Paper info

Relationships compatibility in interactions between Mainland Chinese, Hong Kong Chinese and Western Actors

Michael Trimarchi

The paper was published at the 18th IMP-conference in Perth, Australia in 2002.

There exists a paucity of empirical research that focuses on focal business networkinteractions that take place within the Hong Kong business environment. In an earlierstudy that included 10 interviews with Hong Kong Chinese traders, compatibility wasidentified as an important factor for the study of interactions between Mainland Chinese,Hong Kong Chinese and Western actors (Trimarchi, 1997, 2002). In this paper, anIndustrial Marketing and Purchasing (IMP) approach is utilised to develop a compatibilityconstruct to study triadic business interactions between Hong Kong Chinese intermediariesand Mainland Chinese sellers and buyers from the West. The study utilises a qualitativemethodology and includes the analysis of data across 23 in-depth case interviews. Casestudy respondents included a rich cross section of Hong Kong Chinese, Mainland Chineseand Western actors. The results identify that even when continuity tends to be high inrelationships between Hong Kong intermediaries and Mainland sellers, the existence ofongoing distance and competence problems tends to provide for low compatibility,negating the prospects for relationships development. On the other hand, in interactionsbetween buyers from the West and Hong Kong intermediaries, it was found that highcompatibility factors provide support for the notion that it may not be difficult forWesterners to develop quality business relationships with the Hong Kong Chinese.