EMPIRICAL FINDINGS
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specifically required to create trust, which is the most important factor influencing
the process and outcomes of direct business interaction in China. However, a guanxi
network approach for neither business nor non-business interaction can stand on
its feet, and this is further elaborated in the following chapter, as it has major im-
plications on the ways the theoretical framework of guanxi interaction in business
networks is developed.
A dynamic guanxi interaction process may not only reflect on episodes from pre-
vious non-business interaction but also on the attitudes of individual business ac-
tors in current and future interaction episodes. Drawing on lessons from multiple
case studies, a guanxi interaction concept can be generally defined as to involve
both direct and indirect, business and non-business ways of organising interaction
in China. Overall, this newly developed understanding of interpersonal interaction
can enrich the IMP paradigm of business networks and in particular can enhance
understanding of complex phenomena when the IMP-based interaction approach is
applied to capture critical episodes and analyse the evolution of business relation-
ships in Chinese contexts. In particular, findings seem to agree that interpersonal in-
teraction influences in multiple ways activity links, resource combinations and firm
bonds. Hence, it is argued that interpersonal interaction has significant effects on
network structures and can explain some evolutionary aspects of product develop-
ment processes in inter-organisational networks.
Findings show that guanxi interaction can be analysed only at the interpersonal lev-
el. The guanxi interaction concept enhances our understanding of the characteristics
of network links captured by the actor level of the ARA model. The model assumes
that the actor dimension is interrelated to the activity and resource dimensions, and
it is found that in China and in particular in low-tech sectors, actors’ interpersonal
relationships, actors’ networking capacity and actor-specific attitudes towards net-
working influence significantly not only activity links and resource combinations
but also firm bonds. In high-tech sectors, although networks are more complex, in-
terpersonal relationships and the actors’ guanxi interaction influence significantly
the formation of activity links, resource interdependences and firm bonds among
second- and third-tier supplier relationships, which usually involve business actors
in China. It is found that especially these relationship patterns in the multiple prod-
uct development networks examined provide the main source in the development
of new products or technological components. Overall, in both low- and high-tech
sectors, with regards to the product development process, it is found that the few
central actors, who cross organisational borders, nurture and develop inter-organi-
sational relationships through on-going interpersonal interaction processes, taking
advantage of previous interaction of both business and non-business nature.
