Social Connections in China: Institutions, Culture, and the Changing Nature of Guanxi: 21 (Structural Analysis in the Social Sciences, Series Number 21)

Cambridge University Press
Edition: Illustrated, 9/5/2002
EAN 9780521812337, ISBN10: 052181233X

Hardcover, 296 pages, 22.9 x 15.2 x 2.1 cm
Language: English
Originally published in English

Guanxi, translated as 'social connections,' or 'social networks,' is among the most important studied phenomena in China today. Guanxi lies at the heart of China's social order, its economic structure, and its changing institutional landscape. It is considered important in every realm of life, from politics to business, and officialdom to street life. This volume offers scholarly thinking on the subject by top China sociologists whose work on guanxi has been influential and by scholars offering insights on the topic. The authors examine the role of guanxi in: business decisions among managers and entrepreneurs; the decisions and practices of workers; the construction of new legal institutions; the new social order. Scholars and students of China will find this a rich source of detailed information on the workings of Chinese social relationships and a valuable, new interpretation of the meaning and place of guanxi today.

An introduction to the study of guanxi Thomas Gold, Doug Guthrie and David Wank
1. Practices of guanxi production and practices of ganqing suppression Andrew Kipnis
2. Information asymmetries and the problems of perception
the significance of structural position in assessing the importance of guanxi Doug Guthrie
3. Beyond dyad social exchange
guanxi and third party effects Lin Yimin
4. Guanxi in business groups
social ties and the formation of economic relations Lisa Keister
5. The significance of the declining significance of guanxi
how networks change in China's market economy David Wank
6. Institutional holes and job mobility processes
guanxi mechanisms in China's emergent labor markets Yanjie Bian
7. Youth job searches in urban China
the use of social connections in a changing labor market Amy Hanser
8. Face, norms, and instrumentality Scott Wilson
9. Guanxi and the PRC legal system
from contradiction to complementarity Pitman Potter
10. 'Idle talk'
neighborhood gossip as a medium of social communication in reform era Shanghai James Farrer
Final insights
network analysis and the study of guanxi Barry Wellman, Wenhong Chen and Weizhen Dong.