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IHarbour Lectures Sociology Series (7): The Increasing Significance of Guanxi Social Capital in Reform-Era China
日期: 2019-09-10 点击：
On the afternoon of June 27, 2019, Professor Bian Yanjie, director of the Institute for Empirical Social Science Research of XJTU lectured on The Increasing Significance of Guanxi Social Capital in Reform-Era China.
Professor Bian Yanjie began his lecture by raising the question: What is guanxi (social networking) social capital? Then he introduced conceptual and theoretical issues of guanxi and concluded that guanxi is a social bond that has special, emotional and relational functions. Chinese guanxi has three features, i.e., relational particularism, multiplexity and reciprocal obligations. The last forty years witnessed a continuously increasing effect of guanxi. Professor Bian analyzed the tendency from market competition and institutional uncertainty. He said that during China’s transition period, the higher the institutional uncertainty was, the more competitive the market, and the more significant guanxi will become.
In his conclusion, Professor Bian said that the improvement of transparency and compatibility of regulations important in institutional building so as to limit the effect of guanxi.
