Chinese Guanxi-An Integrative Review and New Directions for Future Research.pdfVIP

bs_bs_banner Management and Organization Review 9:1, March 2013, 167–207 doi: 10.1111/more.12010 Chinese Guanxi: An Integrative Review and New Directions for Future Research Chao C. Chen,1,2 Xiao-Ping Chen,3 and Shengsheng Huang4 1 2 3 Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, USA, Nanjing University, China, University of Washington, USA, and 4 University of Houston-Victoria, USA ABSTRACT In this article we review research on Chinese guanxi and social networking in the past twenty years and identify the major perspectives, theories, and methodologies used in guanxi research at micro and macro levels. We summarize the main findings of over 200 journal articles on guanxi research in terms of its conceptual definitions and measurements, its antecedents and consequences, and its dynamics and processes. Furthermore, we identify the gaps between different levels of guanxi research and discuss future directions to advance our understanding of the complex and intricate guanxi phenomenon. KEYWORDS Chinese culture, guanxi ethics, guanxi , social capital, social networking © 2012 The International Association for Chinese Management Research 168 C. C. Chen et al. INTRODUCTION Recently, Management and Organization Review published a meta-analytic study (Luo, Huang, Wang, 2012) focusing on the statistical relationship in 53 studies between two types of guanxi ties (business and government) at the firm level and firm performance (both economic and operational). However, the guanxi literature is much wider than these 53 quantitative studies. Research on guanxi is also the earliest and the most important contribution to the mainstream management literature (Jia, You, Du, 2012). A comprehensive review, that covers the literature of Chinese guanxi and social networking more widely, i