Abstract: This paper presents a new type of guanxi: hybrid guanxi. We study the informal ...
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Abstract: This paper presents a new type of guanxi: hybrid guanxi. We study the informal market in China's Commercial Paper market, where there is no official infrastructure for online paper transactions. We conducted 33 interviews, a two-month observation, and collected a set of screenshots, to understand how informal financiers trade papers online. We discovered that these actors perform network and technology bricolage, which cultivate and maintain hybrid guanxi through computer-mediated technologies, offline interactions, and transitive ties. Our work enriches the literature of guanxi. Unlike a large body of literature, our work does not assume two prerequisites for online transactions: 1) the existence of transactional infrastructure is prior to the occurrence of transactions, 2) such infrastructure safeguards economic exchanges. Thus, hybrid guanxi offers a lens to understand how social relations purely support economic transactions in the digital era, which is prevalent in both developing and underdeveloped countries.In the simplest term, guanxi means "connections" (Gu et al.
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Semantic filters:
paper market
Topics:
WeChat word of mouth electronic market communication service infrastructure information exchange
Methods:
qualitative interview qualitative coding personal interview
