Au guanxi ou pas au guanxi, quels réellement ís la question ? Le mensonge de Stephanie a posé une douzaine de questions aux douzaines de destinataires il y a quelques mois, afin de trouver la bonnes définition, signification et application du guanxi dans la vie chinoise d'affaires. Le questionnaire a couvert plusieurs matières, s'étendant du `expliquez dans vos propres mots ce que signifie le guanxi à toi ou ce qu'est votre interprétation de guanxi', au `combien de clients fait vos affaires attirent par l'intermédiaire du gaunxi ?'

Les résultats de la recherche du guanxi de Stephanie sont dedans et nous voudrions les partager avec toi.

Une fois demandés la définition, 60.5% interprètent et définissent le guanxi comme réseau, 23.2% en tant qu'ayant des rapports ou des raccordements signicatifs. Le 16.3% restant a changé dans leur définition personnelle de guanxi, dont quelques exemples sont mettant des personnes en contact, impossible de faire des affaires en Chine sans elle, et le guanxi a été défini comme effet pour établir des rapports salutaires mutuels d'affaires.

Fréquence d'utilisation de Guanxi

En d'autres termes le guanxi est employé comme source de connaissance et expertise, pour trouver des associés et des fournisseurs. D'autres raisons pour l'usage du guanxi sont d'obtenir de meilleurs rapports afin de créer des affaires nouvelles et produire de nouveaux clients. Par des références, les occasions se présentent pour développer et soutenir les affaires habituelles. Guanxi est également employé pour coopérer, au séjour informé et aux clients existants de subsistance. Consulting firms also use guanxi to help, make business deals, explore the potential buyer’s network and as a marketing tool.

Guanxi Statements
In the questionnaire, 10 statements about guanxi were included and its relation to the client’s base, company size and return on sales.

I: Guanxi is useful in order to maintain a stable client base
According to the results, 21.4% of the respondents completely agree with this statement and 42.9% agrees. 31% neither agreed nor disagreed and 4.8% disagreed.

II: Guanxi is useful in order to maintain a competitive advantage
16.7% of the respondent completely agrees that guanxi is useful to maintain a competitive advantage, 40.5% also agrees. However 35.7% neither agrees nor disagrees and 7.1% disagrees.

III: Guanxi is useful in order to deal with challenges within the consulting industry
40.5% of the respondents agree that guanxi is useful for dealing with challenges in the industry, and 16.7% completely agrees. 28.6% does not agree and neither agrees on this statement and 14.3% does not agree with the statement

IV: When making use of guanxi, a company is able to attract more clients
Concerning the 4th statement, 52.4% agreed that through guanxi a company can attract more clients, and 26.2% completely agreed which sums up to 78.6% (more than ¾ of the total respondents). 16.7% of the respondents have indicated neither to agree or disagree and 4.8% did not agree with the statement above.

V: When making use of guanxi, a company can realize business on a broader scale
81% of the respondents agreed on the 5th statement, of which 38.1% completely agreed. As with the statement before 4.8% did not agree and 14.3% neither agreed nor disagreed.

VI: Guanxi has little influence on a company’s return on sales
Concerning the 6th statement which was negatively formulated, 14.3% completely agreed on the fact that Guanxi does not influence a company’s ROS and 38.1 also agreed. 28.6% neither disagreed nor agreed and 19% disagreed.

VII: Guanxi has little influence on a company’s size
As the statement before, statement 7 was also formulated negatively and resulted in the following; the greater part of the respondents which is 40.5% neither agreed nor disagreed, 21.4% agreed that guanxi does not influence a company’s size and 9.5% completely agreed. 23.8% disagreed meaning that guanxi does influence the company’s size and 4.8% completely disagreed.

VIII: The larger the company size, the greater the use of guanxi
Concerning statement 8, about 45.2% disagreed that the bigger the company the more guanxi is used. To be more detailed, 38.1% disagreed and 7.1% completely disagreed. 42.9% neither agreed nor disagreed and only 11.9% clearly agreed that the use of guanxi increases with the increasing size of a company.

Conclusion
Stephanie is currently processing the gathered information, so we will let you know anytime soon what guanxi in business boils down to. Without wanting to jump to conclusions, for now it seems fair to say it is ‘do or die’ as far as guanxi is concerned. Would you agree?