Beware of different guanxi measurements when doing research in China

Abstract

Doing research in China requires the awareness of the Chinese indigenous construct of guanxi. In measuring guanxi, researchers can take different approaches. In order to highlight the significance of adopting either the particularistic ties approach of Farh et al (1998) or the differential behaviours approach of Wong et al (2003), we used both measures in a correlation analysis in a mainland Chinese setting. The study demonstrates that these different approaches to measuring guanxi produce very different research outcomes, and highlights the need for researchers to be aware of how they measure guanxi.