Reasoning My Pilot Research (1)

Provisionally entitled “Guanxi as Supply Chain Risk Mitigator”, my initial research investigated the impact of a specific cultural phenomenon on risk management in international/transcultural supply chains. The transcultural context was China and the United Kingdom; the phenomenon of interest was “guanxi”[1], the Chinese term for social connections and connectivity.

The research originally set out to examine the role played by guanxi in the risk management of China-originating, UK-bound supply chains. The unit of analysis was the firm: UK companies operating China-originating or China-incorporating supply chains. The research drew on the extensive literature on guanxi and its role in business management [2] and was designed to address the shortage of research on cultural factors’ influence on risk management in China-originating supply chains. The research thus aimed to contribute to future theorisation by proffering non-operational methods of supply chain risk reduction.

The consensus of the current supply chain literature informs us that today’s supply chains are better termed “supply networks” and are predominantly global in span (Christopher, 2011; Monahan et al, 2003). Since risk increases with network complexity (Christopher and Peck, 2004), risk management has attained priority on the research agenda.

At its start, the project used interviews and case studies to describe the roles (if any) played by guanxi in the mitigation of those risks, and use that comparison to develop theorization of guanxi as risk mitigator in Chinese supply chain management.

[1][1] A Chinese term (with diacritics: guānxì; in characters: 関係 or 关系) meaning social connections/connectivity.

[2] Between 1982 and 2010, 1218 journal articles contained the word “guanxi” (source: Business Source Premier, searched December 2012).