scholarly journals Cultural identities of Chinese business: networks of the shark-fin business in Hong Kong

2011 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 343-359 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gordon C.K. Cheung ◽  
Chak Yan Chang
2000 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 201-222 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henry Wai-Chung Yeung

The author aims to examine the nature and organisation of transnational business networks. From an empirical study of some 111 parent Hong Kong transnational corporations (TNCs) and 63 of their foreign affiliates in Southeast Asia, he argues that the role and functions of TNC affiliates are critically dependent on their embeddedness in transnational business networks. These transnational business networks can be organised either within TNCs (intrafirm) or with local firms (interfirm). This network embeddedness of TNC affiliates is socially organised and can be strategically deployed to facilitate the extension of network associations through time and space. Two detailed case studies of business networks of Hong Kong TNCs (HKTNCs) in Southeast Asia present several interesting illustrations. First, the strategic strength and spatial reach of intrafirm networks determine the competitive advantage of Hong Kong TNCs in the regional economy. Better integration and regional coverage are the winning strategies of Hong Kong firms in Southeast Asia. Second, the embeddedness of foreign affiliates in the business networks of HKTNCs are socially constructed. Personal relationships and business association among leading actors in HKTNC networks provide the underlying organising principles of such network formation. Third, the functions and contributions of local Southeast Asian affiliates to overall group performance are related to their access to local business and other forms of interfirm networks. Local affiliates with strong networking capabilities tend to receive more support and coordination from parent TNCs. In the concluding section the author offers some implications for recent developments in network theory in economic geography and geographies of Chinese business networks in Asia.


2014 ◽  
pp. 41-61 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chee Kiong Tong ◽  
Pit Kee Yong

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 80-90
Author(s):  
Lilian J. Shin ◽  
Seth M. Margolis ◽  
Lisa C. Walsh ◽  
Sylvia Y. C. L. Kwok ◽  
Xiaodong Yue ◽  
...  

AbstractRecent theory suggests that members of interdependent (collectivist) cultures prioritize in-group happiness, whereas members of independent (individualist) cultures prioritize personal happiness (Uchida et al. Journal of Happiness Studies, 5(3), 223–239 Uchida et al., 2004). Thus, the well-being of friends and family may contribute more to the emotional experience of individuals with collectivist rather than individualist identities. We tested this hypothesis by asking participants to recall a kind act they had done to benefit either close others (e.g., family members) or distant others (e.g., strangers). Study 1 primed collectivist and individualist cultural identities by asking bicultural undergraduates (N = 357) from Hong Kong to recall kindnesses towards close versus distant others in both English and Chinese, while Study 2 compared university students in the USA (n = 106) and Hong Kong (n = 93). In Study 1, after being primed with the Chinese language (but not after being primed with English), participants reported significantly improved affect valence after recalling kind acts towards friends and family than after recalling kind acts towards strangers. Extending this result, in Study 2, respondents from Hong Kong (but not the USA) who recalled kind acts towards friends and family showed higher positive affect than those who recalled kind acts towards strangers. These findings suggest that people with collectivist cultural identities may have relatively more positive and less negative emotional experiences when they focus on prosocial interactions with close rather than weak ties.


2005 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 28-56 ◽  
Author(s):  
Don Y. Lee ◽  
Philip L. Dawes

This research focuses on buying firms’ trust in a supplier's salesperson and posits that this type of trust is determined by characteristics of the salesperson, the interpersonal relationships between a salesperson and the buying firm's boundary personnel, and characteristics of personal interactions between these two parties. More important, the authors discuss the concept of interpersonal relationships in the context of Chinese culture and model it as a three-dimensional latent construct, which, in some literature, is called guanxi. A key aspect of this research is that the authors investigate the impact of each dimension of guanxi on salesperson trust separately. Moreover, the authors consider the buying firm's trust in the supplying firm and its long-term orientation toward the supplier the consequences of salesperson trust. To test the model, the authors use data collected from 128 buying organizations in Hong Kong. The sampled firms are from both the government and private sectors.


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