Teacher Competitive Policies Meet Waterloo in Rural China: The Intermediary Role of Guanxi Culture

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Abstract

This study tracked three-year teachers' internal competitive policies implemented in a county in China, to explore the policy effect in the context of rural guanxi culture. The results of HLM showed that competitive policies failed to significantly improve teachers’ work enthusiasm. Considering the moderation effect of guanxi culture, the stronger the original guanxi culture was, the worse the effect of teacher competitive policies was. Considering the mediation role of guanxi culture, teachers’ guanxi had a masking effect on the relationship between competitive policies and teachers’ work enthusiasm. In general, the guanxi culture is the inherent behavioral logic of rural teachers. However, the policies of emphasizing individual competition broke the guanxi between teachers, which led the policies to Waterloo.

Authors

• Yan Fan, Beijing Normal University

• Qian Zhao, Beijing Normal University