Chinese Ingratiation

Ingratiation has been investigated from the Western perspective known as impression management perspective. However, ingratiation is culture-specific. Thus, the book argues that the impression management perspective does not capture the whole meanings and the essence of ingratiation in Chinese societies. In order to overcome the limitation in the literature, the book proposes a guanxi perspective to study Chinese ingratiation, because the guanxi perspective is a theoretical perspective developed to examine Chinese social behaviors. Its concepts, theories, and analyses are situated and embedded in Chinese sociocultural contexts. The high "indigenous compatibility" of the perspective provides a good theoretical framework in examining many Chinese social, psychological, and behavioral phenomena. On the basis of the guanxi perspective, the book conceptually and empirically analyzes Chinese ingratiation. The book suggests that ingratiation is a set of behaviors for developing and maintaining guanxi through renqing (Chinese concept of favor), mianzi (Chinese concept of face), and attraction in Chinese societies. Thus, Chinese ingratiation is regarded as guanxi management.