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Interplay of Chinese Guanxi with Western job role system in private Chinese IT firms
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Xu, Rui (2018) Interplay of Chinese Guanxi with Western job role system in private Chinese IT firms. PhD thesis, University of Warwick.
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Official URL: http://webcat.warwick.ac.uk/record=b3435577~S15
Abstract
This doctoral research project was designed to understand how Chinese interpersonal relationships, Guanxi, and Western job role system interplay to affect the coordination of work in Chinese firms. While Chinese firms have extensively introduced Western management practices, which rely on the use of formal organisational systems as formal coordination mechanisms, the cultural practices of Guanxi have constraint the management transfer. On the other hand, Guanxi often works as a relational coordination mechanism for Chinese organisations. There is a potential to integrate the Chinese relational and Western formal mechanisms for an enhanced outcome of organisational coordination. Nonetheless, there is limited empirical literature on the dynamic interplay between Chinese Guanxi and Western management practices and between the relational and formal coordination mechanisms. To reduce the literature gaps, the research conducted three case studies in private Chinese IT firms with 35 in-depth, semi-structured interviews.
It was found that the intertwining of Guanxi relationships with the formal role relations results in the formation of dense, closed within-team social networks and relatively loose cross-team social networks and the formation of a relational structure consisting of team-based Guanxi groups, Paternalistic Leadership and Senior-junior Guanxi. Moreover, it was indicated that the intra-organisational social networks, the relational structure and some particularistic rules of Guanxi interplay with the formal job role system, creating both positive and negative coordination outcomes. Finally, it was demonstrated that the three case studies achieve different coordination outcomes, which depends on whether the formal job role system curbs the negative outcomes of Guanxi or reinforces the benefits of Guanxi. Consequently, the research contributes to cross-cultural management literature with the empirical understanding on the coevolution of Chinese Guanxi and Western management practices in Chinese organisations and extend coordination literature with the empirical insights on the interplay between relational and formal coordination mechanisms.
Item Type: | Thesis (PhD) | ||||
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Subjects: | H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor | ||||
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Social institutions -- China, Organizational sociology, Corporate culture -- China, Occupations | ||||
Official Date: | May 2018 | ||||
Dates: |
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Institution: | University of Warwick | ||||
Theses Department: | Warwick Manufacturing Group | ||||
Thesis Type: | PhD | ||||
Publication Status: | Unpublished | ||||
Supervisor(s)/Advisor: | Barnes, Tina | ||||
Format of File: | |||||
Extent: | x, 214 leaves : illustrations | ||||
Language: | eng |
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