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How can an indigenous concept enter the international academic circle: the case of guanxi

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Abstract

As an indigenous concept of China, guanxi has gained broad acceptance by the west without further translation or interpretation during the past 30 years, which is a fascinating topic to investigate. In order to discover the dissemination mechanism of the concept of guanxi, this study employs co-citation analysis and citation analysis to visualize the intellectual base and the evolution of guanxi studies; also it pinpoints the most productive authors, institutions and journals. The findings may provide some guidance for the scientific knowledge dissemination.

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Acknowledgments

This paper is sponsored by The National Science Foundation of China (71428005, 71372124) and The National Social Science Foundation of China (10&ZD136). The authors are grateful for the invaluable comments and advice of Haibin Yang from City University of Hongkong, and Jun Xia from The University of Texas at Dallas.

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  1. School of Economics and Management, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China

    Linqing Liu & Shiye Mei

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  1. Linqing Liu
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Correspondence to Shiye Mei.

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Liu, L., Mei, S. How can an indigenous concept enter the international academic circle: the case of guanxi . Scientometrics 105, 645–663 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-015-1687-2

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