Abstract
Instead of treating Guanxi as a binary concept, whether Guanxi exists or not in a relationship, this paper explores the idea of Guanxi existing at different levels. More importantly, the level of Guanxi will determine the willingness of personal help and involvement with classmates, some behaviors are ethical and others unethical. The subjects are executive MBA students with significant work experience, are asked to rate their Guanxi relationship with a specific classmate under different question-based scenarios and rate what degree of support they are prepared to provide to the specific classmate under the various specific scenarios. These results show that in low assistance (without consequence) situations, Guanxi has no influence on behavior or decision making. However, when the nature of risk/return is escalated in a relationship, evidence indicates that a higher level of Guanxi is found for the support (i.e., cheating on an exam) to ones classmates.
Recommended Citation
Armstrong, Robert W.; Chung, Ronald K.; and Chung, Alice M.
(2020)
"The Level of Guanxi and its Relation to Behavior for MBA Student Managers in Taiwan and China,"
Journal of Business, Industry, and Economics: Vol. 25, Article 3.
Available at:
https://roar.una.edu/jobie/vol25/iss1/3