China Business Etiquette Paper - Chinese Culture and the Business Context

China Business Etiquette Paper

“Chinese Culture and the Business Context”

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By:

Clarissa Angelene 13029550

Introduction 

What is guanxi? Guanxi is same as build relationship or connections with people. Guanxi is among the most important, talked about, and studied in China today. Word of guanxi is popular in China mainland. For Chinese people, guanxi is more than a relationship. Guanxi is refers to interpersonal relationships or connections and can be applied not only to friendship relationship but also to social connections. Kipnis (1997) identifies three components of guanxi, such as affect (ganqing), reciprocal favor (renqing), and face (mianzi). Guanxi is considered important in almost every realm of life, from politics to business and from officialdom to street life (Gold, Guthrie, and Wank 2002, p.1). The purpose to build guanxi is build a trust for long-term orientation. According to Ganesha (1994) trust is a necessary antecedent for long-term orientation because it shifts the focus to future conditions. As Chinese people are like in-group relationships, in which expressive ties are predominant, attention to attachment, harmony, and long-term relationships.

 In this paper, I will demonstrate the significant power of guanxi through my personal encounters that show the differences between before and after apply guanxi; how guanxi play an important role and influence in IBS student council by make everything more convenience and easy.

Personal encounters

I came to China 3 years ago and now is my 3rd year studying at BFSU. I choose International marketing as my major and I joined IBS union which is a student council for international student. Student council is one of extracurricular activities in which student can choose to participate. Why I Joined UNION? One of the reason because I like play a role in an organization. In addition, I want to find a new friends and improve my communication skills. Participating in school activities can learn skills such as teamwork, leadership skills, and can decrease the likelihood of being involved with problem behavior. (Wilson, Nikki, Impact of extracurricular activities on Students, 2002)

I was event department member. In event department, I worked together with 8 others members. Our job is to make events for IBS International event, such as welcome party, Halloween party, International Culture Festival, etc. However, I face some barriers in my first year became union. First, Language barrier. I came and studied in China. So, absolutely, I should use Chinese language to communicate with local people. However, I never studied Chinese language before I came to Beijing. Whereas, I should be in contact with others people especially Chinese people to negotiate place or buy some stuffs with Chinese language. Although one of our member can speak Chinese, we still cannot communicate with local people fluently. Luckily, I can convey what I want to them by using body language. It's not an oral communication. Its body language, eye contact, the grinning, and the little signals that go on between people (Keith Richards, quoted in Rolling Stone, 14-28 July 1994).

Second, lack of information about Beijing. This is our first year in Beijing, so, we did not have enough information regarding place for make an event or even price to buy stuffs. For example, we need to buy some stuffs for Halloween party but we did not know where we can buy the stuffs, how much the price should be and sometimes the seller give us higher price than actual price because we are international student.

Third, no relationship with Chinese student. This is our main problem, we don't have relationship with local student. So, it is hard to attract Chinese student to come and join our event. For example, we want to make an event called MIXER which is find a language partner for international student. We should find Chinese student to join this event. However, it is hard to get their participation because we do not have any connection with them. So, we could not run this event.

I realized that we should build guanxi with Chinese student. According to Wendy Davis, she mentioned, when you're serving at the local level, you have to build strong personal relationships to get things done. Therefore, second year, we started to build guanxi with Chinese union.

The concept of guanxi refers to interpersonal relationships or connections and can be applied not only to friendship relationship but also to social connections. The characteristics of the interpersonal relationships are related to Chinese culture. More specifically, Yang (1994) categorizes interpersonal relationship in china into three groups: between family members, between familiar people, such as neighbors, friends, and colleagues; and between strangers. Chinese culture is its high degree of collectivism (Hofstede, 1980). For in-group relationships, in which expressive ties are predominant, Chinese people for more attention to attachment, harmony, and long-term relationships by going along with the group and avoiding rejection (Hui and Triandis, 1986). Nevertheless, long-term orientation encapsulates the desire of the parties toward a long term relationship.

We built interpersonal relationship between international and Chinese Union. We can feel some advantages from built guanxi with Chinese union. First, we can more convenience and easily interaction with local people. For example, we had event called International Culture Festival. In this event, we need to rent stages and booths but we do not know who the renter is. Then, Chinese union help us to contact the renter, negotiate and follow up them until the day of the event.

Secondly, we get more detail information that we need around here. For example, we get information where to buy cheap stuffs, teach us how to negotiate with the seller, and they also give information about school event which we always miss. Therefore, International student can easily join Chinese union event or even BFSU event, such as BFSU cup, SICA night, singing competition, etc. This information is so helpful to international student, by joining school activities they can be more active in school event and can gain more Chinese friends.