An HR Recipe to "exploit" Human Resources??


Someone sent me an HBR article "Good Guanxi Turns Bad" which describes how the Guanxi (Chinese tradition of doing business through personal connections) can be antithetical to Western firms' aims of doing business in China.

What struck me was the recipe (of manipulation/ exploitation?), which the author offered in the article:

To quote from the article:

- "shift the emphasis of business from relationships to transactions"

- "depersonalize sales and procurement process by instituting a team-based approach"

- "reduce the chance that their connections would be used against the company"

- "capitalize on the unique loyalty-building quality of kinship-type relationship."

...and all this under the guise of "companies must bring transparency to existing relationships, prevent conflict of interests from developing, and align employees' interests with their own."