Relationship stability, trust and relational risk in marketing channels: Evidence from China

Guanxi GRX ( ganqing , renqing , xinren ) and conflict management in Sino-US business relationships

“…In particular, by illuminating how xinren and ganqing may be employed effectively to reduce both emotional and task conflict in Sino-US business relationships, whilst renqing remains insignificant in reducing either conflict, this paper challenges the previous assumption that treats guanxi as one combined and integrated notion, ignoring its dimensionality (Ambler et al, 1999;Liu et al, 2008) thus leading to muddled empirical findings. Therefore, by responding to the call of Gu et al (2008) and Barnes et al (2011) to further investigate the impact of individual guanxi dimensions on business relationships, this paper extends previous understanding on guanxi and its composition.…”

“…Firstly, they often assume that guanxi comprises one combined notion that represents the particular interpersonal ties in the Chinese context (Ambler, Styles, & Xiucun, 1999;Liu, Li, Tao, & Wang, 2008). They fail to untangle the nuanced differences between guanxi's sub-dimensions, such as ganqing (emotional attachment), renqing (reciprocal favour exchange), and xinren (interpersonal trust) or to discuss how each of the guanxi sub-dimensions affects business relationships.…”

The measurement of guanxi: Introducing the GRX scale

“…In order to improve the measurement scale, this deduction approach was employed by gradually withdrawing individual items with the lowest estimate coefficient on their posited underlying construct -so that the inter-item consistency and the construct's validity could be enhanced. Those items that had lower inter-item correlation and comparative lower loadings on the constructs were therefore withdrawn (Cadogan, 2006;Liu et al, 2008). In short, this elimination process reduced 8 items with low inter-item correlations to leave an overall measurement scale of 11 items in total.…”

Limitations of Trust Concept in Description of Cooperation Terms

“…Nowadays, trust is treated as a component of the quality of relationship [2], [6]. Therefore, the issue of trust is often undertaken in the study of relationships between parties to cooperation [1], [6], [9].…”

“…The dimension of competence trust is related to the expectation, that the exchange partner will meet the commitments made according to performance requirements. The third dimension concerns the confidence in goodwill of partner [6], [9] (In contracting process the assumptions of the theory of incomplete contracts should be used [4]). This issue was also taken into considaration in the research on importance of trust in interorganizational management [7,8].…”