Is it about individual moral integrity or maybe it refers to the unspoken rules of the society, or is it something else altogether? Are there different interpretations of the concept in Karhide than in Orgoreyn?
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I have two ways to answer this:
First in universe - Genly Ai is trying to understand the society of Gethen, and some concepts are alien to him. He connects this to the Earth concepts of "Face" and "Honor". A similar thing happens when translating the German work "Gemütlichkeit" into English. No single word works well, we need a collection of words to get the idea across. You can find many words like this in most languages all over the world.
Second out of universe - I think LeGuin is a master at using anthropological concepts in Sci-Fi. She wants us to feel disoriented at a term and concept that we don't commonly use. These kinds of terms often seem to have different values when talking to different people in the same culture. The people in the culture don't see it that way, and are bewildered by our apparent confusion.
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"These kinds of terms often seem to have different values when talking to different people in the same culture." - i see youre not a fan of jung's collective conscious idea :) i myself thought the word is closest to the ancient greek 'arete' despite LeGuins enthusiasm dabbing in chinese philosophy– user68762Commented Jul 16, 2017 at 16:03
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1LeGuin wrote the story during a time when American society was going through many interesting changes. I'm sure if we asked her directly (which she often answers, look her up) she would have many layers of answers and links to multiple psychological and philosophical concepts.– SteveEDCommented Jul 16, 2017 at 16:36
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@SteveED It's not appropriate on StackOverflow to merely link to an answer. meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/289527/… The website you link to could change or be deleted. Please replace the link to shiftgrethor with a description of it. Thanks. :-)– RichSCommented Jul 16, 2017 at 16:55
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@SteveED that might prove interesting tho i am less curious about authorial intent than the interpretation of the readers– user68762Commented Jul 16, 2017 at 17:08
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@R.Skeeter - On this site, people more often take the opposite view. ;) As for myself, I view books as a form of communication, and as such, while both the author's perspective and those of the reader matter, I place more weight on that of the author.– AdamantCommented Jul 16, 2017 at 21:18