Enriching Social Network Theory with Theoretical Model of Confucian Five Virtues

Abstract

Comparing findings of empirical research on social networks of 700 Chinese entrepreneurs from three areas of Yangtze River Delta (Bart & Burzynska, 2017) with that of 2000 senior employees from six large American and European companies (Burt, 2005; Burt & Kilduff, 2013), their results elicited a core question awaiting for answer from international academic community: Is guanxi a phenomenon particular to Chinese or universal to every culture of the world? Luo (2017) tried to answer this question from the perspectives of mixed tie (Hwang, 1987), differentiated modes of association (Fei, 1992), particularism (Eisenstadt, 2000), family ethics orientation (Liang, 1963), and dynamic equilibrium between yin and yang (Li, 1998), but his answer is unsatisfactory yet.

Based on my epistemological strategy for constructing culture-inclusive theories, this article will reinterpret findings of empirical research by Bart and Burzynska (2017) and criticize the insufficiency of previous models in terms of a series of my theoretical models constructed for understanding Confucian Five Virtues.