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nd 1980s, most of the academic scholars explained what guanxi is in sociological perspective (Hwang, 1987). In early 1990s, guanxi had been theorized in business practice, and specifically on examining the benefit and cost of using guanxi, and how guanxi operates (Fock & Woo, 1998; Peng, 1997; Tsang, 1998; Yeung & Tung, 1996). Until recently, there are only a few academic researches that had explored the relationship between guanxi and a firm's performance (Xin & Pearce, 1996; Peng & Luo, 2000; Park & Luo, 2001; Luo, 2003). But to date, none of the empirical work had analyzed the dynamic interaction of guanxi usage or explained the full power of guanxi networking in an organizational or industrial level.
Taking on these challenges, my aim is to fill in the research gap in which to analyze how the dynamic effect of strategic guanxi networking usage explains China's golf clubs' dramatic growth. At the end of this study, I would like to make the phenomenon more understandable for both the academia, and foreign investors who are planning to establish businesses in China.

2. CONCEPTUAL BACKGROUND AND RELATED PERSPECTIVES
Guanxi (personal relationship) network has always been the most important element when someone does business in China, and this can be captured by Yeung & Tung's article in 1996, "In Chinese societies... Who you know is more important than what you know'. Before we proceed with our analysis to examine how guanxi networking links to the dramatic growth of China's golf clubs, it is necessary to understand what guanxi is and how guanxi arises. In this case, the prevailing ideology is: 'Confucianism' (Hwang, 1987; Redding, 1993; Yang, 1994). Since guanxi is the most fundamental element that characterizes one's degree of closeness to others, we conceptualize guanxi and explain how an individual can break it through to build a tighter guanxi and expand his/her guanxi network by exercising some necessities. In order to effectively accelerate guanxi network and decelerate the risk of losing status, properties of guanxi must not be neglected.
2.1. DEFINITION OF GUANXI
Guanxi translates as 'personal relationship' or 'connection', which has been ubiquitous in Chinese daily life for more than 2500 years (Hwang, 1987; Yang, 1994). It is generally believed that guanxi is like tree roots that are deeply planted under the soil because it is the lifeblood of Chinese personal relationship (Xin & Pearce, 1996). Every Chinese has faced guanxi inevitably, because it exists everywhere in Chinese daily social, commercial and personal interactions.
In academic literatures, relevant definitions on guanxi have been mentioned. Sociological studies refer guanxi to the quality of the relationship as well as characteristics of the relationship itself (Jacob, 1980). Business perspective suggests that guanxi is the concept of drawing on connections in order to secure favors in personal relations, which helps to meet their organization needs and desires of everyday business interactions (Luo, 2000). In this study, I combine both the sociology and business literatures, and define guanxi as 'the existence of (in)direct particularistic interpersonal linkages between two or more individuals in order to secure their inside network(s) for continuous exchange of favors to meet their personal and organization needs' (Hwang, 1987; Jacob, 1980; Luo, 2000; Xin & Pearce, 1996