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Debate on Informal Interpersonal Networks: Guanxi vs. Wasta

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 December 2023

Johann Peter Murmann Open the ORCID record for Johann Peter Murmann [Opens in a new window]
Johann Peter Murmann*
Affiliation:
Department of Management & Strategy, University of St. Gallen, St. Gallen, Switzerland
*
Email: [email protected]
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Extract

MOR's D3 section seeks to stimulate dialogue, debate, and discussion among scholars. When I took over as editor of D3, MOR's editorial team brainstormed how to further develop the D3 feature. We agreed that in addition to seeking original articles, we also wanted to encourage debate on articles that have already appeared in MOR. In this issue, we publish a commentary on Shaalan, Eid, and Tourky's (2022) article ‘De-Linking from Western Epistemologies: Using Guanxi-Type Relationships to Attract and Retain Hotel Guests in the Middle East’. The commentary, entitled ‘Questioning the Appropriateness of Examining Guanxi in a Wasta Environment: Why Context Should Be Front and Center in Informal Network Research’, has been written by Horak, Abosag, Hutchings, Alsarhan, Ali, Al-Twal, Weir, ALHussan, and AL-Husan (2023). As their title suggests, the commentators take issue with transferring the concept of guanxi into an environment in which another idea about informal interpersonal networks, wasta, already exists. I sense that the desire to write a critical comment was fueled by the fact that Shaalan et al. (2022) never referred to the concept of ‘wasta’ in their original article. We invited the authors of the original article to write a rejoinder (Shaalan, Eid, & Tourky, 2023) in which they emphasize even further that they only argue that guanxi-type relationships exist in the Middle East and not that guanxi itself exists.

Type
Dialogue, Debate, and Discussion
Information
Management and Organization Review , Volume 19 , Issue 5 , October 2023 , pp. 1039
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The International Association for Chinese Management Research

MOR's D3 section seeks to stimulate dialogue, debate, and discussion among scholars. When I took over as editor of D3, MOR's editorial team brainstormed how to further develop the D3 feature. We agreed that in addition to seeking original articles, we also wanted to encourage debate on articles that have already appeared in MOR. In this issue, we publish a commentary on Shaalan, Eid, and Tourky's (Reference Shaalan, Eid and Tourky2022) article ‘De-Linking from Western Epistemologies: Using Guanxi-Type Relationships to Attract and Retain Hotel Guests in the Middle East’. The commentary, entitled ‘Questioning the Appropriateness of Examining Guanxi in a Wasta Environment: Why Context Should Be Front and Center in Informal Network Research’, has been written by Horak, Abosag, Hutchings, Alsarhan, Ali, Al-Twal, Weir, ALHussan, and AL-Husan (Reference Horak, Abosag, Hutchings, Alsarhan, Ali, Al-Twal, Weir, ALHussan and AL-Husan2023). As their title suggests, the commentators take issue with transferring the concept of guanxi into an environment in which another idea about informal interpersonal networks, wasta, already exists. I sense that the desire to write a critical comment was fueled by the fact that Shaalan et al. (Reference Shaalan, Eid and Tourky2022) never referred to the concept of ‘wasta’ in their original article. We invited the authors of the original article to write a rejoinder (Shaalan, Eid, & Tourky, Reference Shaalan, Eid and Tourky2023) in which they emphasize even further that they only argue that guanxi-type relationships exist in the Middle East and not that guanxi itself exists.

In my view, at the heart of the disagreement between the two sets of authors is a different conception of the central aim of social sciences (Murmann, Reference Murmann2014). For Shaalan, Eid, and Tourky, it is to develop concepts that are as generalizable as possible across different countries and times. Hence, their desire to transfer an idea from China to the Middle East. For Horak et al. (2023), the aim is to develop concepts that may be less generalizable but can better explain behavior in a particular context. We thank both sets of authors for engaging in this debate and allowing us to show that MOR is committed to stimulating debates about articles already published in the journal.

References

Horak, S., Abosag, I., Hutchings, K., Alsarhan, F., Ali, S., Al-Twal, A., Weir, D., ALHussan, F.B., & AL-Husan, F.B. 2023. Questioning the appropriateness of examining guanxi in a wasta environment: Why context should be front and center in informal network research. Management and Organization Review, 19(5): 1040–1045.Google Scholar
Murmann, J. P. 2014. Reflections on choosing the appropriate level of abstraction in social science research. Management and Organization Review, 10: 381–389.Google Scholar
Shaalan, A., Eid, R., & Tourky, M. 2022. De-linking from western epistemologies: Using guanxi-type relationships to attract and retain hotel guests in the Middle East. Management and Organization Review, 18(5): 859–891.10.1017/mor.2021.21CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shaalan, A., Eid, R., & Tourky, M. 2023. A rejoinder to: ‘Questioning the appropriateness of examining guanxi in a wasta environment: Why context should be front and center in informal network research’. Management and Organization Review, 19(5): 1046–1048.Google Scholar