This study identifies the societal institutional framework as the cause for the tie distribution issue — the sizes of ego-networks of social actors are unevenly distributed across social categories of these social actors. The analysis of 250 Chinese firms showed that managers employed by state-owned enterprises possess more governmental tie channels – conduits to get acquainted with government officials – than those employed by non-state-owned enterprises. Governmental tie channels completely mediated the relationship between ownership types and the number of government ties in the manager's social network.

Management scholars and practitioners emphasize the importance of the size and diversity of a knowledge worker's social network. Constraints on knowledge workers' time and energy suggest that more is not always better. Further, why and how larger networks contribute to valuable outcomes deserves further understanding. In this study, we offer hypotheses to shed insight on the question of the diminishing returns of large networks and the specific form of network diversity that may contribute to innovative performance among knowledge workers. We tested our hypotheses using data collected from 93 R&D engineers in a Sino-German automobile electronics company located in China. Study findings identified an inflection point, confirming our hypothesis that the size of the knowledge worker's egocentric network has an inverted U-shaped effect on job performance. We further demonstrate that network dispersion richness (the number of cohorts that the focal employee has connections to) rather than network dispersion evenness (equal distribution of ties across the cohorts) has more influence on the knowledge worker's job performance. Additionally, we found that the curvilinear effect of network size is fully mediated by network dispersion richness. Implications for future research on social networks in China and Western contexts are discussed.

Guanxi, a social network tie drawing on connections in business relations, has been identified as a powerful strategic tool helping organizations maintain competitive advantages and achieve superior performance. However, prior empirical studies on die gM/m-performance link provide indefinite conclusions. The purpose of this study is to systematically review and quandfy the guanxi-performance link in a meta-analytic framework by decomposing guanxi into business ties (i.e., guanxi with business partners) and government ties (i.e., guanxi with government authorities) and organizational performance into economic performance and operational performance. Based on effect sizes from fifty-three studies encompassing 20,212 organizations, we estimate that the overall effect size of the guanxi-pertormance relationship is positive and significant, thus endorsing the argument that guanxi does enhance organizational performance. Specifically, our meta-analysis results demonstrate that both business and government ties lead to both economic and operational performance. However, business ties have a bigger impact on operational performance, whereas government ties exert larger effects on economic performance. Further meta-analytic regression results suggest that ownership (state-owned vs. non-state-owned) and location (Mainland vs. overseas China) explain some of the variations of the guanxi-performance link. Both business and government ties are more important to organizations in Mainland China than to those in overseas China. Government ties are more important to state-owned than to non-state-owned organizations. Lasdy, while business ties remain a valuable strategic tool in China, the importance of government ties is time-variant and has been declining with the development of the institutional environment in China.

In this article we review research on Chinese guanxi and social networking in the past twenty years and identify the major perspectives, theories, and methodologies used in guanxi research at micro and macro levels. We summarize the main findings of over 200 journal articles on guanxi research in terms of its conceptual definitions and measurements, its antecedents and consequences, and its dynamics and processes. Furthermore, we identify the gaps between different levels of guanxi research and discuss future directions to advance our understanding of the complex and intricate guanxi phenomenon.

Intending to clear space for rigorous integrative research bridging theory and research across East and West, we highlight four conclusions from exceptional data on the networks around Chinese entrepreneurs: (1) The broker networks associated with business success in the West are also associated with success in China; (2) The trust correlates of closed networks in the West are similarly correlated in China; (3) History and trust proven in events emerge as especially important to the Chinese entrepreneurs; (4) High-quality network data on Chinese business leaders are a practical reality. We use the results to define a network perspective on guanxi ties that can be common ground for integrating results across East and West, and guide future research on the role networks play in Chinese business.

Guanxi networks are critical for achieving entrepreneurial success in China. Informed by the literatures on network-based entrepreneurship and guanxi, this study used a multiple-case method to examine the development of Chinese entrepreneurs' guanxi networks in the entrepreneurial process. Data induction based on within- and cross-case analyses of six entrepreneurial firms revealed three major findings. First, guanxi network dynamics in terms of network structure, governance mechanisms, and network content change systematically across the stages of the entrepreneurship process. Second, the usefulness of guanxi ties (such as family, business associates, or government officials) is contingent on the stage of the entrepreneurial process as well as on industrial-level factors. Third, in knowledge-intensive industries, cultivating and maintaining guanxi can be achieved through knowledge and information exchange rather than traditional gift-giving or favours. The overall conclusion is that guanxi is still of paramount importance for Chinese entrepreneurs in the midst of China's transformation from a centrally planned to a socialist market economy. We propose a stage model of guanxi network development in the entrepreneurial process and discuss implications for future research.

Do Chinese people restrict their complex transactions to a trusted inner circle composed of strong ties? Hwang's (1988) study points out that Chinese people often convert unfamiliar ties into familiar ties when the latter become trustworthy people. This conversion is instrumental in ensuring the fulfilment of promises in complex transactions because it contains an element of emotional attachment or moral obligation. This paper employs network data in a Chinese workplace to demonstrate the following points: first, there is indeed a type of guanxi in the Chinese workplace that can be described as ‘familiar ties’. Second, familiar ties contain as much trust as friendship ties and more than acquaintance ties. A Chinese person may search for his or her possible partners among strangers, then develop trust within this guanxi and gradually transform the relationship into familiar ties. It is through these ties that interpersonal trust can grow and enable complex transactions.

I compare networks of entrepreneurs and venture capitalists in China and Russia by examining professional social networks of software entrepreneurs and private equity investors from the perspectives of institutional theory and culture paradigm. In the empirical study, I draw on survey data from Beijing and Moscow based on interviews of 159 software entrepreneurs and 124 venture capital decisions. I found that professional networks of the Chinese software entrepreneurs are smaller, denser and more homogeneous in educational specializations, compared with the networks of Russian entrepreneurs. Furthermore, I found that both ties and interpersonal trust in the referral tie are stronger in China than in Russia.

We examine the influence of social distance on levels of trust and reciprocity in China. Social distance, reflected in the indigenous concept of guanxi, is of central importance to Chinese culture. In Study 1, some participants participated in two financially salient trust games to measure behaviour, one with an anonymous classmate and the other with an anonymous, demographically identical non-classmate. Other participants, drawn from the same population, completed hypothetical surveys to gauge both hypothetical behaviour and expectations of others. Social distance effects on actual and hypothetical behaviour were statistically consistent. The results together corroborated the hypothesized negative relationship between trust and social distance. However, reciprocity was not responsive to social distance. Study 2 found that affect-based trust, but not cognition-based trust, played a mediating role in the relationship between social distance and interpersonal trust in a hypothetical scenario. We conclude that close guanxi ties in China engender affect-based trust, which is extended to shouren classmates. This is true despite the fact that no more cognition-based trust is placed nor reciprocity received or expected from classmates compared to demographically identical shengren non-classmates.

We trace the social networks around Chinese entrepreneurs back to their firm's founding to learn about the role early events play in the later success of a business. We use name generator questions paired with career history questions to identify ‘event contacts’ missed by the usual focus on current business. We draw four conclusions from interviews with a large, stratified random sample of entrepreneurs: (1) Relations with event contacts stand out for guanxi qualities of high trust relatively independent of the surrounding network structure, and are critical to distinguishing more successful entrepreneurs from the less successful. (2) The substance of a significant event matters less than the fact that the entrepreneur deems it significant. (3) When family is turned to for support it is most likely at founding, but family is not the usual source of support at founding. Rather, entrepreneurs turn to people they have known for many years, typically people beyond the entrepreneur's family. (4) The transition from founding to first significant event stands out as distinctly consequential for later success. Entrepreneurs who turn for help on their first significant event to a person separate from, but especially close to, the founding contact are more successful in their business development. That early move is not visible in the later network around the entrepreneur.