This study explores guānxì as a currently used organizational discourse in the business culture of Chinese organizations through the logic of equivalence and the logic of difference proposed by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe. Guānxì consists in an interpersonal relationship and the creation of collaborative knowledge which involves a tacit, future-driven, and complex kind of knowledge operating in a specific context. From a post-structuralist perspective applied to the organizations, we used discourse analysis as a method which allows us to put into practice the role of language as the axis for understanding social processes, as it is the case of guānxì. We analyzed 3 in-depth interviews conducted with Chinese chief executive officers (CEOs) and 32 newspaper reports related to the practice of guānxì in organizations of the tertiary sector, published in 2 of the leading web-based newspapers in China. Thus, we aimed to identify the way how this phenomenon has been appropriated as a discourse within the organizational sphere through the logic of equivalence and the logic difference. We found out that Chinese organizations use guānxì to gain preferential access to strategic actors who have information and resources required in the business processes, in order to obtain competitive advantages. On the other hand, business success involving these organizations depends on a mutual identification between their leaders, based on trust and credibility established in the articulations.
Guānxì; Organizational discourse; Discourse theory; Discourse analysis
