Working with Guanxi: An Assessment of the Implications of Globalisation on Business Networking in China

Cross cultural literature has suggested China has a business culture based on family networks or guanxi connections underpinned by strong Confucian ethics. We argue that Chinese business may have distinctly national cultural attributes (that international businesses ignore at their peril) but we reassess the continuing significance of these historical cultural concepts. We query whether a system of networks consolidated during fifty years of state‐owned enterprises can still have application on the considerably larger scale of multinational corporate business of today’s China. Interview data collected from Australian expatriates in China in 2001 is used to assess the relevance of guanxi for effective international operations in China from the perspective of Australian expatriate managers.