Accomplishments

HKBU scholar wins Emerald Citation of Excellence

Dr. Kineta Hung, Associate Professor of Communication Studies of the School of Communication, was recently recognised in the Emerald Citation of Excellence Awards for 2012 organised by Emerald Group Publishing Limited for her co-authored paper "When does guanxi matter? Issues of capitalization and its dark sides". The paper, which appeared in Journal of Marketing in 2008, was chosen as one of the top 50 articles with proven impact published in the top 300 management journals in the world.

"I am honoured to receive the award and am glad that readers find the efforts of this interdisciplinary research useful in their own work," said Dr. Hung. The paper was written with scholars from The Hong Kong Polytechnic University and The University of Hong Kong.

The award-winning paper examined the influence of guanxi (interpersonal relationships for organisational purposes) on firms' marketing competence and performance in China by interviewing senior executives in 282 Chinese business units across 48 categories of consumer products.

Research findings showed that guanxi was flourishing and had significantly impacted brand market share and sales growth. Guanxi influenced brand performance via channel capability (efficient/effective product delivery) and responsive capability (flexible response to environmental changes), and guanxi could build firm competences. But guanxi could also have negative effects through required reciprocal obligations, and could induce collective blindness.

She research also showed that guanxi still operated in China and needed to be fully understood if it was to be employed to benefit firm performance. The researchers suggested that Chinese managers should understandguanxi as a culture-based governance structure that could be capitalised to their firms' benefit, but which also had potential negative effects. 

	Dr. Kineta Hung's paper on guanxi won her an Emerald Citation of Excellence