【正确答案】 C

【答案解析】[解析] 23-30
Woman: Most managers understand at some level the wisdom of the saying, "It's not what you know; it's who you know." Indeed, building the right professional relationships is critical for business success. In China, relationships are even more important to getting business done. The Chinese have a term for these relationships: guanxi. Today, we have Andy Lau, a Professor in the Organizational Behavior Unit at the Hong Kong University, to tell us about the differences between American and Chinese managers.
Man: Thank you, Juliet.
Woman: How did you go about studying American and Chinese managers' networks? Man: Along with my collaborators, professors Tony Leung and Oliver Stone at Columbia Business School, we surveyed Executive MBA students in Beijing, Shanghai, and New York, asking them detailed questions about their professional networks. We first asked these executives to identify individuals they considered to be important to their career and then reported whether they relied on those people for economic resources, emotional support, career guidance, or task advice.
Woman: What else is interesting in your survey?
Man: The people we surveyed also indicated two kinds of trust—affect- and cognition-based trust.
Woman: Tell us more about them.
Man: Trust is a state of mind toward another person that can arise through distinct psychological processes. Cognition-based trust refers to trust "from the head"—it's a judgment based on evidence that you ought to trust this person because, he or she is competent and reliable. Woman: What's the difference between affect- and cognition-based trusts?
Man: In contrast, affect-based trust refers to trust from the heart, a bond that arises from one's own emotions and a sense of other person's feelings and motives.
Woman: Why is it useful to distinguish between these two types of trust?
Man: Because research has found that they can actually lead to different outcomes. In earlier research, higher affect-based trust toward one's team member generally leads to greater contribution to the team. However, when cognition-based trust is high, people start to believe that they can rely on their teammates to get work done, and actually stop working hard. By differentiating these two types of trust, we can also have a better view on how trust is built in business relationships.
Woman: From your research, what are some of the key differences between Chinese and American managers' professional networks? Man. The central finding from my research is that affect- and cognition-based trusts are more tangled for Chinese managers than for American managers. The people that Chinese managers trust with their heads are likely to be the same people they trust with their hearts. By contrast, American managers divide their relationships more clearly. They tend to have cognition-based trust in one group of network contacts and affect-based trust in a separate group.
Woman: We Americans, would limit our emotional connections with those on whom we depend for economic resources. Is this true for Chinese also?
Man: No, the opposite. In China, business contacts often interact very much like they would do within their own family. People who provide economic assistance are actually treated like family. So, for Chinese managers, the presence of economic dependence in a relationship would increase affect-based trust.
Woman: While American managers prefer to separate work and personal relationships, Chinese counterparts are much more likely to inter-mingle the two. Man. Right. Furthermore, Chinese people tend to draw on their social networks to accomplish tasks and solve problems. They pay close attention to indirect ties—their associates' connections to third parties. In other words, Chinese managers cultivate ties not only toward associates with the expertise or resources they need, but also toward those who are connected to these individuals.
Woman: What are some practical implications of your research for managers who want to build business relationships in China?
Man: In Chinese societies, social and emotional relationships are usually not clearly separated from business ones. Thus, it is neither uncommon nor inappropriate to get business done through personal relationships.
Woman: We now know that the ability to understand the cultural differences in how managers trust their business associates and colleagues is critical for business success in China. Mr. Lau, thank you very much indeed.