HI, prof. Qian, How to select and refine your research topic? Could you please tell me what you think about guanxi in chinese business transaction?  I consider that the interpersonal relationship system, the Guanxi system, is frequently used by the managerial team to solve problems, enlarge the business turnover, and search for outside resources.The Chinese market is getting bigger and bigger since China made his economic revolution and opened its door to the world in 1978. Today, China becomes the second largest economy in the world. Therefore, there are more and more researches from economic science, social science, management science to study the change of Chinese society which is interesting and important for the international business. In social science, the informal constraints or the informal system, such as Guanxi relationship in Chinese society, provides good explanations for how companies reduce the uncertainties in unsound market mechanism and how companies get success?We argue that the guanxinetworks ubiquitous to all areas of Chinese society provide a highly effective solution to the ordering problem faced by partners of corrupt businesses in so far as they are able to transform high-risk exchanges into self-implementing contracts. But what are guanxinetworks and how do they work?

支持一下钱老师。问题就不提了。09年上过您的《客户关系管理》的课程。

钱教授：您好！
请问：中国物流成本究竟多大？比如，集装箱运输的话，从重庆到上海的费用 == 从上海到旧金山的费用？

渴望您的解答，谢谢您。

钱老师：
      您好！感谢您百忙之中抽出宝贵时间为我们解答问题，我是一家销售公司人力资源部的，现在如果想给一线的销售管理人员培训市场营销知识，特别是市场分析策略工具的使用等等。目前的状况是他们一点市场营销基础知识都没有，那么应该从哪些点展开，更容易为他们搭建这个知识体系，或者更容易是他们了解和掌握营销学基础原理呢。谢谢您的指导！

Thanks for your problems. Guanxi is the hot topic in marketing and management area. I’ve agreed with you that Guanxi is important in Chinese business transaction. But unfortunately it lacks consistent definition and role of Guanxi in marketing and management area. I’ve agreed that Guanxi contains renqing, mianzi and affection, and explored its role in marketing channel. From the interview with mangers and empirical studies, Guanxi may not play an important role as we think. In more and more industries, marketing channel is mostly governed by contracts. Thus, we should rethink the effects of Guanxi on marketing channel. Please send me e-mail and we can discuss this topic deeply if you are interested in it.