The role of guanxi in buyer–supplier relationships in Chinese small- and medium-sized enterprises – a resource-based perspective

This paper examines the role of guanxi (personal relationships or connections) in buyer–supplier relationships in Chinese small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), through exploratory research that gained access to companies actually using guanxi. The resource-based view provided a systematic approach for analysing the role of guanxi in terms of its potential to be a source of sustained competitive advantage. Business guanxi connections were identified as possessing the potential to be considered an organisational resource. This study identified several valuable attributes of guanxi at the organisational level. However, the guanxi-based advantage can only be sustained under certain conditions. SMEs should create an organisational environment that encourages their employees to actively establish and maintain guanxi connections within the company and beyond. However, companies in China need to recognise that firms that possess superior technological skills or capabilities have a stronger bargaining power, as they are able to deliver quality at competitive prices over the long run.     

Popweaver: a program for interpolation and visualization of census and other sparsely collected data

Demographic data is essential to inform socio-economic, epidemiological and other time series analyses. However, demographic data based on interpolations performed on census surveys spaced several years apart often bear severe quality problems, which propagate into studies that make use of those datasets. We present Popweaver, a user-friendly and free software that allows users to interpolate demographic data (stratified by age, geography, socio-economics, and other layers), visually inspect them, and generate ready-to-submit figures and three-dimensional spreadsheets with the results for further analyses. We illustrate the use of Popweaver with census data (1980, 1991, 2000, 2010) from Brazil, and its potential to reveal important demographic trends.