the
framework for both business and personal dealings. A
dialectical analysis is fruitful because it suggests that
the term guanxi is not neutral. Given the context, it
may be positive, negative, or in-between. When it
involves trust, face, or reciprocity, it brings out the
best in people. In contrast, when phrases such as
"backdoorism," "ulterior," or "instrumental" are
associated with the term, guanxi moves closer to the
negative endpoint of the continuum.
How do the three categories broadly outlined above--
1/ breaking the queue; 2/ confronting bureaucratic
regulation; 3/ bending the rules--relate to a dialectical
analysis? At a core of this discussion is a study of
power relationships. Yang104 devotes more space to a
discussion of power and resistance than to any other
aspect of guanxi. The use of relationships is found in
power struggles across various aspects of Chinese
society, including the CCP hierarchy105 and the army.106
Alston107 regards guanxi as a key component of management
principles, setting how superiors deal with inferiors.
Huang108 and Luk109 examine the interplay between
economic supervisory bureaucracies (Luk calls them
political danwei) and their subordinate enterprises
(termed economic danwei by Luk). Dealings between danwei
are a manifestation of power negotiation. These
discussions transcend the personal--that guanxi relates
to an individual's face or the act of gift-giving--and
enter the realm of organization. Work-units themselves
emit a certain guanxi, regardless of the guanxi of their
key individual members. The role of relationships is not
confined to the execution of static power relations. It
also involves the redistribution of power. Alston110 and
to a lesser degree Wall111 argue that guanxi mitigates
rank and class distinctions. Relations allow one to
navigate through the rather rigid socialist bureaucracy;
they provide a humanizing factor. This is noted in
J.Z.Z. Lee's examination of the implementation of cadre
recruitment policy in Wuhan.112 What Lee calls
"implementation slippage" due to patron-clientelism might
be seen as humanizing the bureaucracy. The Central
authorities tolerated this slippage, he contends, because
appointment criteria relating to age, knowledge,
professionalism were strictly adhered to. Only the
"revolutionaryness" criterion was adjusted "to respond to
local political pressures associated with the need to
satisfy the demands of any numbers of patrons and clients
to whom favors are owed."113 In this sense, guanxi is a
system lubricant.114 It prevents monopoly.115 As
elsewhere, workers in China use resources at hand,
including their contacts and connections, "to protect
themselves from uncertainties in the production process
and from rigidities in the central regulations..."116 In
a sense, guanxi may be seen as a way to lessen
stratification, to shorten what G. Hofstede117 calls
power-distance. It can humanize the hierarchy.
Relationships and the Job Search across Cultures
This section explores the use of relationships in
searching for jobs. It begins with a review of the
networking concept in the United States. The
similarities with Chinese guanxi are obvious.118 This
juxtaposition to a different context and culture is
necessitated because China has so little recent
experience with the free market job search (See Chapter
II). The U.S. experience is both rich and extensive and
helps us to understand what is happening in China. After
this chapter examines the academic literature that gives
networking its theoretical underpinning, it reviews the
few available studies on the use of guanxi by job-seekers
in China.
Traditionally, advice given to college graduates
about entering the job market involves a multi-faceted
approach. In a widely-read book, K.C. Green & D.T.
Seymore119 advise students to:
package yourself creatively
take charge
develop a personal philosophy
choose courses wisely
understand today's career options
build a resume
scan the horizon (ongoing acquisition of knowledge)
That Green & Seymore do not mention networking suggests
that not everyone considers it something "teachable."
Still, the development of contacts and relationships is
often seen in the wider perspective of the job search.
Examples are T. Jackson120 and D.L. Krannich.121 Indeed,
networking during a job search has become such a
fashionable topic in the United States that entire books
are being devoted to the subject. An example of a self-
help book is D.R. Woods & S.D. Ormerod.122 The authors
present the six principles of networking:123
excel at what you do
be nurturing and supportive to others
know many different kinds of people (with diverse
interests and backgrounds)
be visible; join and participate in various groups
learn other people's unique qualities
be organized
Other chapters in the book show the reader how to develop
skills for effective networking, how to nurture it and
expand it. All this might seem a bit calculating, but
then networking (at least as a mini publishing industry)
is considered not something that one does automatically.
It is, as these authors point out, a skill to develop.
In such a narrow focus, the authors discuss
networking as a self-contained entity and fail to relate
it to the ancillary components of job search: developing
skills that employers want, finding job openings, etc.
By omitting these other factors, they imply that
networking is all a job-seeker needs. Forget talent,
education, skills, ability...
H. Figler124 is more cautionary. "Networking
functions best when it is part of a daily routine, not
when it is used all at once and must carry the burden of
a hurry-up job search." He explains:125
Contacts are necessary to any effective job search,
but you cannot build an entire strategy around them.
People will not hire you just because you know them
or happen to have wangled an interview with them.
The overburdening of the [personal referral network]
is evident in these problems:
ù People try to make networking a substitute for
competence.
ù Networking has the potential of becoming a
king-sized nuisance, and people who overuse it
are quickly labelled pests.
ù We have taken innocent human interchange and
raised it to the level of a high art, thereby
destroying its spontaneity and making it more
difficult for everyone. People who become
contacts now wonder: "Who is this person
talking to me and for what reasons?"
A widely cited "how to do it" book for job-seekers is by
R.N. Bolles.126 First published in 1975, What Color is
Your Parachute? gave a legitimacy to the use of contacts.
The author suggests contacts as an alternative to
resumes, which he describes as "not the preferred route
to a job-interview."127 To statistically back-up his
position, he cites a 1972 Bureau of Census survey of 10-
million job-seekers (see Table 3.1):
Table 3.1: Use and Effectiveness of Job-Search Methods
percent of total
job-seekers using
effectiveness
this method method rate*
66.0% Applied directly to employer 44.7%
50.8 Asked friends about jobs where they work 22.1
41.8 Asked friends about jobs elsewhere 11.9
28.4 Asked relatives about jobs where they work 19.3
27.3 Asked relatives about jobs elsewhere 7.4
45.9 Answered local newspaper ads 23.9
11.7 Answered nonlocal newspaper ads 10.0
21.0 Private employment agency 24.2
33.5 State employment service 13.7
12.5 School placement service 21.4
15.3 Civil Service test 12.5
10.4 Asked teacher or professor 21.1
1.6 Placed ad in local newspaper 12.9
.5 Placed ad in nonlocal newspaper **
4.9 Answered ads in professional/trade journal 7.3
6.0 Union hiring hall 22.2
5.6 Contacted local organization 12.7
.6 Placed ads in professional or trade journals **
1.4 Went to place where employers come to 8.2
pick up people
11.8 Other 39.7
A percentage obtained by dividing the number of job-
seekers who actually found work using the method, by the
total number of job-seekers who tried to use that method,
whether successfully or not.
* Base less than 75,000.
Following Bolles, D.L. Krannich & C.R. Krannich128 are
another example of the veritable cottage press that has
grown up over networking. These authors place networking
together with "prospecting" (identifying and building
networks) and "informational interviews" as the main
techniques used in the job search. A person develops
networks in order to establish contacts that lead to
informational interviews, ultimately with the goal of
getting referrals that will lead to job interviews and
offers. They emphasize that networking is a continual
process of communication. "The best form of networking
is one that communicates your qualifications to potential
employers by demonstrating your capabilities within an
organization."129 Networking, according to Krannich &
Krannich, is a way of life, not just instrumental. They
conclude:130 "If you network, you may never need to look
for another job because the jobs will come looking for
you."
The emphasis on networking, which arrived on the
American scene during the 1970s and 1980s, can be
understood as a response to economic events. Employers
were less frequently visiting college campuses for new
recruits. The post WWII high growth curve in the
American economy started levelling off. Inflation
motivated female homemakers into the service sector, and
many traditional "entry positions" were now considered
dead-end jobs rather than the place where the future boss
starts off. As the college educated began to experience
a non-growing job market in certain sectors, they started
finding it more difficult to get promotions or to switch
jobs. So many people started looking for jobs that
employers hardly had time to wade through applications
and schedule interviews. Thus, a quick-fix came on the
scene. "Networking" was the solution. Self-help books
started arguing that credentials and formal applications
were less important than personal contacts. Job-seekers
and job-switchers were advised to approach the "hidden
job market" arguing that the advertised job market
constituted only 25% of job openings.131
Academics in the U.S. have studied how job-seekers
secure employment, and their findings support the census
data presented above. As Table 3.2 shows, survey data
have found relationships to vary. From one-third to over
half of respondents have indicated the use of connections
in their job search.
TABLE 3.2: LITERATURE ON USING SOCIAL TIES IN JOB SEARCH
Granovetter132 (1974) 55.7% of sample
Ensel133 (1979) 34.8
Lin, Ensel & Vaughn134 (1981) 57.0
Bridges & Villemez135 (1986) 57.4
Resource Exchange
A further understanding of guanxi may be obtained by
discussing it in the context of exchanging resources. In
this view, employees or potential employees offer certain
services--resources--that their employers are willing to
buy.
The Resource Theory of Social Exchange, developed by
E.B Foa & U.G. Foa,136 classifies resources (defined as
anything that can be transmitted between persons) into
six groups: love, services, goods, money, information and
status. Each of these, in turn, can be defined along two
axes: particularism-universalistic and concrete-symbolic
(Figure 3.2):
FIGURE 3.2: THEORY OF SOCIAL EXCHANGE (FOA & FOA)
more | .love
|
|
| .status .services
|
particularism |
| .information .goods
|
|
| .money
|
less |___________________________
less more
Concreteness
Particularism is defined as the extent to which the value
of a given resource is influenced by the particular
persons involved in exchanging it and by their
relationship.
One might attempt to place guanxi, as a construct,
on the graph, but this proves a rather futile attempt.
As discussed above, guanxi is such a broad concept that
an individual manifestation of guanxi might appear
virtually anywhere on the graph. The earlier examples
that involved giving Marlboros to the boss suggests an
examination of the "particular" nature of the gift. If
one always gives gifts to celebrate births, then the act
may be seen as less particular. If one makes the gift
only as a reminder that you are up for promotion, then
the giving is indeed quite particular. In terms of
concreteness, cigarettes are obviously goods but as a
gift they represent status. The gift increases the
recipient's face and the goods themselves are important
for their symbolism, rather than their material value.
Networks, Social Resources, and Strength of Ties
A literature concerning networks has developed in
sociology over the past three decades.137 It examines
the patronage and brokerage functions of networks and
covers both instrumentally-activated personal networks as
well as networks that are more extensive and durable. It
tends to be both theoretical and empirical in mode of
analysis. There is, indeed, an entire vocabulary that
accompanies this discussion and permits structural
characterizations: anchorage, reachability, density,
range, content, directedness, durability, intensity,
frequency.138 What flows through the network is usually
information, such as information helpful in the job
search.
An empirical study of social networks in China is
the product of survey work over the past decade. Joint
research undertaken by the sociology units of the Tianjin
Academy of Social Sciences and Columbia University
examined who is involved when people discuss important
issues.139 The Chinese discussion network (the group an
individual uses to discuss important matters) is
typically larger than the American one. It exhibits more
social density, measuring how close members have
relationships with each other, and more homophily
(sharing similar interests and lifestyle). The Chinese
network is also more homogeneous than its American
counterpart. Kinship relations, the researchers found,
are important in both samples, "though they are,
surprisingly, more important in American than in Chinese
discussion networks."140 D.C. Ruan141 finds that people
of higher social status are able to maintain a larger,
more diverse, and more loosely connected network with
more ties to politically influential people. Middle-aged
people also seem to be in the best position to have
diverse ties from kin and work. With higher levels of
education come larger and less dense networks.142
Compatible with and closely related to Networking
Theory is Social Resources Theory.143 This theory
focuses on resources--defined as material or symbolic
goods that can be accessed and used in social actions--
that are embedded in one's social network and social
ties. These social connections play important roles in
the interaction between social structure and individuals.
They are accessed and mobilized in a variety of actions
by an individual to achieve instrumental and/or
expressive goals. The primary proposition of the theory
(via social resources hypothesis) states that "access to
and use of better social resources leads to more
successful instrumental action."144 In exploring the
dynamic process of status attainment, much of the
literature developed in this theory examines the job
search. The theory (via its strength-of-position
hypothesis) suggests that "the original social position
of a job-seeker is positively related to the likelihood
of contacting a source of better resources.145 It also
maintains (via its strength-of-ties hypothesis) that "use
of weaker ties is positively related to access to and use
of social resources."146
Most notable in this literature is the finding that
weak ties, in other words, relationships with
acquaintances, are more important in several respects,
including the job search, than are more intimate
friendships or family connections. This is because one
shares the same small circle of friends with one's family
and intimate friends whereas people with whom one is not
so closely associated may link different groups that
otherwise would be insulated from one another.147 The
pioneering works in this field come from M.
Granovetter.148 Based on interview data collected in a
random sample of male job-changers living in a Boston,
Massachusetts suburb, Granovetter149 concludes that the
optimum friendship group for job-seekers is one in which
friends have few friends in common. Tak Wing Chan150
provides a major test of the Strength of Weak Ties
hypothesis for a Chinese community. In his statistical
study of social mobility in Hong Kong, he shows that
social networks and social support are crucial for
mobility, and he finds that parental support and advice
were unimportant factors in the transition from school to
work. In summarizing the literature, Chan151 concludes
that "the rich, the better educated, and those who are in
administrative, managerial and professional occupations
are more likely to use weak ties than the poor, the not-
so-well qualified and the manual workers." In this regard
it is worth noting that a major dissenting study-- one
that found reliance on a few intimate colleagues (strong
ties) to be both more efficient and more consequential
than when job information was provided through weak ties-
-concerned university scientists.152 Similarly, B.
Wegener153 found that job changers whose prior jobs have
high status are more likely to benefit from weak social
ties than individuals with low status prior jobs.
Why are ties important in the job search? As A.
Rees & G.P. Shultz154 report, "Employee referrals are
well suited to providing qualitative information to both
parties. An employer who is satisfied with his work
force is likely to get new employees similar to those he
already has." They further explain that if employers
want to upgrade, they are likely to look elsewhere. In
addition, applicants themselves benefit from employee
referrals as they are more likely to get honest
information. Thus, it is not surprising that Rees &
Shultz found the more formalized procedures of state
employment services to be relatively unimportant in
placing job-seekers in employment.
Job mobility is affected by various important
factors, not the least of which are exogenous economic
variables that are not particular to individual job-
seekers or employers. Obviously, chances of mobility for
almost anyone is increased during a rapidly growing
economy (the war and post-war economies in the U.S.,
China's economy of reform and modernization). During
such a period, tight labor markets are able to provide
plenty of jobs. Rees & Shultz155 found a greater
importance placed on formal sources of information for
white-collar workers seeking jobs in the relatively tight
Chicago market. On the other hand, slow growth, or
recession, has the opposite effect. Loose labor markets,
characterized by high unemployment, downplay the
importance of formal channels in providing job-seekers
with information. D. Ashton et al.156 explain this
phenomenon for blue-collar workers in the U.K.:
As the level of unemployment rises, employers cease
to use formal publicly available channels to
advertise jobs. This is because such large numbers
apply for any vacancies that are publicly advertised
and the cost of handling and processing them becomes
prohibitive157...In common with other areas of high
unemployment, employers tended to rely to a great
extent on informal channels of recruitment, notably
word of mouth referrals through members of the
existing workforce. Therefore, having access to the
networks through which the information about the
availability of jobs was transmitted was crucial in
determining who got a job.158
Another influential element is the size of the applicant
pool: how many graduates are available for work. Is it a
buyer's or a seller's labor market? M. Semyonov & C.W.
Roberts159 in a study of the 1952-1984 U.S. labor market
show the intensification of universalistic criteria for
hiring. Occupational destinations were less associated
with social origins (socio-economic class) and more
related to educational attainment. Career pathways tend
to be more like lattices than ladders.160
Academic qualifications--the specific type of
academic training--tempered by the job seeker's
expectations, plays an important role in what type of job
one secures. This would be expected to occur across
cultures, as illustrated in Morocco.
As more and more people with university degrees find
it difficult to be recruited in a position
compatible with their expectations there is a
growing tendency to settle down for lesser bargain.
Graduates are accepting a post lower than the one
corresponding, in theory, to their academic
qualifications and background. This shift, which
could be labelled as "vertical" substitution,
represents a new but nevertheless significant threat
for graduates of less prestigious educational
institutions such as vocational centres or even
institutes of applied technology.161
The Literature on Relationships-Job Search nexus in China
The Chinese people hold contradictory attitudes
concerning relationships. This point is borne out in Chu
and Ju's162 study that notes that even though their
survey respondents considered the use of connections
important, they did not like their leaders to use them.
As a qualification for being a leader, "Good outside
connections, know a lot of people" was given a negative
rating.163
Bian164 examined the Chinese workplace and
specifically how jobs are procured, based on a 1988
survey of Tianjin residents. Bian's statistical analysis
found that 42.3% of the respondents reported that
`someone' helped them get their first jobs and 52.1% got
help when they changed jobs recently.165 In addition to
the quantitative analysis, Bian makes various
impressionistic observations, notably that:
Networks are important:
Social networks are used extensively to gain
information on employment opportunities, as well as
to influence hiring decisions.166
Networks help underachievers:
Among families, dingti [substitution] and neizhao
[internal recrutiment, a pre-reform practice in
which children of employees are targets for
recruitment but the employees' jobs are not
affected] were regarded as a "salvation" to secure
positions for the least capable children. Other
children capable of getting jobs through state
assignment programs or individual applications did
not have to rely on their parents for jobs. School
students who wished to take over their parents' jobs
appeared to be those who were poorly motivated to
strive for high educational achievement.167
The economic reforms initiated by Deng Xiaoping
increase, not decrease, the importance of guanxi:
Since the opening of labor markets in the mid-1980s,
there has been an increasing use of social networks
in individual job searches.168
Job seekers look for desirable work-units, not specific
jobs per se. The state sector is the most desirable.
...just as do criteria such as education,
occupation, and income, one's workplace (work unit)
serves as a basic criterion for defining social-
class position in the socialist society...employees
whose workplaces are in the state sector, have a
higher bureaucratic rank, or are in a favoured
industry also have higher salaries and/or bonuses
than workers whose workplaces are not in these
favoured positions.169
Fathers help sons, not daughters. In a related analysis
using the same data, Lin & Bian170 reported that fathers
were influential in getting their sons (but not
daughters) into desirable work-units.
There is a direct effect of father's work-unit
sector on the work-unit sector of the son's first
job, after its indirect effect through education has
been accounted for.171...social resources were
significant in enhancing the likelihood of males
finding a job in a better sector. But it was not
effected for females.172...current jobs in Tianjin,
China clearly are continuity from first-job
characteristics.173
Theorization from the literature
The rich and vast literature that has been referred to in
this chapter presents a picture of the importance of
connections in job procurement. This is the case in the
U.S. where one is assumed to be hired on the basis of
merit. But relationships open doors, provide important
information for the job-seeker. They don't often
guarantee jobs, except perhaps in family-run businesses.
Given China's decades-long experience with job
assignment, presented in the previous chapter, the job
search is a relatively recent phenomenon. Almost all the
literature admits the importance of guanxi, but no one
has been able to give much precision in articulating its
exact importance.
Based on these observations, one would expect
certain findings to come from the data collected
concerning the job search in Shenzhen, the focus of this
thesis. Listed below are seven of the expectations drawn
from this chapter.
1/ Given that guanxi is at the core of Chinese society,
it can be expected to play a major role in the
search for jobs in Shenzhen.
2/ The work-unit type would be expected to be more
important than the specific nature of the job, or
occupation.
3/ The use of relationships in job securement relates not
only to the applicant's search for a job but also to
the employer's face and reputation and to the
employer's desire to expand his/her network.
4/ Economic and market factors (e.g., regional job base)
may affect not only the availability of jobs but
also the characteristics of job search strategies.
Guanxi use would be expected to vary according to
type of work-unit.
5/ As guanxi is widely used in business dealings, the
business sector might be expected to manifest guanxi
in the hiring process.
6/ One would expect underachievers to use guanxi more
often than high-achievers. The use of guanxi, in
turn, directs them to the sector where guanxi use is
most prevalent in the job search.
7/ Personal characteristics (gender, language grouping,
birth order, etc.) might be important when strong-
ties are used, but weak-ties are likely to have a
greater overall importance in job procurement.
The literature reviewed in this chapter has shed some
light on the perplexity of the term guanxi. No simple
definition is possible. Relationships can be viewed by
observers sometimes as commendable, other times as
nefarious. They vary both in intensity and in degree of
instrumentality. Most important, they depend on context.
In the context of the job search, Chinese job-
seekers can be expected to use relationships. In some
ways they will resemble their American counterparts, who
have been studied in the literature. In other ways, they
will be different. The qualitative differences will be
examined in the following chapters, which present data
for graduates of Shenzhen University.
_______________________________
1.The setting of this study is described in the next chapter.
2.Kumon & Rosovsky (1992), The Political Economy of Japan.
3.Lewis (1986), Political Networks and the Chinese Policy
Process.
4.Yang & Ng (1993), Specialization and Economic Organization.
5.See, e.g., Butterfield (1982), China: Alive in the Bitter
Sea, 44.
6.Leung & Nann (1995), Authority and Benevolence, 32.
7.Sun (1989), "The Deep Structure of Chinese Culture," 163.
8.Bond (1991), Beyond the Chinese Face.
9.Hall & Hall (1990), Understanding Cultural Differences.
10.See, e.g., Evans, "Shrinking the Chinese Mind.
11.Nathan (1993), "Is Chinese Culture Distinctive?"
12.Chiao (1988), "A Discussion of Guanxi," 105.
13.Wilson (1994), "Banquet Buddies," 14.
14.This paper focuses on the PRC, but many of the statements
concerning guanxi could apply to residents of Taiwan,
Hong Kong and other Chinese communities in Asia, and
perhaps to non-Asians of Chinese heritage as well.
15.Luk (1988), Guanxi, 17.
16.Yu (1986), "A Discussion Of Guanxiwang."
17.7 August 1987, cited in Luk (1988), Guanxi.
18.Zhang (1986), "Don't Confuse Guanxiwang with the Sum of
Social Relationships."
19.Cai (1986), "Guanxiwang Must Be Broken."
20.Yan (1990), "Comments on the Rationalization of
Guanxiwang."
21.Zhu (1993), "Subculture of Guanxi Network in Chinese Social
Life."
22.See, e.g., Lu (1991), "Guanxi--Exchange in Contemporary
Chinese Society."
23.King (1990), "Kuan-hsi and Network Building."
24.Other negative literature is cited in Wilson (1994),
"Banquet Buddies," 13-14. Also, Wilson (1994), About
Face: Social Networks and Prestige Politics in
Contemporary Shanghai Villages.
25.Kipnis (1994), "What's a Guanxi."
26.Gold (1985), "After Comradeship," 673. Gold makes the
contrast with the situation of the prc's early days, as
depicted in Vogel (1965), "From Friendship to
Comradeship."
27.Wilson (1994), About Face; Yang (1986), The Art of Social
Relationships and Exchanges in China; Yan (1993), The
Flow of Gifts.
28.Chu & Ju (1993), The Great Wall in Ruins.
29.Bian (1994), Work and Inequality in Urban China. See note
1, Ch. 5 and 96ff.
30.Ibid., 96, for various quotations.
31.Hwang (1987), "Face and Favor: Chinese Power Game."
32.Ibid., 949.
33.Ibid., 950.
34.Ibid., 951.
35.Numazaki (1992), Networks and Partnerships, 127, 328. By
the same author, (1991) "The Role of Personal Networks in
the Making of Taiwan's Guanxiqiye (Related Enterprises).
36.Wilson (1994), Banquet Buddies, 14.
37.Chiao (1988), "A Discussion of Guanxi," 110-113.
38.Yang (1986), The Art of Social Relationships, 131.
39.See King (1990), "Kuan-hsi and Network Building," for a
discussion of renqing and ganqing.
40.McEwen (1994), Markets, Modernization, and Individualism in
Three Chinese Societies, 325-6, 381-2. Cited pages refer
to Guangzhou, prc.
41.Chu & Ju (1993), The Great Wall in Ruins, 145.
42.See, Smart (1993), "Gifts, Bribes and Guanxi," 399-400.
43.Wilson (1995), "The Cash Nexus and Social Networks," 6ff.
44.Wall (1990), "Managers in the People's Republic of China."
45.Walder (1986), Communist Neo-Traditionalism, 179.
46.Ibid. See, also, Gold (1985), "After Comradeship."
47.Ibid, 6-7.
48.Smart (1993), "Gifts, Bribes and Guanxi."
49.Ibid, 401.
50.Luk (1988), Guanxi, 17ff.
51.Jones (1994), "Capitalism, Globalization and Rule of Law."
52.Heimer (1992), "Doing Your Job and Helping Your Friends."
53.See notes 16-21, above.
54.Yang (1989), "The Gift Economy and State Power in China."
55.Yang (1994), Gifts, Favors, and Banquets, 140-141.
56.Ho (1976), "On the Concept of Face.," Hwang (1987), "Face
and Favor."
57.Alston (1989), "Wa, Guanxi, and Inhwa."
58.Yan (1993), The Flow of Gifts.
59.Wilson (1995), "The Cash Nexus and Social Networks."
60.Chu & Ju (1993), The Great Wall in Ruins, 189.
61.Schoenhals (1993), The Paradox of Power, 93.
62.Yao (1987), "Cultivating Guan-xi (Personal Relationships)
with Chinese Partners," 64.
63.Ibid.
64.Ibid, 62.
65.Schoenhals (1993), The Paradox of Power.
66.Yao (1987), "Cultivating Guan-xi," 64.
67.Hamilton et al. (1990), "The Network Structures of East
Asian Economies."
68.Ibid.
69.Yang (1986), The Art of Social Relationships, 87.
70.Wong (1991), "Chinese Entrepreneurs and Business Trust,"
26.
71.For the contrast between the Japanese and Chinese models,
see Tam (1990), "Centrifugal Versus Centripetal Growth
Processes," 168.
72.Tricker (1990), "Corporate Governance: A Ripple on the
Cultural Reflection."
73.Tong (1991), "Centripetal Authority, Differentiated
Networks: The Social Organization of Chinese Firms in
Singapore," 182.
74.Kao (1991), "`Personal Trust' in the Large Businesses in
Taiwan," 69. Additional citations on trust appear in
Wilson (1994), About Face, 15.
75.Wall (1990), "Managers in the People's Republic of China,"
24.
76.Gouldner (1960), "The Norm of Reciprocity," 174, emphasis
in original. In the Philippines, for example, the
compadre system was reported some years ago to cut across
institutional spheres. There "the tendency to govern all
relations by the norm of reciprocity, thereby undermining
bureaucratic impersonality, is relatively legitimate,
hence overt and powerful. In the United States, however,
such tendencies are weaker, in part because friendship
relations are less institutionalized." Ibid, 171.
77.Engholm (1994), Doing Business in Asia's Booming "China
Triangle," 62ff.
78.Griffiths (1986), "`Guanxi' Is the Secret to Success for
American Companies in Southern Taiwan," 12.
79.Tanzer (1993), "Guanxi Spoken Here."
80.Fox (1987), "In China, `Guanxi' Is Everything."
81.Yu & Yip (1994), "The Rise and Rise of China Inc."
82.Tong (1994), "HK Courts Favour with `Princelings.'"
83.Pritchard (1994), "Decline of the China Middleman;" Hu &
Sweet (1995), "Manager's Journal: Dealmaking in China
Must Go Back to Fundamentals."
84.Abdallah (1992), "Problems in China."
85.Engholm (1994), Doing Business in Asia's Booming "China
Triangle," 75.
86.Hamilton (1991), "The Organizational Foundations of Western
and Chinese Commerce;" Kuo (1991), "Ethnicity, Polity and
Economy;" Wank (1994), "The Institutional Culture of
Chinese Capitalism;" Wilson (1994), "Banquet Buddies;"
Kipnis (1994), "What's a Guanxi."
87.Numazaki (1992), Networks and Partnerships.
88.Jacobs (1979), "A Preliminary Model of Particularistic Ties
in Chinese Political Alliances" and by the same author
(1982), "The Concept of Guanxi and Local Politics in a
Rural Chinese Setting;" Bosco (1992), "Taiwan Factions:
Guanxi, Patronage, and the State in Local Politics."
89.Henriot (1993), Shanghai 1927-1937.
90.Li (1994), "University Networks and the Rise of Qinghua
Graduates in China's Leadership."
91.Alston (1989), "Wa, Guanxi, and Inhwa," 29.
92.Ibid, citing Copeland & Griggs (1985), Going International,
176.
93.Chu & Ju (1993), The Great Wall in Ruins, 165.
94.Ibid, 298.
95.Ibid, 301. The term going through the backdoor (zou
houmen) refers to the use of relationships for achieving
a certain goal or solving a problem. For example,
tickets for sleeping berths on overnight train are almost
never available at the station ticket office. But, if
one has a friend who works for the railway, one can go
through the backdoor for a ticket.
96.Walder (1986), Communist Neo-Traditionalism.
97.Yang (1986), The Art of Social Relationships.
98.Gold (1985), "After Comradeship."
99.Huang (1990), "Web of Interests and Patterns of Behaviour
of Chinese Local Economic Bureaucracies and Enterprises
during Reforms."
100.Yan (1993), The Flow of Gifts.
101.Kipnis (1994), "What's a Guanxi."
102.Wilson (1994), About Face.
103.Yan (1993), The Flow of Gifts; King (1990), "Kuan-hsi and
Network Building."
104.Yang (1986), The Art of Social Relationships, ch. 6.
105.Li & Bachman (1989), "Localism, Elitism, and Immobilism."
106.Li & White (1993), "The Army in the Succession to Deng
Xiaoping."
107.Alston (1989), "Wa, Guanxi, and Inhwa."
108.Huang (1990), "Web of Interests."
109.Luk (1988), Guanxi.
110.Alston (1989), "Wa, Guanxi, and Inhwa."
111.Wall (1990), "Managers in the People's Republic of China."
112.Lee (1993), Central-local Political Relationships in Post-
Mao China.
113.Ibid., 107-108.
114.Walder (1986), Communist Neo-Traditionalism; Yang (1986),
The Art of Social Relationships.
115.Hamilton, "The Organizational Foundations of Western and
Chinese Commerce," 97.
116.Stark (1986), "Rethinking Internal Labor Markets," 503.
Stark notes in his study of the Hungarian workplace the
importance of cultural capital, referring to: Bourdieu &
Boltaski (1981), "The Educational System and the
Economy."
117.Hofstede (1984), Culture's Consequences and by the same
author (1991), Culture & Organizations.
118.Networking and guanxi are overlapping but not identical
concepts. The major difference is their relative
importance to the members of society. Networking in the
U.S. turns out to be important for finding jobs, but I
sense that job-seekers are not consumed by its
importance. In contrast, I will show for the Shenzhen
case that quanxi is thought to be much more important
than it really is.
119.Green & Seymour (1991), Who's Going to Run General
Motors?, 188-200.
120.Jackson (1991), Guerrilla Tactics in the New Job Market,
147-155.
121.Krannich (1991), Careering and Re-careering for the 1990s,
236-253.
122.Woods & Ormerod (1993), Networking.
123.Ibid, 37.
124.Figler (1988), The Complete Job-Search Handbook.
125.Ibid.
126.Bolles (1991), What Color is Your Parachute?
127.Ibid, 165.
128.Krannich & Krannich (1993), The New Network Your Way to
Job and Career Success, 44-45.
129.Ibid, 66.
130.Ibid, 116.
131.Ibid, 48-58.
132.Granovetter (1974), Getting a Job.
133.Ensel (1979), Sex, Social Ties, and Status Attainment.
134.Lin et al. (1981), "Social Resources and Strength of
Ties."
135.Bridges & Villemez (1986), "Informal Hiring and Income in
the Labor Market."
136.Foa & Foa (1976), "Resource Theory of Social Exchange;"
see also, Foa et al. (1993), Resource Theory.
137.See, e.g., Mitchell (1969), "The Concept and Use of Social
Networks;" and Marsden & Lin (1982), Social Structure and
Network Analysis.
138.Mitchell (1969), "The Concept and Use of Social Networks."
139.Ruan et al. (1990), "A Preliminary Analysis of the Social
Network of Residents in Tianjin;" and Ruan (1993), Social
Networks in Urban China.
140.Ruan et al. (1990), "A Preliminary Analysis," 85.
141.Ruan (1993), "Interpersonal Networks and Workplace
Controls in Urban China."
142.Ruan (1993), Social Networks in Urban China, 66ff.
143.Lin (1992), "Social Resources Theory."
144.Ibid, 1937.
145.Ibid, 1937-1938.
146.Ibid, 1938.
147.A review of the literature is found in Chan (1994), Social
Mobility in Hong Kong, ch. 1.
148.Granovetter (1973), "The Strength of Weak Ties;" by the
same author, (1974) Getting a Job and (1982) "The
Strength of Weak Ties: A Network Theory Revisited."
149.Granovetter (1973), "The Strength of Weak Ties."
150.Chan (1994), Social Mobility in Hong Kong.
151.Ibid, Chapter 1, 30ff.
152.Murray et al. (1981), "Strong Ties and Job Information."
153.Wegener (1991), "Job Mobility and Social Ties."
154.Rees & Shultz (1970), Workers and Wages in an Urban Labor
Market, 203.
155.Ibid, 200.
156.Ashton et al. (1990), Restructuring the Labour Market.
157.Ibid, 197.
158.Ibid, 184.
159.Semyonov & Roberts (1984), "Ascription and Achievement."
160.Althauser (1989), "Job Histories, Career Lines and Firm
Internal Labor Markets: An Analysis of Job Shifts," 193.
161.Salmi (1987), "New Hope for Unemployed Youth?" 38.
162.Chu & Ju (1993), The Great Wall in Ruins, 151.
163.Ibid, 137.
164.Bian (1994), Work and Inequality in Urban China.
165.Ibid, 95.
166.Ibid, 62.
167.Ibid, 66.
168.Ibid, 76.
169.Ibid, 210.
170.Lin & Bian (1991), "Social Connections (Guanxi) and Status
Attainment in Urban China."
171.Ibid, 1.
172.Ibid, 19.
173.Ibid, 22.