09 December 2025, Volume 13 Issue 6

    

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  The“Interest-Norm”Dual Game of Bottom-Line Exploration in Incomplete Contracts:Reflections on the Relationship between Multinational Corporations and Cross-Cultural Environments

  社会学评论. 2025, 13(6): 5-31.

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  This paper examines bottom-line exploration behavior during expost adjustments under incomplete contracts. Using an“interest-norm”dual game analytical framework, it investigates the mechanisms and strategies of contract participants who engage in game interactions under bounded rationality. Specifically, it explores how actors navigate scenarios where interests and norms are intertwined,leveraging signaling and strategic interactions to maximize cooperative gains. The
  study proposes that the respective bottom lines of cross-cultural contract participants are not common knowledge and are often subject to dynamic adjustments. Using a combination of sub-game models and field cases, the paper explores phenomena such as bottom-line breaches, differentiated bottom lines, and the transition among multiple bottom lines. It highlights the complexity of interactions and the importance of strategic choices in cross-cultural games. The research concludes that the dual game model has broad applicability to expost adjustments under incomplete contracts and offers theoretical insights for Chinese enterprises operating in complex overseas environments.
  
  
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  Acquaintance Markets: Trading Strategies and Risk Management of Tea Peddlers in Southern Sichuan

  社会学评论. 2025, 13(6): 32-51.

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  The transactional behaviors within the grassroots market are both market-driven and socially conditioned. This article, in combination with the case of tea purchasing in Hu Town, southern Sichuan Province, analyzes the transaction logics among different subjects within the market chain of“farmers-peddlers-tea factories”, and reveals how the grassroots market adapts to the open market system as an acquaintance market. Peddlers need to compete for the market scope through interpersonal interaction strategies, but this may soften the quality standards of transactions and clog the market chain. Consequently, they have to achieve risk control through flexible and open transaction strategies. It can be observed that the
  sociality of different links in the grassroots market chain varies, and forms different adaptive patterns with marketability. Only by balancing the relationship between sociality and marketability based on transaction scenarios can the elasticity of the market chain be maintained, and subsequently, a flexible and inclusive transaction order be constructed in the open market to adapt to the gradual changes in the production and life order of farmers.
  
  
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  Intergenerational Heterogeneity of Labor Force: Revisiting the Social Foundation of County Industrial Development

  社会学评论. 2025, 13(6): 52-71.

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  Existing research emphasizes the importance of social foundations for understanding regional development, yet it primarily focuses on abstract dimension such as values and ethics, with insufficient analysis of their structural characteristics. This paper takes the development disparities between local and introduced industries in Shuxi County as a starting point, focusing on the specific characteristics of the county-level labor structure to explore the intrinsic relationship between labor

  attitudes and labor structure. The study finds that Shuxi County exhibits a dual industrial structure. Although local and introduced industries operate within the same county-level labor market, they differ significantly in terms of labor adaptation.Specifically, the accessibility and stability of child-generation, parent-generation,and grandparent-generation labor from the local population demonstrate inter⁃generational heterogeneity in relation to the two types of industries. The formation of this characteristic is closely linked to Shuxi County’s historical industrial development path and the family life cycles of rural households. Through an in-depth examination of the county’s labor structure characteristics, this study reveals an important dimension of the social foundations in central and western Chinese counties, thereby helping to clarify the difficulties, challenges, and potential pathways for county-level industrial development.

  
  

  
  
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  Sympathy from Culture Relationality:Cultural Elements, Cultural Resonance, and the Intention of Charitable Giving

  社会学评论. 2025, 13(6): 72-90.

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  This study examines how culture impacts people’s intention of charitable giving from the perspective of cultural relationality. Using the survey experiment design, the study discovers two co-existing mechanisms. Firstly, particular cultural elements directly affect people’s intention of charitable giving. Second, these cultural elements can boost donor intention by enhancing their perception of cultural resonance with recipients. The latter mechanism is much stronger. The perception

  of cultural resonance is found to be contextualized, whereas its impact on the intention of charitable giving is stable and inalterable by donors’social roles. The impact of culture on sympathy can be explained as the cultural identity inproves the beneficence. The findings suggest that the energy of charitable giving in China can be further released by promoting cultural connectedness between potential donors and recipients.

  
  
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  Cultural Explanation of Corporate Philanthropy:The Case of Chinese Merchant Guild Culture and Private Enterprise Donations

  社会学评论. 2025, 13(6): 91-110.

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  This study establishes its foundation on four core dimensions—the view of righteousness and benefit, trust, entrepreneurial risk-taking propensity, and government-business culture—and attempts to construct a cultural explanatory framework for corporate philanthropy. Leveraging this framework and the survey data of Chinese private enterprises in 2014, this study examines how the culture of merchant guild influences the charitable donations of private enterprises. The key findings of the study are as follows: First, the overall traditional merchant guild culture exerts a significant positive driving effect on the private enterprise donation.Second, among the subdivided dimensions of merchant guild culture, enterprises affiliated with kinship-based merchant guilds donate more than those associated with geographically-based merchant guilds; meanwhile, enterprises rooted in riskpreferring merchant guilds donate more than those in risk-averse merchant guilds.Third, the positive effect of political connections on corporate donations does not exhibit significant differences due to variations in the government-business cultural attributes of different merchant guilds. This study reveals the positiveeffects of the strong relational trust culture of China’s merchant guilds, which differs significantly from that within the Western culture, and further highlights the institutional and cultural advantages that motivate private enterprise philanthropy.
  
  
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  The Mismatch of Livelihood and Ethics:The Construction of the Professional Role of Rural Doctors

  社会学评论. 2025, 13(6): 111-129.

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  The governance logic of the rural medical system has continuously evolved, leading to changes in the professional role of rural doctors. Contemporary rural doctors now function as market entities with professional autonomy. They have been assigned the responsibility of serving as health “gatekeepers” in the restructuring of the primary healthcare system. Thus, in the transition from a rural-based to an urban-rural China, they face complex doctor-patient dynamics. These multifaceted shifts have placed rural doctors in a professional dilemma. Using a county in Jiangxi Province as a case study, this paper explores potential solutions to their professional challenges. The findings reveal that, within a semi-administrative institutional framework, a constrained marketized environment,and a fluid rural society, rural doctors’livelihood strategies and professional ethics have become mutually mismatched, creating inherent role tensions. Therefore, it is imperative to realign the public welfare objectives and sustainability mechanisms of the rural medical system in the process of Chinese mordernization, enabling rural doctors to reconcile personal and collective interests, thereby fostering a coherent
  professional identity.
  
  
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  Does Social Capital Promote Corporate Social Responsibility in China’s Private Sector? Evidence from the 2008 to 2018 China Private Enterprise Survey

  社会学评论. 2025, 13(6): 130-151.

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  Using data from the 2008 to 2018 China Private Enterprise Survey, this article examines how corporate social capital influences corporate social responsibility（CSR) in China’s private sector. Social capital has a positive impact on CSR.
  Distinguishing between potential social capital and mobilized social capital, the analysis demonstrates that the CSR-enhancing effect of mobilized social capital is substantially stronger. Market rationality moderates this effect: the effect weakens as firm size increases but intensifies over time as China’s market institutions mature.By applying a social capital lens, this study proposes a new framework for understanding CSR in transitional economies and provides empirical insights into thepromotion of responsible business practices in China.
  
  
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  The Cultivation Dilemmas and Practical Paths of Elderly Social Capital in Depopulated Border Villages: Based on Field Research in Town An, Jilin Province

  社会学评论. 2025, 13(6): 152-167.

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  The issue of sparse population in border villages means that due to the continuous loss of rural residents, the social life, production, public aspects, and cultural values in these villages are declining systematically. This paper analyzes the practice of cultivating elderly social capital in Town An from the perspective of neo-endogenous development theory. It summarizes the manifestations of depopulation and public crisis in border villages in Northeast China.The study finds that the main challenges faced by depopulated border villages currently include disordered resource integration, misalignment of governance subjects, and atomization of the governance field. Efforts such as empowering through characteristic resources,
  reconstructing social organizations, and rebuilding social identity can effectively unleash the efficacy of the left-behind elderly as the main actors in rural revitalization. This study can serve as a new case for social governance and a theoretical
  and practical path for the integrated development of internal and external resources in depopulated border villages.
  
  
  
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  Urban-Rurality：Exploring the Mental Order of Urban-Rural Integrating Society

  社会学评论. 2025, 13(6): 168-187.

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  This paper, drawing on Fei Xiaotong’s theory of urban-rural mental order,proposes the concept of“urban-rurality”to depict the ideal mental order generated through the adaptation within the integrated urban-rural society, aiming to resolve the dualistic structure between“modernity-urbanity”and“tradition-rurality”. Studies have found that in traditional China, cities and rural areas maintained a continuous and unified relationship, which was reflected at the mental level in shared local views, life outlooks, and worldviews among urban and rural residents. These corresponded to the integration of urban and rural areas, family and career, and humanity and nature respectively. These three dimensions have both inherited and transformed in the current process of urban-rural integration, collectively constituting the historical foundation and practical form of the new-era mental order.
  
  
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  Negotiating Intrinsic and Instrumental Value:The Mothering and Educational Strategies of Migrant Mothers in Dali

  社会学评论. 2025, 13(6): 188-207.

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  Focusing on mothers who have moved from metropolitan areas to Dali with their children, this study explores their strategic responses to widespread educational anxiety. These mothers enroll their children in innovative schools that advocate“holistic education”, emphasizing early childhood well-being, while simultaneously preserving options to reintegrate into the mainstream education system through home tutoring, international education, or talent development. This dual strategy balances the intrinsic and instrumental values of education. In this model, schools assume an extended maternal role in intrinsic upbringing, freeing mothers to leverage their strengths in co-creating the educational community. Such intensive maternal practices reshape how educational responsibility is divided across family, school, and community.However, the feasibility of this model depends on the mothers’disposable time, material resources, and social resources.
  
  
  
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  Stratification Beliefs and Youth Social Mentality:A Latent Profile Analysis of the Recent Social Attitudes Data

  社会学评论. 2025, 13(6): 208-227.

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  Drawing on the latest wave of the Social Attitudes Questionnaire of Urban and Rural Residents（2024）, this study employs latent profile analysis（LPA） to examine the multidimensional nature of stratification beliefs among young people.The findings identify four distinct belief patterns: strongly dual beliefs（45%）,moderately dual beliefs（35%）, predominantly meritocratic beliefs（16%）, and predominantly structural beliefs（4%）. Specifically, respondents holding dual beliefs
  recognize meritocratic（e. g., effort, ability）and structural factors（e. g., family background, social connections）as equally important for economic success. In contrast, respondents adhering to predominantly meritocratic beliefs emphasize the
  decisive role of meritocratic factors, whereas those with predominantly structural beliefs attribute economic success mainly to structural factors. Further analysis reveals that socioeconomic status significantly shapes belief patterns. Moreover, youth with different stratification beliefs exhibit systematic variations in their attitudes toward social economic development and other factors, with those holding predominantly structural beliefs expressing substantially more pessimistic views. These findings highlight the diverse ways in which young people perceive the social stratification system, providing fresh insights into the broader social mindset.
  
  
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  Rethinking the Fieldwork in Beizhen

  社会学评论. 2025, 13(6): 228-252.

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  This paper reviews the fieldwork conducted in Beizhen over three decades ago and its key findings. From the perspective of economic sociology, it re-analyzes the origins and structures of local specialized luggage and bag markets, the institutional arrangements of“household factories”, the behavioral logic of “household workers”, and the role of the local government. Additionally, it points out the limitations of the original fieldwork and potential directions for further research. In the conclusion section, the paper discusses two approaches in economic sociology, the criteria for evaluating fieldwork data, the necessity of revisiting the research site, and the significance of theoretical reconstruction.