ACCESO DE EXTRANJEROS EN LA DINASTÍA X

Sections 4.4, 5.4 and 6.4 examine how the relational and formal coordination mechanisms jointly create accountability, predictability and common understanding, three integrating conditions, for within-team, cross-team and manager-subordinate coordination in the three case studies. This section presents the cross-case comparison on within-team, cross-team and manager-subordinate coordination respectively.

All the case studies reveal satisfaction with within-team coordination. In the three organisations, the formal role coordination mechanism offers some accountability, predictability and common understanding for within-team coordination. Team-based Guanxi groups, Senior-junior Guanxi and dense closed within-team Guanxi networks enhance the three integrating conditions by promoting cohesion, solidarity, interpersonal interaction and relational exchange within teams. The replication of such findings in the three case studies suggests that under limited use of formal organisational systems and processes, the relational mechanism strongly supplements the formal role coordination mechanism in within-team coordination.

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In comparison, there is less satisfaction with the within-team coordination in Case Study I than in Case Study II and Case Study III. In Case Study I, the relational exchange in within- team Guanxi networks and the relational obligations between senior and junior team members sometimes override organisational expectations during the process of formalisation. In Case Study II and Case Study III, the formal role coordination mechanism prevents the relational obligations and values of Guanxi from overriding organisational obligations and values. As a result, Guanxi largely substitutes the formal mechanism in within-team coordination in Case Study I, but only it only supplements the formal mechanism in within-team coordination in Case Study II and Case Study III. Different from Case Study III, Case Study II enhance the benefits of team-based Guanxi groups with collective target setting and performance reviews and formally reinforced organisational value of team work and removes the hierarchical differentiation in Senior-junior Guanxi to broaden the participation of junior team members. In contrast, Case Study III uses IT- based tools to monitor the work progress of team members and thus enhance the effects of the formal mechanism and legitimises hierarchical Senior-junior Guanxi to sustain the coordination between senior and junior team members. In other words, Case Study II utilises the formal mechanism to enhance the benefits of Guanxi and amend the effects of Guanxi to facilitate within-team coordination, whereas Case Study III strengthens the effects of the formal mechanism without amending the effects of Guanxi on within-team coordination.

The above findings extend the existing literature on how relational and formal coordination mechanisms jointly create within-team coordination. While there is lack of research on the effects of Guanxi on group dynamics (Chen et al., 2013), the case studies demonstrate that the relational mechanism of Guanxi supplements the formal role coordination mechanism in within-team coordination through closed within-team Guanxi networks, team-based Guanxi groups and Senior-junior Guanxi. Moreover, according to Section 2.2.3, there is a lack of empirical research on how relational and formal coordination mechanism jointly create organisational coordination. The case studies offer empirical evidence on how Guanxi substitutes or supplements the formal role coordination mechanism and how the formal mechanism alters or enhances the effects of Guanxi on the within-team coordination in different organisational contexts.

In all three case studies, cross-team coordination is less satisfactory than within-team coordination. Although cross-team Guanxi networks enhance the accountability, predictability and common understanding for cross-team coordination through relational exchange and interaction opportunities, the three organisations have some challenges in cross-team coordination due to limited use of formal organisational systems and processes and the existence of Stranger Guanxi in relatively loose cross-team Guanxi networks.

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In comparison, the cross-team coordination is perceived as unsatisfactory in Case Study I, but satisfactory in Case Study II and Case Study III. Case Study I finds that functional teams emphasise their own team interests more than organisational interests, task-related conflicts between cross-team colleagues often turn into relational conflicts and helping behaviour between cross-team colleagues sometimes work against organisational expectations. In contrast, Case Study II and Case Study III use cross-team projects and cross-team meetings together with email communication to support cross-team coordination, while the cross-team Guanxi networks facilitate cross-team projects, meetings and communication. In other words, Guanxi has not made up the lack of formalisation for cross-team coordination in Case Study I due to the strong exclusivity of team-based Guanxi groups and the overwhelming relational obligations and values of cross-team Guanxi networks; however the relational mechanism supplements the formal mechanism in cross-team coordination in Case Study II and III. Case Study II and Case Study III do not show significance difference in the outcomes of cross-team coordination but have different approaches to achieve these outcomes. In Case Study II, the formal role coordination mechanism enhances the coordination capacity of cross-team Guanxi networks by increasing the prevalence of Familiar Guanxi. In contrast, Case Study III often uses product development systems for cross-team coordination. The differences imply that for cross-team coordination, Case Study II utilises the formal mechanism to enhance the benefits of the relational mechanism, whereas Case Study III furthers the use of formal organisational systems to enhance the effects of the formal mechanism.

The above findings further demonstrate how the relational and formal coordination mechanisms jointly create cross-team coordination. There are some evidences, mostly quantitative, that Guanxi eases interpersonal conflicts, improves cooperation and communication, and facilitates the generation of new ideas across teams (Section 2.3.3). The case studies offer empirical explanations of how loose cross-team Guanxi networks complement formal role coordination mechanism to enhance accountability, predictability and common understanding for cross-team coordination. Moreover, the case studies empirically illustrate how loose cross-team Guanxi networks with indirect ties provide a big potential pool of resources and information because Renqing can be initiated to explore the opportunities for collaboration. In addition, while there is lack of empirical research on how relational and formal coordination mechanism jointly create organisational coordination, the case studies demonstrate how Guanxi does or does not make up the formal role coordination mechanism in cross-team coordination in different organisational contexts and how the formal mechanism amends or enhances the effects of Guanxi on cross-team coordination.

There is less satisfaction with manager-subordinate coordination in Case Study I than in Case Study II and Case Study III. The three case studies demonstrate that a formal

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performance management system facilitates the creation of accountability, predictability and common understanding for manager-subordinate coordination with regular target setting and performance reviews. In all three organisations, Paternalistic Leadership and the particularistic emphasis on employee behaviour input enhances the three integrating conditions through relational obligations and interaction opportunities.

In comparison, in Case Study I, the particularistic rules of Guanxi hinder the implementation of formal performance management system; strong benevolent leadership leads to difficulty in dealing with problematic performance and strong authoritarian leadership make it difficult for subordinates to anticipate managers’ work activities and understand managers’ decisions. As a result, the relational mechanism of Guanxi has not sufficiently made up the lack of formal role coordination mechanism in manager-subordinate coordination in Case Study I. However, in Case Study II and Case Study III, a formal performance management system effectively curbs the problem of benevolent leadership and a limited emphasis on authoritarian leadership facilitates cross- hierarchical open dialogue. Therefore, the relational mechanism of Guanxi supplements the formal role coordination mechanism in the manager-subordinate coordination in Case Study II and Case Study III. Case Study II and III does not yield significant difference in the outcomes of manager-subordinate coordination but have different approaches to achieve these outcomes. Case Study II enhances the benefits of Paternalistic Leadership by enforcing the relational obligations of managers and secures desirable employee behaviour with formally-reinforced organisational values, family culture, collective performance review and the tradition of collective creation. In contrast, Case Study III uses IT-based tools to enhance the ability of managers and subordinates to anticipate work progress of each other and relies on financial incentives to enhance employee behaviour input. In other words, for manager-subordinate coordination, Case Study II utilises the formal role coordination mechanism to enhance the capacity of the relational mechanism, but Case Study III furthers the use of formal organisational provisions to strengthen the capacity of the formal mechanism.

These findings create some new insights into how relational and formal coordination mechanisms jointly produce manager-subordinate coordination. There have been many quantitative studies about the effects of Paternalistic Leadership on manager-subordinate coordination, such as those done by Mejia et al. (2018), Wong (2017) and Wong et al. (2003). The case studies indicate that the particularistic emphasis on employee behaviour input in Chinese organisations strengthens the manager-subordinate coordination, making up the use of formal organisational systems and processes for regulating work activities. In addition, while there is a lack of literature on how relational and formal coordination mechanism jointly create organisational coordination, the case studies demonstrate that the relational mechanism of Guanxi and the formal role coordination

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mechanism supplement and amend each other to facilitate or hinder manager- subordinate coordination in different organisational contexts.