ABSTRACT

The importance of personal and interpersonal connections in the business world is nowhere disputed. Yet in China these personal connections are supposed to be the most dominant single factor in any (business) activity if the popular Confucianist saying is believed: ‘Whom you know is more important than what you know.’ In contrast to the West where business relations and ultimately business success are shaped by ‘what you know’, i.e. technical expertise but also market data such as prices or quality, for the Chinese the notion of guanxi in the form of personal relations seems to be all decisive for success.