Time: Friday, November 3, 2023, 9:30
Location: Lecture Hall 537, Building 3, Hainayuan, Zijingang Campus, Zhejiang University
Indirect Cronyism and Its Underlying Exchange Logic
Speaker: Xiaoping Chen
Philip M. Condit Endowed Chair Professor in Organization Management, Foster School of Business, University of Washington
Fellow, Academy of Management (AOM Fellow)
Fellow, Association for Psychological Science (APS Fellow)
Dr. Xiaoping Chen earned her PhD in Organizational and Social Psychology from the University of Illinois. She previously served as Associate Dean of the Foster School of Business (2016-2020) and Chair of the Department of Management and Organization (2009-2015). She is currently Editor-in-Chief of Management and Organization Review and Executive Editor-in-Chief of the magazine Management Insights. She previously served as Editor-in-Chief of the top-tier journal Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes (2010-2016).
Professor Xiaoping Chen's scholarly work is widely cited, ranking her among the most highly cited researchers globally. Her research focuses on organizational behavior and human resource management, covering topics such as digital management, individual and group decision-making, leadership, managerial communication, business negotiations, entrepreneurial motivation, and Chinese Guanxi. Her research has been published in top-tier management and psychology journals including AMJ, AMR, JAP, OBHDP, JPSP, JESP, and JIBS. She has also authored over ten Chinese books, including Cross-Cultural Management, Empirical Methods in Organizational and Management Research, Escaping Social Dilemmas: Psychological Mechanisms for Inducing Cooperation, Determinants of Happiness, Simplifying Interpersonal Relationships, among others, as well as English books such as Leadership of Chinese Private Enterprises: Insights and Interviews (Palgrave Macmillan) and A Journey toward Influential Scholarship: Insights from Leading Management Scholars (Oxford University Press & Tsinghua University Press).
Professor Xiaoping Chen is a founding member of the International Association for Chinese Management Research (IACMR) and served as its President. As Editor-in-Chief of Management Insights, she has conducted in-depth interviews with founders and CEOs of numerous outstanding Chinese enterprises, including Zhang Ruimin of Haier, Jack Ma of Alibaba, Ren Zhengfei of Huawei, Wang Jian of Alibaba Cloud, Ma Weihua of China Merchants Bank, Wang Shi and Yu Liang of Vanke, Liang Xinchun of Fosun Group, Yu Minhong of New Oriental, Ma Huateng of Tencent, Yin Ye of BGI, Liu Qiangdong of JD.com, and others.
Abstract
Indirect cronyism is a phenomenon in which managers show favoritism to indirect guanxihu subordinates who have informal, particular, and personal connection with a third party (e.g. another manager) and demonstrate its prevalent existence in Chinese organizations. We explore the crucial factors that may exacerbate managers to engage in indirect cronyism, and the downstream consequences on other members of the organization. We draw on the indirect reciprocity logic embedded in social exchange theory to predict two underlying motives to explain why managers engage in indirect cronyism: (a) fulfilling their felt obligation to favor the indirect guanxihu subordinate, and (b) strengthening their own guanxi with the third party. Results from three scenario based experiments and one field study sampling a total of 1,559 working adults provide consistent support for our theoretical reasoning and hypotheses. We discuss the theoretical contributions this paper makes to advance the guanxi and cronyism literature, as well as the practical implications of our findings in Chinese organizations and beyond.
