Abstract
Guanxi orientation is one of the important organizational values in China. This study examines the effect of guanxi orientation on firm’s boundary spanner’s behavior (manifested by interpersonal liking and interaction frequency) and its influence on inter-firm relationships in Chinese marketing channel context. Drawing on organizational culture and boundary spanner theory, a conceptual model is proposed to delineate how guanxi orientation works across organizations where inter-firm support is placed as the key mediator. Results from 342 distributors show that guanxi orientation has positive influence on interpersonal liking and interaction frequency between boundary spanners, and the manifested behaviors have direct and indirect impact on inter-firm relationship quality through inter-firm support. Overall, the study research extended the extant literature from three perspectives. Firstly, this study deepens our understanding of the organizational role of guanxi orientation and its influence on boundary spanner’s individual behaviors, building a bridge between intra- and inter-firm relationships. Secondly, the research findings suggest that boundary spanners can provide inter-firm support for building cooperative relationship channels. Thirdly, inter-firm support is found to be another antecedent of long-term orientation (previously trust, dependence, and performance), which provides a cost-effective way for building deeper relationship. Contributions, managerial implications, limitations, and future research are also pointed out. Key words: Guanxi orientation, boundary spanner behaviors, inter-firms relationship quality.
Highlights
Boundary spanners are key representatives who engage in various activities on the interface of exchange in organizations, playing a key role in marketing channel management
This study investigated the organizational role of guanxi orientation played in influencing behaviors of boundary spanners within an organization and its subsequent effect of behaviors on inter-firm relationships in marketing channels
We present an integrative framework that enables firm leaders to consider whether they should introduce guanxi orientation as organizational culture to achieve long-term relationship with partners
Summary
Boundary spanners are key representatives who engage in various activities on the interface of exchange in organizations, playing a key role in marketing channel management. They represent their firms and work through critical horizontal ties to multiple external constituencies. Guanxi orientation is one of the most prevalent, deeprooted business values in China, and it is so important in China that it often works as doorstep for establishing business relationships, mechanism for conflict resolution, conduit for gaining harmony, etc It can be considered as one type of social capital that connects key boundary people across various social groups and encourages them to pool resources for potential cooperation (Peng and Luo, 2000)
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