Abstract
This research synthesizes social exchange, organizational culture, and social identity theories to explore the boundary conditions of the relationship between high-performance work systems and employee organizational citizenship behavior. In particular, it draws on the China-specific management context. In this country, in spite of the wide use of a long-term-oriented and loose-control-focused Western-styled strategic human resource management (HRM) model, a short-term-focused and tight-control-oriented error aversion culture is still popular. The study uses multi-source individual-level survey data in a large state-owned enterprise to test the hypotheses. It is found that employee-experienced, Western-styled high-performance work systems positively impact a China-specific employee’s organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), and the—joint—moderation effects of employee-perceived error aversion culture and organizational identification are significant. The research findings deepen the understanding of the HRM-OCB relationship by demonstrating that culture and identity can jointly adjust the effects of HRM on OCB. The findings also challenge an established argument in the HRM-OCB literature that compatibility between employees’ personalities and organizational values – organizational identification – can enhance OCB.
Highlights
Organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) refers to “individual behavior that is discretionary, not directly or explicitly recognized by the formal reward system, and in the aggregate promotes the efficient and effective functioning of the organization” (Organ et al, 2006, p. 3)
We focus on the interpersonal harmony dimension of organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), because it is strongly emphasized in Chinese culture (Yang, 1993), and because it is regulated by culture where employees perform it without using their personal discretion
We propose that: Hypothesis 3: Perceived error aversion culture, and organizational identification will jointly moderate the relationship between employee-experienced high-performance work systems (HPWS) and OCB, such that the relationship will be the strongest when perceived error aversion culture and organizational identification are both low
Summary
Organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) refers to “individual behavior that is discretionary, not directly or explicitly recognized by the formal reward system, and in the aggregate promotes the efficient and effective functioning of the organization” (Organ et al, 2006, p. 3). Boundary Conditions of HPWS-OCB Relationship environment (Organ et al, 2006; Podsakoff et al, 2009), such as China (Sun et al, 2007; Zhang et al, 2014; Newman et al, 2015). There is an overreliance on the use of social exchange theory and overlooking boundary conditions when studying the HRM-OCB relationship (Zellars and Tepper, 2003; Snape and Redman, 2010). These two theoretical limitations are interrelated, and call for the exploration of the boundary effects of HRM-OCB relationship from multiple theoretical perspectives. Our main purpose is to explore the HRM-OCB relationship from an interactionist approach of three frequently used perspectives in HRM performance and employee behavior literature, including social exchange, organizational culture, and social identity theories
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