Bedford Olwen
National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan.
Integr Psychol Behav Sci. 2022 Jun;56(2):385-404. doi: 10.1007/s12124-021-09658-0. Epub 2021 Oct 7.
The relation between guanxi (particularistic dyadic ties) and trust in the workplace is widely assumed in the management and organization literature, but little research attention has been given to directly examining the nature of this relationship, or the ways in which Chinese and Western workplace trust development might differ. I suggest two overlooked factors, culture and conceptualization, that have influenced past studies and explore their impact through an analysis of the literature. Given the nature of Chinese trust, I conclude that the division between affective and cognitive aspects of trust common in the Western organizational literature is not an appropriate model for the Chinese context. Instead, I apply a distinction between rapid trust and process trust that together form a path to development of two forms of workplace guanxi: working guanxi and backdoor guanxi. I then propose a dynamic process model of the social and psychological process of guanxi and trust development in the context of the workplace that incorporates the Chinese indigenous concepts of renqing (favor), ganqing (affection), mianzi (face/reputation), xinren (trust) and xinyong (social credit). This model aligns with the Chinese metaphysical process orientation, and has implications for trust research not only in Chinese societies but also the international community.
在管理和组织文献中，人们普遍认为关系（特殊的二元关系）与职场信任之间存在关联，但很少有研究关注直接考察这种关系的本质，或者中国和西方职场信任发展方式可能存在的差异。我提出两个被忽视的因素，即文化和概念化，它们影响了过去的研究，并通过文献分析来探讨它们的影响。鉴于中国信任的本质，我得出结论，西方组织文献中常见的信任情感和认知方面的划分不适用于中国背景。相反，我应用了快速信任和过程信任之间的区分，它们共同构成了两种职场关系发展的路径：工作关系和后门关系。然后，我提出了一个在职场背景下关系和信任发展的社会心理过程的动态模型，该模型纳入了中国本土概念人情（恩情）、感情（情感）、面子（脸面/声誉）、信任（信任）和信用（社会信用）。这个模型与中国的形而上学过程取向相一致，不仅对中国社会的信任研究有影响，对国际社会也有影响。
