Kinship-like Relationship and Organizational Crisis Management Ability Grounded in Chinese Local Culture: The Comprehensive Role of Employees’ Crisis Awareness and Organizational Citizenship Behavior

Abstract

In the era of self-media and mobile internet, very small incidents may lead to severe public opinion and crisis for organizations. Once the organizational crisis breaks out, its dissemination and destructiveness will bring great harm to the organization and society. Therefore, exploring the impact of kinship-like relationship based on Chinese local culture on the improvement of organizational crisis management ability and its internal mechanism and path can enrich the theoretical research on organizational crisis management in China and guide Chinese organizations to improve their crisis management ability. Compared with the instrumental trade contracts based on the principle of reciprocity in the West, kinship-like relationship rooted in traditional Chinese culture helps to improve organizational crisis management ability. Based on the local culture of China, 1226 sample data are collected from employees of organizations in China, which include employees’ crisis awareness and organizational citizenship behavior. This paper empirically tests the relationship between kinship-like relationship and the improvement of organizational crisis management ability, and analyzes and refines its internal path and mechanism. The results show that: （1） the cultivation of kinship-like exchange relationship contributes to the improvement of organizational crisis management ability, in which employees’ crisis awareness and organizational citizenship behavior play an important role; （2） compared with organizational citizenship behavior, employees’ crisis awareness plays a more significant role between kinship-like relationship and the improvement of organizational crisis management ability, and the kinship-like relationship between employees and organizations enhances organizations’ crisis management ability by enhancing employees’ crisis awareness; （3） kinship-like relationship promotes employees’ organizational citizenship behavior, thereby enhancing employees’ crisis awareness and organizations’ crisis management ability. Based on the above, combined with Chinese traditional culture, this paper puts forward some practical value enlightenment from three aspects: cultivating kinship-like exchange relationship between employees and organizations, stimulating organizational citizenship behavior, and cultivating employees’ sense of hardship. The main contributions of this paper are as follows: （1） Combining with Chinese culture, from the perspective of organizational culture and individual employee, this paper explores the mechanism of kinship-like relationship based on Chinese traditional culture to enhance organizational crisis management ability, so as to enrich the theoretical discussion of localized crisis management of Chinese organizations and enhance the adaptability of Western organizational crisis management theory into Chinese local organizations. （2） This paper combines Chinese local organizations with traditional culture, and embeds employees’ unique psychological, emotional and behavioral characteristics into management practice; it combines Western crisis management theory and practice with Chinese traditional culture, and directs localized management practice with the formation of organizational management situation; it also has practical value in management to improve China’s organizational crisis management and response ability.