Navigating the gendered guanxi in doing business: A study of Chinese female entrepreneurs’ networking activities

• In Event: 21061 - Section on Race, Gender, and Class Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 7: Labor and Workplace Dynamics

Abstract

Entrepreneurship networking has long been regarded as a gendered activity. Female entrepreneurs have been found to rely more on strong ties within the circle of family and friends (Grasmuch & Espinal, 2000). In the meantime, the navigation of business networks is also adaptative to the cultural context. In East Asian societies, traditional and patriarchal gender norms have led to gender differences in social network constructions. In China, social networks have been contextualized into the guanxi culture, a dyadic, sentimental relationship that emphasizes the purpose of favor exchange. However, a gender perspective is lacking in existing studies on women entrepreneurs' navigation of guanxi in Chinese society's social, economic, and cultural context.

The study employs the research methods of participant observation and in-depth interviews with 26 Chinese female entrepreneurs to examine how women navigate guanxi in doing business. The study finds that: 1) The "grassroots" group of female entrepreneurs who have relatively low education level usually started their business after being laid out from the former socialist collective economy, and they tend to build a close relationship with the public sector by becoming leaders of the organizations and receiving honorable titles issued by local governments. In this way, they successfully developed their business regardless of their lack of cultural capital and other resources; and 2) the "elite" group of female entrepreneurs who have higher education levels or working/studying experiences in metropolitans tend to build a collaborative relationship with the public sector by exchanging business resources with their high cultural capital. The two ways that female entrepreneurs network with the public sector in China reveal women's empowerment in navigating the weak ties that used to be dominated by males. However, their engagement with women's organizations also reveals a gendered constraint by limiting their business networking fields.

Author

• Lulu Li, Lingnan University