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" Guanxi and Rules for Exchange
The two parties of interaction are defined as ‘‘petitioner’’ and ‘‘resource allocator’’ in the theoretical model of Face and Favor (Hwang, 1987). When the model is applied to the field of organizational psychology, it may deal with the interaction between a leader and his subordinates. When a petitioner asks the resource allocator to allocate the resource under his/her control in the petitioner’s favor, the first thing for the resource allocation to consider might be ‘‘what is the relationship between us?’’
The model of Face and Favor classifies the relationship for dyad interaction into three categories, namely, expressive ties, mixed ties, and instrumental ties. It assumes that the resource allocator tends to interact with the opposite party in terms of the need rule, the renqing rule, and the equity rule, respectively.
The expressive ties may contain relatives or friends who have intimate relationships with the resource allocator. Under the influence of Confucian ethics, the most important expressive ties for Chinese people are that among family members. The rule for interacting with others within the family is the needs rule, i.e., one is obligated to do one’s best to satisfy the needs of the other party.
The instrumental ties usually denote one’s relationships with strangers. The most typical instrumental tie is that between two parties negotiating an exchange in the market place, where the equity rule is the only rule of thumb.
The mixed ties are usually one’s relationships with acquaintances outside of one’s family. A certain extent of affective components might exist in this type of relationships, but it is not so reliable that one may express his/her authentic feelings without any hesitation. Because mixed ties may not constitute on the basis of consanguinity, relationships of this category must be reinforced by the reciprocal renqing rule. When one receives a favor from the other party, he/she has to reciprocate it in an adequate fashion in order to maintain a long-term relationship between them. " -- http://nous.niu.edu.tw/web/images/ckfinder/files/20141103190118.pdf
" In my book "Knowledge and Action," I indicated that the stages of the psychological processes of RA, namely, judging the guanxi, choosi ng the appropriate social exchange rule, and resolving the psychological conflict, are correspondent to the Confucian ethical system of Jen-Yi- Li (benevolence-righteousness-propriety): The expressive component of guanxi represents Confucian idea about Jen. Stated more explicitly , Confucian scholars advo cated that one should do benevolence to others in a hierarchical way, depending on the intimacy of one's relationship with other. Based on this kind of hierarchical benevolence, the Confucian "righteousness" for ordinary people is very different from Western c oncept about universal "justice" which is highly valued in Christian civilization: Western culture emphasizes the importance of equity rule, while Confucian culture tends to cultivate the need rule for expressive ties as well as the renqing rule for the mixed tie. Confucian also requests that once when an individual decides to choose a certain rule for social exchange, his or her social action should follow the demand of rites (propriety) no matter what kind of decision he or she made. " -- Guanxi and Mientze: Conflict Resolution in Chinese Society by Kwang-Kuo Hwang
" The Confucian cultural ideal assumes that all vertical relationships should be in-group rela tions, but horizontal ones might be either in-group or out-group. Therefore, there are three kinds of interpersonal relationships: Vertical in-group, horizontal in-group, and horizontal out-group. " -- Guanxi and Mientze: Conflict Resolution in Chinese Society by Kwang-Kuo Hwang
" When a subordinate is in conflict with his superior in vertical relationship, he or she has to protect the superior's face for the sake of maintaining interpersonal harmony. In this case, the dominant response may be endurance. If one wants to expressi ve an opinion, he or she usually takes the way of indirect communication. If one intends to pursu e a personal goal, he or she may pretend to obey but pursue a personal goal privately. The conflict management strategies one may utilize in horizontal relationships depend on whether the other party is an in-group or out-group member. When an actor is in conflict with an in-group member, they may communicate directly. For the maintenance of harmonious relationship, they may "give face" to each othe r and reach a compromise. When one of them insists on attaining his personal goal in spite of other's feeling, they may have intramural fight for a long time. On the other hand, if both of them insist on attainment of their personal goal, they may treat each other as out-group members and ha ve a confrontation with the opposite party. Meanwhile, they may disregard in terpersonal harmony and strive to protect their own face. In order to resolve the conflict situation, a third party may be invited to serve as a mediator for intervention, and their relationship may be se vered as a consequence of their conflict. When a superior insists on the attainment of a personal goal disregarding feelings of subordinates in a vertical rela tionship, subordinates may also react to oppose the superior, and their relationship may also come to a severance. " -- Guanxi and Mientze: Conflict Resolution in Chinese Society by Kwang-Kuo Hwang
" Forbearance It was mentioned in previous section that Confucianism emphasizes the value of harmony. When one is conflicting with someone else within hi s or her social network, the first thing one has to learn is "forbearance.. The concept of "for bearance" (ren) has a profound cultural foundation in China (Lee, 1997). All the philosophies of Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism provide ideas for supporting the practice of "forbearance." In its broa dest sense, "forbearance" means to control and to suppress one's emotion, desire, and psychological impulse. In Fig. 2, "endurance" means not only restraining one's psychological impulse, but also giving up one's personal goal, for a prior consideration of maintaining a harmonious relations hip. Moreover, there is another implication of ren, "perseverance" (jian-ren) means to obviat e all difficulties to attain one's final goal. Endurance As I mentioned before, Confucian ethics fo r ordinary people proposed the "principle of respecting superior" as its procedural justice whic h advocated that decisions in social interaction should be made by the superior who occupies a higher position. In actual life, when a superior with power requests the subordinate to follow his demands, usually the later can do nothing but to obey. The subordinate who has his or her own goal may thus experience a feeling of strong conflict, but, under power domination of the superior , he or she tends to give up the personal goal by following the practice of endurance. Li (1995) interviewed a group of young couples residing in Taipei about their adjustment to marriage life. Her research indicated that "endurance" and self- control is a strategy they frequently used to cope with life stress. For instance, a daughter-in-law living with her husband's parents after her marriage told her a story: "I got much less time for myself after I was ma rried. I almost stayed at home all day.... For example, last time there were two or three underwear to be washed, I thought I can do it on the other day. But, my father-in-law wasn't happy . He didn't like to see any clothes uncleaned overnight. He told my husband, a nd my husband told me about that. It was 11 o'clock in night that I washed them with tears." Indirect Communication Forbearance cannot solve one's problem in many situations. When a subordinate disagrees with his or her superior's decision, a prior c onsideration of protecting the superior's face may inhibit him or her to express disagreement publicly or directly. In this case, one may ask somebody in their social network to send the message to the superior. I have said that Chinese are living in various kinds of social networks. As it was indicated in my theoretical model of "Face and favor: Chinese power game," relationships within any dyad may be regarded as either very close or only insignificant. An old Chinese saying goes that "Do not talk too deep when you are not close enough with the other," when an individual believes that the expressive component of his relationship w ith the superior is not strong enough for direct communication, he or she has should better express an opinion through people close to the Intercultural Communication Studies VII: 1 1997-8 Hwang 29 superior. For example, Silin (1976) studied the operation and leadership style of a large scale business in Taiwan by participant observation. He found when the top leader of company speaks in public, the subordinates would never raise any question to challenge him or to injure his dignity. If they really believe that the leader's opinions are inappropriate, they usually ask people trusted by the leader to pass the message for them in private
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Confrontation In a power structure emphasizing "principle of respecting the superior," when the superior ignores feelings of the subordina tes and insists on the execution of his will, the inferior may react to fight against him. Both partie s "tear off their faces" and confront with open conflict
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Caring about Other's Face in a Perfunctory Manner It is easy to understand that not all vertical relationships have a strong basis of expressive component. For example, the superior/subordinate relationship in contemporary industrial or commercial organizations is primarily based on instrumental component. Its expressive component should be fostered purposely by both parties (especially the superior side) in their daily interaction. Under such circumstance, when interpersonal conflicts occur to weaken their expressive tie, both parties still have to interact with each other within th e same power structure. In this case, they are forced to keep the superficial harmony by following the social manners. As a cultural ideal of Confucianism, "politeness" without any ingredient of "benevolence" is called by Chinese as "caring about other's f ace superficially" (fu-yeu mien-tze).
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Taking Care of Other's Face This is not a situation Confucians like to see. As I said in the last section, the Confucian ideal advocated that all the vertical relationships within a family or a group should be constructed on the basis of "benevolence" (expressive com ponent) to constitute a united whole. I also mentioned that whether an individual will develop an in-group fee ling of "great-self" with other or not is certainly a psychological matter. When an individual's relationship with a particular family member or a colleague worsens and its expre ssive component decreases, outsiders may still perceive them as an "in-group." In this case, they have to do their best to take case of other's face in front of outsiders and to maintain a superficial harmony so as to let everybody under their own face. For example, a male subject reported in Li's (1995) research: "Now they are living in their own way, and we are living in ours. Though we are living under the same roof, they sleep in that room, and we sleep in this room. We eat separately, my parents cook their food, my wife and I cook ours......The two old pa rents still want to keep the superficial ethics. They are afraid of being sc orned by relatives and friends. Though they blame me and accuse of my conduct against filial piety ev eryday, they still tell our relatives and friends that they have filial children." (Li, 1995:285) Huang's(1995)research mentioned how a male employee working in a company "packages" his relationship with his supervisor: "I am able to 'package' our relationship. I will do anything to make outsiders get an impression that we get along quite well. Sometimes, I will respect his authority as a supervisor. So long as his requests are not very unfair, I will follow rather than resist them indiscriminately. When we are facing outsiders, I will stand at the same front with him and fight against outsiders. Because a department is a whole, we should main tain the vertical relation of up and down. This is a kind of work ethic. So I would make outsiders feel that I follow instruction. This is a superficial harmony. Don't let each other feel too embarrassing, it will be enough to maintain the 'public' part. Business is business." (Huang, 1996:262)
Obey Publicly and Defy Privately In a power structure emphasizing vertical relationship, when a subordinate feels conflicts with the superior and knows that it is useless to argue with the other of dominant power, he or she may accept the superior's request in public, but do one’s own business in private. In contemporary China, this pretending to obey is called "the superior has a policy to impose on , while the inferior has a trick to cope with it."
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Horizontal In-Group The horizontal relationship could be said to be the most important interpersonal relationship in contemporary societies where industrial and commercial activities are major ways of production. However, the arrangement of horizont al relationship was not the major concern of Confucian ethics. In the five cardinal ethics st ressed by Confucius, only "friends" belong to the horizontal relationship
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In my theoretical model of "Face and favor: Chinese power game," horizontal relationships consist in some cases of expressive ties and in all cases of instrumental ties. The reason for an individual to establish instrumental ties with some body else according to a pa rticular formal role system is to acquire certain resources to satisfy his or her needs. Both parties involved in this relationship control some resources which are desi red by the other party, so they can proceed making exchange with each ot her on a basis of equality. In the "psychological process of RA" of Fig. 1, the instrumental ties and mixed ties are separated by a dotted line. It means that, compared with boundary surrounding expressive ties within a family, the psychological boundary between these two kinds of relationships is relatively weak. The P may have an instrumental relationship of out-group to RA originally. Through the process of "pulling guanxi" or "reinforcing guanxi," P may penetrate the psychological boundary, get into the category of mixed ties and become a friend of RA. On the contrary, the relatives or friends of mixed ties may become a kind of instru mental ties or come to a severance because of intense conflicts or estrangement of relationship between them.
Giving Face Understanding the significant features of horizontal relationship, we may discuss the conflict resolution models listed in Table 1. Accordi ng to my theoretical model of "Face and favor: Chinese power game," when RA defines P as a member of his in-group who belongs to the category of mixed ties, they tend to interact with each other in terms of renqing rule and have to pay special attention to maintain other's face. If they disagree about something, they may have a Intercultural Communication Studies VII: 1 1997-8 Hwang 32 direct communication for the sake of seeking a solution which is acceptable to both parties. In such a situation, Chinese always say that "we are all brothers, it is needless to argue." In the process of negotiation, they may take various wa ys and ask others to "give me a face." "Quarrel makes both sides ugly; while concession enables both to have their own shares." In order to keep their harmonious relationship, they tend to concede and "give face" to each other. Therefore, both of them are able to "get off the stag e" and compromise with other party. I argued in the previous section that a couple may construct their relationship either in a traditional vertical way or in a modern horizontal way. In the later case, only if there is a strong expressive component existing in their relationship, even when they argue about trivia in daily life, it would not hurt their feelings. Meanwhile, if one of the couple (usually the male) uses verbal or nonverbal communication to ask for compromise, "gives f ace" to the other, and enable her/him to "get off the stage," it is quite possible that their unhappiness will be eliminated. For instances, Li(1995) mentioned how a husband may dissolve the problem after quarreling with his wife. "I can't remember any specific case of quarreli ng with her. Each time we have a quarrel, I smile to her first, then she smiles, too." "When she was angry, I could not say anyt hing to her.....we may quarrel about something nonsense out of trivia. Finally, I keep quiet when she was angry. I would wait and talk to her when she was not angry anymore."
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Mediation When Chinese people get involved in intense conflict, third parties in their social network tend to intervene between them to reduce the likelihood of spiraling violence (Brown, 1977; Ma, 1992). The mediator usually is someone who occ upies a higher position in their network. His major job is to separate the opposing sides and to find out a solution without any loss of "face" to either side (Bond and Wang, 1981). In order to achie ve this goal, he is likely to ask both sides: "For the sake of my face, don't quarrel anymore. " "Stop the quarrel, or you will lose our face" (Zai, 1995). If the mediator has sufficient face, then the parties may cease hostility without losing face because they can construe their peace-making as protecti ng the mediator's face (Cohen, 1967).
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For example, an cross-cultural research on the resolving procedure of interpersonal conflict indicated that, compared with American subjects, their Chinese counterparts preferred bargaining between two sides and mediation by third party to negotiate for a scheme of compromise. They relatively dislike confrontation with each other and being judged by thir d parties. They also dislike the inquisitorial adjudication with which the third party collects relevant information to make a judgment (Leung, 1987). Chen (1994) went a further step by taking into consideration the context of interpersonal relationship in which an individual has to choos e a resolving procedure. Asking 114 students of National Taiwan University to serve as subjects, his empirical research i ndicated that the subjects tend to choose a conforming response in vertical relationship with high expressive component; they prefer to accept the superi or's authoritarian decision in vertical relationship with low expressive component. In horizontal relationship w ith high expressive component, they prefer the Intercultural Communication Studies VII: 1 1997-8 Hwang 35 procedure of bargaining; while in horizontal relationship with high instrumental component, they prefer the procedure of mediation. Chen's data provided remarkable support to the main propositions of this article.
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Lian and Mientze When a group of Chinese are interacting with others for a particular social affair, they may form impressions about every participant involved in that affair and arrange them along either a vertical dimension according to th eir relative role positions or accord ing to the power structure of that social network (Bond and Lee, 1981). An individual's awareness about a public image formed in other's minds is called "face," which can be differentiated into two categories in Chinese society: "Mientze" is determined by one's performance, and "lian" is related to one's moral conduct (King, 1988).
" -- Guanxi and Mientze: Conflict Resolution in Chinese Society by Kwang-Kuo Hwang
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Read any “handbook” or “guidebook” on how to do business with China or the Chinese and it is not difficult to identity that guanxi (relation), mianzi (prestige face) and renqing (favour) are arguably the three most important issues mentioned (e.g., see Am bler and Witzel, 2004; Crombie, 2005; Pecotich and Shultz II, 2006). A nd, the “art” of practicing these concepts is manifested in the behaviour of gift-giving in anticipation of r eciprocative paybacks ( bao ) in order to maintain a harmonious long-term re lationship (Chan, Denton and Tsang, 2003).
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The Chinese concept of guanxi differs from the Western concept of networking in that the latter is typically impersonal and mostly at the organisational level. However, favour exchanges amongst members of the guanxi network are not solely commercial, but also social, involving the exchange of renqing and the giving of mianzi (Luo, 1997b).
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Yang (1992) distinguished three grou ps of Chinese relationships: (1) jiajen (family members), shoujen (relatives outside the family, friends, neighbours, classmates, and colleagues), and shengjen (strangers). These distinctions are cons istent with Hwang’s (1987) conception of the three major guanxi categories in Chinese societies. Chang and Holt (1991) identified four co mmon methods that one might establish guanxi with another: (1) appealing to kin re lations; (2) pointing to a previous association; (3) using in- group connections or mediators; or (4) social interaction requir ing social skills such as the ability to play the “ renqing (favour) game”.
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The Chinese Concepts of Renqing and Bao The Chinese character “ ren ” literally means “a person or a human being” and “ qing ” literally means “emotion or feeling”. The concept of renqing has three implications in the Chinese culture: (1) renqing indicates the affective responses of an individual confronting different situations; (2) renqing means a resource that an individual can present to another as a gift in the course of social interaction; and (3) renqing connotes the social norms by which one has to abide in order to get along well with ot her people (Gabrenya, Jr. and Hwang, 1996). The Chinese concept of “ bao ” is inseparable from the concept of “ renqing ” as reflected in the old Chinese saying that “(repaying) renqing is more pressing than that of (repaying) debt”. Yang (1957) elaborated extensively on how the concept of bao works in the Chinese culture: “The Chinese believe that reciprocity of action (favor and hatred, reward and punishment) between man and man, and indeed between men and supernatural beings, should be as certain as a cause and effect relationship, and, therefore, when a Chinese acts, he normally anticipates a response on return.” (Yang, 1957, p. 291) The Chinese concept of bao differs from the Western concept of reciprocity in that the units involved in the Chinese concept of bao are mostly families, not individuals. I.e., the return of renqing does not have to be directed towards the original giver; it can be directed towards other family members or even close acquaintanc es (Yang, 1989).
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Justice theories suggested that there are three justice norms that are used for social exchange for distributing resources within groups: (1) the equity rule which dictat es that resources be distributed in proportion to indi viduals’ contributions; (2 ) the equality rule which dictates that resources be distributed equa lly among members regardless of their objective contributions; and (3) the need rule which dictates that reso urces be distributed to satisfy individuals’ legitimate needs regardless of their relative contribu tions (Hwang, 1987).
Hwang (1987) argued that renqing is a variant of the universal e quality rule and is much more elaborated and more tightly bound up with concept of bao . The principle of renqing is not only a normative standard for regulating social ex change but also a social mechanism that an individual can use to strive for desirable resources within hierar chically structure relationships while at the same time maintaining harmony a nd social order. The current outcome in the application of the renqing rule becomes input to the evaluation of future guanxi relationships. Concepts and behaviours similar to renqing can also be found in ot her collectivist societies like the concept of on in the Japanese culture (L ebra, 1969) and the concept of chemyeon in the Korean culture (Choi and Kim, 2004)
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The implications that can be drawn from the Hwang (1987) “face-and-favour” framework are that mianzi and renqing represent some kinds of social cap ital or resources in interpersonal interactions in Chinese society. To develop renqing is a precondition for the establishment and development of guanxi . The degree of renqing that two parties enjoy determines the strength of guanxi between them. The Chinese use diffe rent social exchange rules when dealing with “in-group” versus “out-group” relationships. It is of paramount importance for international marketers flocking into the lucrative Ch ina market to understand how to play the face ( mianzi )-and-favour ( renqing ) game in their interactions w ith their Chinese counterparts to foster long-term relationship ( guanxi ) which often extends from an instrumental tie to an expressive tie in building wider social and business networks. Leung and Chan (2003; Leung, T.K.P., Chan R.Y.K, 2003. Face, Favour and Positioning – A Chinese Power Game. European Journal of Marketing 37(11/12), 1575-1598. ) demonstrated how the Hwang (1987) framework can provide guidance for foreign negotiators to use “face wo rk” as a cultural strategy to negotiate through the complex business network in China. It will be interesting to see future research attempting to quantify the relationships between the c oncepts in the Hwang (1987) framework. Future research should also take into consid eration the dynamic relationship between guanxi and the Chinese concept of xinyong (personal trust). Xinyong literally means the use or usefulness of trust. At a general level, xinyong refers to the integrity, credib ility, trustworthiness, or the reputation and character of a person. In business, xinyong usually refers to a person’s credit rating. Good guanxi fosters the development of reliable xinyong (Leung et al ., 2005 Leung, T.K.P., Lai, K.H, Chan, R. Y.K., Wong, Y.H., 2005. The Roles of Xinyong and Guanxi in Chinese Relationship Marketing 39(5/6), 528-559. ; Tong and Yong, 1998 Tong, C.K., Yong, P.K., 1996. Guanxi Bases, Xinyong and Chinese Business Networks. British Journal of Sociology 49(1), 75-96. ).
" -- http://www.anzmac.org/conference_archive/2006/documents/Chan_Alvin.pdf
" Two Types of Guanxi
In an attempt to tease out guanxi practices ingrained in the cultural tradition and those adapted to the immature institutions, Su and Littlefield (2001) proposed two types of guanxi practices, namely ‘‘ qinyou guanxi ’’ (personal favor exchanges among family and friends) and ‘‘ quanli guanxi ’’ (exchanges between those in power and interest groups). They attributed the former to the influence of traditional Chinese culture and the latter to that of contemporary institutions, mainly that of the socialist market economy. They held the former as legitimate means of favor-seeking for common people in navigating through work and life, but the latter as corruptive and rent-seeking by social elites of the powerful and wealthy.
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Two Types of Officials
In the political structure of contemporary China, promotion of officials in the government is determined by a system of performance evaluation of cadres in the communist party.
Since the early 1980s, Deng Xiaoping’s government had evaluated the qualification for promotion of low-rank officials in accordance with four criteria: revolutionary zest, knowledge, professional training, and youthfulness. Among these four, youthfulness is the most objective and has become the iron rule of promotion for government officials. For the sake of selecting young cadres, the central government has abolished all lifetime positions and established the age criteria for retirement as well as for candidacy of key government positions. Indeed, the ‘‘hard’’ criteria of age have profound influence on the career planning of Chinese government officials. One of its unintended con- sequences is the resulted differentiation of government officials into two types: The promotable officials are those who are expected to be promoted to higher positions; the terminal officials are those who are restricted for further promotions by age criteria, although they are still too young to retire (Zhong, 2003).
Rank-Seeking vs. Rent-Seeking
Long-term expectations shape different career goals for these two types of officials: Most promotable officials tend to set rank promotion as their primary goals. In order to be promoted along the hierarchy of bureaucracy, they must do their best to meet the performance criteria for official evaluations established by the government. Now the central government has adopted a governance model of horizontal competition for promotion to evaluate the performance of local officials, especially those who are at the top of the local governments. They can be promoted to higher positions only if their performances have proved superior to those of the same level....Consequently, local governments in China have manifested rapid economic development as the key characteristic of strong governance.
In contrast to the promotable officials, the terminal officials are usually assigned to peripheral positions before the end of their career. Due to their disappointment with their own status and their anxiousness about personal income after retirement, some terminal officials thus turn to seeking rents by all means (Lu, 1999). They understand that their power will end after retirement, so they tend to utilize their power in seeking personal interests (Ngo, 2008).
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Given the dramatic changes in the past 30 years, government officials in contemporary China are neither ‘‘cadres for revolution’’ nor ‘‘modern bureaucrats’’ who act in accordance with the rules of government regulation. Their decision-making model in daily management is very similar to that of a business manager.
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It should be noted here that, as a vertical society emphasizing mutual obligations between the superior and the subordinate, Chinese society is fundamentally different from Western society of individualism, advocating for one’s interactions with the social system. Viewing from the conceptual scheme of Table 1, the most important task for an organizational leader is to ask his/her subordinates for suggestions to deal with various challenges, making decisions by setting clear-cut organizational goals, fully commu- nicating with followers and encouraging them to strive for the attainment of their goals. (my note: this last sentence doesn't sound any different to me from Western prescriptions for leadership in large organizations, eg it sounds like Goleman's 'authoritative' leadership style)
" -- http://nous.niu.edu.tw/web/images/ckfinder/files/20141103190118.pdf
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