Cultural adaptation and socialisation between Western buyers and Chinese suppliers: The formation of a hybrid culture

Abstract

We aim to examine culturally-influenced behavioural adaptation embedded in socialisation processes at interfaces between Western buyers and Chinese suppliers in China. We conducted multiple case studies, including four cross-cultural partnerships, exploring how interface teams hosting trans-cultural boundary spanners at buyer-supplier interfaces socialise formally and informally and adapt behaviourally to three key cultural differences between Chinese Guanxi and the Anglo-Saxon form of Western culture. Data collected from 36 interviewees are used to explore the process of cultural behavioural adaptation and the emergence of a hybrid culture. We find that cultural adaptation is confined to those interface teams who interact routinely at the buyer-supplier interface and leads to the formation of a hybrid culture, which is a combination of Guanxi and western rules and procedures. The hybrid culture and cultural adaptation are two intermediary constructs between socialisation and relational capital, which enriches and explains this relationship in a cross-cultural context.