Eastern and Western Forms of Social Capital and its Implications for Managing Diversity.

Abstract

Following the studies conducted predominantly by East Asian scholars, we rather observe social ties and networks being conceptualised; Guanxi (in China) as the most dominant research stream in the management literature; Inmaek and Yongo (in South Korea) or; Jinmyaku (in Japan). Our aim in this paper is to provide an expanded understanding of the impact of the concept of informal social networks on diversity management by applying the Syed and Özbilgin’s relational framework in the Eastern context. The contributions made by this study shed light on a central topic in the cross-cultural management literature, informal social ties and effective diversity management and fill major gaps within the two dominant views.