Chen (2004)

Management > Asian Management > Lectures > Independent Research > Guanxi > Face > Renqing > Confucian relationships > Family > Guanxi building

Guanxi building

Chie Nakane (1970) defines social groups into two categories:

1. Attribute - based on an individual's common attributes, which can be inherited or achieved, such as lineage or status
2. Frame - situational position in a given frame

Chinese social groups tend to emphasise attributes (whereas the Japanese focus on the frame), meaning they can have "pluralistic" identifications with other people based on shared attributes, making it more flexible than one's role in a fixed frame.

The loyalty to the individual relationship without reference to the organisation or other group members.

The more attributes a person has, the more mianzi he/she has and can use attributes to build networks. The often used shared attributes are kinship, locality, co-worker, classmate, and teacher-student.

Since voluntarily constructed networks revolves around the self, guanxi construction can be characterised as an "ego-centred social engineering of connection network building". In the modernising era, this second type of relationship is becoming more important than the predetermined type, which increases further awareness and prominence of the individual self.