Abstract Recently, the management research field has conducted research on the concept of guanxi within Chinese context in depth, and guanxi is now known by foreign scholars. Through analyzing the present literature, this paper concludes that the concept of guanxi can be categorized as connectionism, networkism, behaviorism and market substitutionism; the evolution of guanxi research includes four stages: scanning the Chinese context in depth, establishing connections with western concepts, discussing the causal mechanism and searching for the antecedents. This paper also summarizes the measurement, consequence and antecedent variables of guanxi, guanxi as mediator and moderator in empirical studies, and the different perspectives on guanxi. In conclusions, the research gap and future research directions are proposed.
2016, Vol. 13 
