Guanxi Work Processes in Chinese Banquets: Varied Styles, Contingency, and Failure in Pay-Back for Favours

This study analyses “guanxi work processes” – strategic practices that initiate, develop, shape, suspend, manipulate, and terminate guanxi relations – in Chinese banquets. It explores (i) different styles of carrying out guanxi work in banquets and (ii) guanxi work processes that are relatively unsuccessful and/or shaped by contingencies. Both are research gaps in the relevant scholarship. Adopting a robust processual perspective, this study analyses guanxi work processes that occur during the banquet without losing sight of those that occur pre-banquet and post-banquet. It identifies two styles of doing banquet guanxi work: one that emphasises pseudo-kin declaration and ritualistic toasting, and another that stresses non-reciprocal relational gifting and associated social skills. It also clarifies how guanxi work can fail in various ways and yield unexpected guanxi outcomes. Our data were collected from participant observation of fifteen banquets and multiple rounds of interviews with thirty-nine participants of these banquets.