Chinese social capital in a business context: the impact of business ethics, business etiquette and business orientation on relationship building and performance

Fam, Kim‐Shyan; Kadirov, Djavlonbek; Bardakçı, Ahmet; Vuchkovski, Davor; Richard, James E.

doi:10.1504/ejim.2022.120702

Cited by 5 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 95 publications

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“…However, when renqing investments were indirectly related to contracts, organizations carefully considered practicing renqing to meet the renqing receiver's needs while ensuring the legality of such practices. Such findings support recent evidence by Fam et al. (2022) on the confounding role of ethics in Chinese business practices, particularly outside of Mainland China.…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 89%

“…While individual-level renqing practices are clearly linked to the concept of “face” ( mianzi ), at the interorganizational level, this was replaced by organizational reputation (Kuo et al. , 2020) and the strong emphasis of ethical conduct (Fam et al. , 2022).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The elite informant from organization B made a similar comment, saying that: “We cannot do dirty things and then turn to guanxi for cover-up … I refuse to do business by guanxi.” The informant went on to poignantly say that: “A business dependent on guanxi will not last long. True organizational capabilities and competitiveness are required.” The views expressed by elite informant from organizations A and B point to the relevance of the regulatory pillars within the Taiwanese institutional environment and the embeddedness of ethical decision-making within business relationships (Fam et al. , 2022).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…, 2018, p. 344), has become synonymous with the importance of social capital in business settings across the Chinese cultural space (Park and Luo, 2001; Shi et al. , 2011; Qi, 2013; Fam et al. , 2022).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As types of social exchanges, business relationships are determined by both economic and socio-cultural factors (Zhang et al. , 2021; Fam et al. , 2022), as well as shaped by the institutional environment and organizational characteristics (Park and Luo, 2001; Raman et al.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Managing interorganizational renqing practices in high-performance organizations in Taiwan: the when, where and how of renqing giving

Wang

Chen

Chiu

et al. 2023

CCSM

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PurposeRelationships are a critical success factor for business operations across markets with dominant Chinese culture, like Taiwan. The intersection of a high-quality institutional environment and a traditional Chinese cultural background in Taiwan provides a unique setting for exploring different types of relational mechanisms and ensuing renqing practices (i.e. reciprocal exchange of favors with empathy). The purpose of this paper is to examine when, where and how Taiwanese high-performance organizations manage and deploy interorganizational renqing across their business relationship portfolios. Answering these questions can help build a theory of interorganizational renqing and advance interorganizational reciprocity theorization more generally.Design/methodology/approachThis research is motivated by two key research questions. First is related to how renqing givers understand renqing in the context of their organizations and their interorganizational business relationship portfolios. Second, whether organizations prefer a neutral renqing balance, a renqing debt or a renqing surplus is another point of interest. The study is based on interviews with upper echelon elite informants at six high-performing Taiwanese organizations with business relationship portfolios worldwide.FindingsIt is found that interorganizational renqing is deployed as a hybrid resource, taking on the functions of both an investment and a type of insurance against risk. Two notable differences between interorganizational and interpersonal renqing are also noted. First, the social exchange norm aspect of renqing points to salient social exchange norms also in interorganizational exchanges. This confirms the importance of understanding not only the regulative and normative dimensions of business relationships, as a type of institution, but also the cognitive dimensions and underlying institutional logics. Second, this study shows that unlike at the interpersonal level, the notion of renqing debt is not common at the interorganizational level – at least not within high-performance organizations with market leader positions.Originality/valueThis study explores interorganizational renqing practices and their strategic deployment through the use of “accessing” and “embedding” relational mechanisms. The study also adds to the poorly understood nature of interorganizational reciprocity and provides support for developing a theory of interorganizational renqing, as a form of interorganizational reciprocity within a Chinese cultural context.

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Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 89%

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%