Women at work : an exploratory study on how Taiwanese females build guanxi and their attitudes toward Yingchou as a guanxi-building tool

• Main Author: Ang, Geraldine Shi Min
• Other Authors: School of Humanities and Social Sciences
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2010
• Subjects: DRNTU::Social sciences::Sociology::Social psychology
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/38697
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Guanxi is an important work resource in the Chinese culture. Yingchou in the form of he hua jiu is a crucial business practice, especially among men in Taiwan, for building guanxi; it is a gender-segregated activity such that the culture of yingchou is a barrier faced by Taiwanese females when building guanxi. This study explored the obstacles Taiwanese females faced when trying to build guanxi at work and looked at the alternative guanxi-building methods females engaged in; females’ attitudes toward yingchou as the key mean of building guanxi were also investigated. While females acknowledged the usefulness of yingchou as a guanxi-building tool, they did employ alternative methods of building guanxi through exchanges of ganqing. Implications of the results are discussed.