De la persona al personaje

From a social psychology point of view, guanxi is used as an acculturation process to unify the vision of a particular company or community (Bao and Shi, 2008, p, 1019), reflecting the social learning attributes within a Chinese communtiy. Chu and Ju (1993, chap. 2-3) report on their significant empirical study involving both urban and rural Shanghai residents. It found that an overwhelming majority (92.4%) confirmed their involvement with personal guanxi in daily living and business activities; strict objectivity is not usual in the Chinese local trade environment.

Relationship reciprocity is commonly found in Chinese working communities. One good example is co-worker’s support, seen where company members offer mutual emotional, instrumental or moral support, and a strong sense of social belonging is achieved by co-workers through emotional engagement. A high level of loyalty is observed in a Chinese community, as relationships are hard to redeploy in a different context (Chan, 2006, p. 10). Close personal ties are found among community members and this generates a sub-group, termed shuren, or ‘familiar people’. Chinese people prefer amenable social relationships and give priority to business and social contacts who are members of their close group, deriving satisfaction from guanxi-based social harmony in the Chinese community. Members may maintain a better quality of life through active participation (Chu and Ju, 1993, chap. 2-3), motivating them to strive for a higher degree of esteem, prestige and recognition. Self-actualisation and self-expression

emerge from their group performance and this guanxi behaviour determines their satisfaction with life; success is ultimately measured by their longitudinal guanxi manoeuvres.

Whether Chinese or not, in order to join a community any external individual needs to undergo an acculturation process through intensive interpersonal communication and team activities to create a common vision and a shared mental model. When a Chinese person wants to start a business or goes away to study, there is a tendency to locate known individuals through relationships. Sooner or later, groups are formed that are composed of people from similar backgrounds who will prioritise the interests of that community’s members. Guanxi is a layer of the fundamental sociocultural infrastructure shaping the social behaviour and cognitive thinking of all Chinese (King, 1991, p. 63).

Lonner and Adamopoulos (1997, p. 66) describe acculturation as a core process to converge people from different backgrounds into a goal-sharing community. This process is mirrored in Chinese community relationships through sharing opinions, comments, preferences and considerations. Interpersonal relationships and a commitment to community are rationalised over pure profit. Core components in the acculturation process noted within Chinese community relationships are:

• The evolution of its ecological context points to the gradual mutation in Chinese relationships through sporadic interaction with the social environment.

• The evolution of the mind, language and belief systems of its people dictates the development of communal relationships under the influence of phonetic or symbolic language. Chinese languages evolved via simulation of natural objects, so there may be various interpretations of the same Chinese word. This creates a subtle layer in Chinese culture to facilitate diversity in relationships.

• The evolution of its socio-political context is the most controversial aspect. In principle, Chinese people favour diverse political standpoints on the periphery, yet boundaries are constructed by means of informal networks.

• The biological and cultural adaptation of its people over time describes the continually evolving and adaptive nature of Chinese relationships. The high mobility of Chinese both on the mainland and overseas triggers a mingling of original relational beliefs with emerging cultural groups.

• Genetic transmission is a key driver of the dialect-based cultural divide. Dialects originated from different races, yet have converged over thousands of years of Chinese history.

• Cultural transmission describes the influence of a powerful community. For instance, the Beijing dialect is used as the national language.

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• Acculturation is a consolidated process that eases the convergence of different dialects in study, employment and marriage, so that divergent ideas and thinking are harmonised across the community.

Dialogue and activities may alter the thinking of individual members of networks or communities. This kind of group operation arises in Chinese community relationships so that guanxi is constructed and nurtured across the various dialects, local customs and minority ethnic preferences (Chan, Cheng and Szeto, 2002, pp. 329-331). This informal network predisposes people to converge to share a mental model within a community. This applies both to Chinese races or foreigners wishing to join a Chinese group. Previous habits, practices, conceptions, values and preferences will be

mediated through guanxi, that is, affection, reciprocity and credit, to adapt to the mainstream practice in that community.

This Chinese acculturation in the development of guanxi is a special tactic comprising social behaviour and economic benefit. Guanxi is a type of self-organising mechanism to stabilise an information flow for serious corporate development, new product lines and operational efficiency (Chen and Chen, 2004, p. 308). Acculturation integrates key ingredients of Chinese community such as biological age, place in the hierarchy, degree of authority and the need for thrift and ‘face’ maintenance. These are blended and interact with others progressively in a business environment. Engagement and indulgence in guanxi are a trade-off of convergent thinking and a single focus for ideas (Yeung and Tung, 1996, pp. 56-60); unfortunately, in business these have an adverse impact on the generation of ideas, imagination and divergent thinking.