Chinese Organizational Context Research Articles

Role of social media to improve job performance with mediating role of transactive memory capability and employee creativity.

The increased usage of social media in organizational settings has raised questions about its effect on job performance. This study explains the interplay between social media usage, transactive memory capability, employee creativity, and job performance within the Chinese organizational context. The rationale for this study stems from the need to understand how social media usage can enhance job performance through cognitive and creative processes within teams. On the basis of earlier literature, the survey questionnaire was designed to collect data and the survey included validated scales to measure these constructs. The data is collected from 816 employees in China via online resources like social media and emails and then Structural Equation Modeling is used for empirical analysis through AMOS software. The findings show the positive impact of social media on job performance while transactive memory capability and employee creativity mediates this relationship. These findings contribute to a better understanding of how social media can be leveraged to improve job performance. Practical implications highlight the importance of fostering transactive memory capability through social media platforms, facilitating employee creativity, and ultimately, bolstering job performance. Additionally, this study underscores the need for organizations to strategically harness the potential of social media as a catalyst for innovation and knowledge sharing, thus optimizing workforce performance in the digital era.

Government Expenditure and Nonprofit Sector Size: Testing Boundary Conditions for Theories of Government–Nonprofit Relationships With Evidence From Chinese Environmental NGOs

This study explores boundary conditions for the two competing models—supplementary and complementary models—of government–nonprofit relationships within the context of Chinese environmental nongovernmental organizations (eNGOs). Analyses of 8 years of panel data and in-depth interviews reveal the following: First, while the complementary model effectively explains the relationship between government and environmental government-organized NGOs (eGONGOs), the sector size association between the government and civic eNGOs displays a pattern that combines supplementary and complementary models. Second, when predicting the sector size association between the government and civic eNGOs, the complementary model prevails when the government size is small while the supplementary model dominates when the government is large. Third, the complementary relationship persists for a longer duration under certain policy contexts, particularly in cases where direct registration policies are implemented. This study contributes to the literature by complementing recent endeavors to explore potential moderating or mediating effects of government–nonprofit relationship models.

Linking paternalistic leadership to employee creativity: a meaning-based perspective

PurposeIntegrating the pathway model of meaningful work and the intrinsic motivation principle of creativity, the authors investigate why, when and how paternalistic leadership relates to employee creativity in the Chinese organizational context. The authors suggest that the meaning of work (MOW) mediates the relationship between paternalistic leadership and employee creativity. The authors further identify perspective taking as a moderator in the mediated relationship for the path from MOW to creativity.Design/methodology/approachThe authors relied on a sample of 340 employee-supervisor dyads collected from multiple organizations located in Eastern China to test the study hypotheses.FindingsResults indicated that MOW mediated the positive relationships between the benevolence and morality dimensions of paternalistic leadership and employee creativity, and the negative relationship between the authoritarianism dimension of paternalistic leadership and employee creativity. Further, the indirect relationships between the three dimensions of paternalistic leadership (i.e. authoritarianism, benevolence and morality) and employee creativity through MOW were more pronounced when perspective taking was higher rather than lower.Originality/valueThrough a meaning-based perspective, the authors demonstrate that a culture-specific managerial philosophy (i.e. paternalistic leadership) shapes Chinese employees' perceptions of meaningful work and their subsequent creative performance. This paper complements the dominant focus on Western leadership in the creativity literature and denotes that paternalistic leadership matters for employee creativity in Chinese organizations.

Exploring the Role of Shared Leadership on Job Performance in IT Industries: Testing the Moderated Mediation Model

Shared leadership, unlike the traditional perspective, is characterized by the fact that organizational members constitute the source of its leadership. In fact, there is a lack of research on how shared leadership improves performance among small- and medium-sized enterprises in China. In particular, in the Chinese organizational context with a strong collectivist culture, sharing and cooperation among organizational members can have a great positive impact on the sustainability of small- and medium-sized enterprises. Therefore, this study focused on shared leadership on job performance, unlike traditional leadership. According to the research background, it showed the need for research on the link between shared leadership and job performance and presented the moderated mediation effect of self-efficacy in the Chinese organizational context. In order to verify our purpose, a survey was conducted with 320 employees from small- and medium-sized IT enterprises in China. The results indicated that shared leadership positively influenced job performance via psychological stability. Additionally, the moderated mediation effect of self-efficacy was significant. Based on these results, this study suggested ways to improve job performance, verified related research models, and presented future research directions for job performance enhancement. Overall, this research contributed to expanding the research field of shared leadership via its role and influence in various industrial fields.

Can work still be crafted under authority? A study of the differential effect of employee regulatory focus on job crafting

In the digital era, job crafting is critical. However, limited studies concern the antecedent mechanisms of job crafting in the Chinese organizational context. Accordingly, from the perspective of power distance (one important variable of organizational values in China context), this study explores the mechanisms underlying the differentiation between the regulatory focus and employees’ job crafting to address this important gap. The empirical study confirms that two dimensions of regulatory focus have opposite effects on employees’ job crafting. Psychological empowerment mediates the relationship between regulatory focus and job crafting. In addition, power distance moderates the relationship between regulatory focus and psychological empowerment, and reflects very different utilities between promotion and prevention focus. Power distance further moderates the mediating process of this study's model. These findings fill the gap in exploring the direct and indirect mechanisms between regulatory focus and job crafting from a two-dimensional complete perspective, recognizing the role of psychological empowerment between personal preferences and job crafting, meanwhile, help organizations with a better understanding of the moderation effect of power distance and guidance for managers to inspire employees to job crafting.

Development and validation of employee safety voice scale in the Chinese organizational context

AbstractSafety voice helps organizations to identify safety issues timely and is critical to the long-term growth of the organization. Safety voice has become a hot research topic in organizational safety, and different scales have been developed. However, the unique cultural context in China has led to the need to redevelop safety voice measurement tools. In this paper, we developed an initial scale of safety voice for employees in Chinese organizational contexts fusing in-depth interviews and mature scales. The initial scale based on two samples (n1 = 205,n2 = 420) was revised and validated using item analysis, exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, and reliability analysis to finalize the final scale. We finally found that the safety voice scale in Chinese organizational contexts contains two dimensions: promotive safety voice and prohibitive safety voice. The scale developed in this paper is a reliable tool to measure safety voice behavior of Chinese employees.

Managing Diversity in the Chinese Organizational Context: The Impact of Workforce Diversity Management on Employee Job Performance.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of workforce diversity management on employee job performance in the Chinese organizational context, considering the mediating effect of person-job match and employee commitment and the moderating effect of structural empowerment. Data were collected from 400 telecommunication sector employees in China. All hypotheses were tested through structural equation modeling (SEM). The findings of the study illustrated that workforce diversity management has a positive and significant impact on employee job performance. Furthermore, the results indicated that person-job match and employee commitment partially mediate the relationship between workforce diversity management and employee job performance. Moreover, structural empowerment directly affects employee job performance, whereas a moderating effect is also found in the relationship between workforce diversity management and employee job performance. Finally, implications and limitations are discussed.

Organizational identification perceptions and millennials' creativity: testing the mediating role of work engagement and the moderating role of work values

PurposeMillennial-generation employees need to stimulate their creativity to produce innovative ideas, services and products for organizations to flourish and succeed. The main purpose of this research was to discover the mechanism through which organization identification influences employees' creativity in the Chinese organizational context. Particularly, we proposed the mediating role of work engagement and the moderating role of work values in the relationship.Design/methodology/approachA questionnaire survey was utilized to collect the data from 281 employees working in China. Hierarchical regression was utilized to analyze the data.FindingsThe findings reveal that organizational identification significantly influences the creativity of millennial employees; work engagement plays a positive mediating role between organizational identification and employee creativity. Moreover, work values of millennial generation employees, specifically utilitarian orientation, intrinsic preferences, interpersonal harmony and innovation orientation have a positive moderating effect between work engagement and employee creativity.Originality/valueThis study recognizes and analyzes the mechanism underlying the influence of organizational identification and recommends that work engagement is a crucial mediator of the complicated relationship between organizational identification and employee creativity. Consequently, this study is the key effort for millennial employees’ work values and engagement to explore employee creativity in Chinese cultural context and also suggests important theoretical and practical implications.

Managerial Pro-Social Rule Breaking in the Chinese Organizational Context: Conceptualization, Scale Development, and Double-Edged Sword Effect on Employees’ Sustainable Organizational Identification

Managerial Pro-Social Rule Breaking (MPSRB) is a prevalent leadership behavior in China, characterized by conflict between favor and rule. Despite emerging interest in this behavior, two theoretical questions remain unsolved. First, its definition, dimensions, and measurement in the Chinese context are still lacking or improper; second, its double-edged sword effect on employees’ attitude is rarely empirically examined. This paper conducts three studies to solve these questions. In study 1, based on an analysis of the Chinese traditional culture, three dimensions of MPSRB (i.e., benevolence-based, pragmatic-based, and justice-based) were identified. In study 2, a scale of MPSRB containing 12 items was developed through an interview, preliminary, and formal questionnaire survey. In study 3, employees’ sustainable organizational identification perception (SOIDP) was studied as the dependent variable, to analyze and verify the double-edged sword effect of MPSRB by hierarchical regression and structural equation modeling (SEM) methods on the data gathered through the three stages from 380 employees. The results show that the three dimensions of MPSRB have a direct positive impact on employees’ SOIDP and, simultaneously, they have an indirect negative impact through the mediating role of procedural justice perception.

Psychometric Properties and Criterion Validity of STEU-B and STEM-B in Chinese Context.

Emotional intelligence (EI) has attracted increasing attention in organizational psychology. The aim of this study was to test the applicability of two performance-based emotional intelligence tests developed in western countries, namely, the brief versions of the Situational Test of Emotional Understanding (STEU-B) and the Situational Test of Emotional Management (STEM-B), in a sample of 904 Chinese employees. Specifically, item response theory (IRT) analyses were conducted. The item parameters along with the item and test information functions of the Chinese versions of the STEU-B and STEM-B were estimated. Moreover, the associations between the STEU-B and STEM-B scores and several work-related variables were examined. The results showed that the STEU-B and STEM-B had acceptable internal consistencies, and similar mean proportions of correct responses, item parameters, item information functions, and test information functions in China, as reported in previous studies. Furthermore, the scores were found to be related to the employees’ psychological strain, job-related affect, job satisfaction, and supervisor-rated job performance in a theoretically hypothesized manner. These findings suggested that the STEU-B and STEM-B might be useful measurements in future EI studies in the Chinese organizational context.

Influence of Transformational Leadership on Employees’ Innovative Work Behavior in Sustainable Organizations: Test of Mediation and Moderation Processes

The main objective of this research was to examine how transformational leaders boost their followers’ innovative work behavior through trust in a leader, empowerment, and work engagement. Data were collected from 281 multinational organization employees in China. The Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) macro process was utilized to test the proposed hypothesis. The findings revealed that transformational leadership and work engagement were significantly related to innovative work behavior. The findings also demonstrated the significant impact of transformational leadership on trust in a leader, and its subsequent positive impact on the work engagement of the employees. Furthermore, the results supported a significant serial mediation between transformational leadership, trust, work engagement, and employees’ innovative behavior. The results also showed a significant moderating effect of empowerment on transformational leadership and innovative work behavior. For boosting employees’ innovative work behavior, leaders in the organization should strive to engage them effectively in their work by gaining their trust, which could help them participate in creative activities. This is the key study to investigate the different perspectives of how transformational leadership can stimulate followers’ innovative behavior through trust in the leader and work engagement within the Chinese organizational context.

The Impact of Family Supportive Supervisor Behavior on Employee’s Proactive Behavior: A Study of a Moderated Mediating Effect

Based on the theory of social exchange, this study attempts to probe the mechanism of the impact of the family supportive supervisor behavior on employee’s proactive behavior, especially to explore the mediating role of the affective commitment and the moderating role of the power distance in Chinese organizational context. After analyzing the samples collected from 305 employees, we found that: family supportive supervisor behavior has a significantly positive effect on employee’s proactive behavior; affective commitment plays a partial mediating role between family supportive supervisor behavior and employee’s proactive behavior; meanwhile, power distance moderates the relationship between family supported supervisory behavior and affective commitment, and further moderates the indirect relationship between family supported supervisory behavior and employee’s proactive behavior through affective commitment. That is, the lower the employees’ power distance is, the stronger the mediating effect of affective commitment becomes.

Influence of Social Exchange Relationships on Affective Commitment and Innovative Behavior: Role of Perceived Organizational Support

The current study objective is to investigate how and when leader member exchange (LMX), tie strength, and innovative organizational culture influences employee innovative behavior. In particular, this study uses the social exchange theory to analyze that nurses who demonstrate high affective commitment exhibit a higher level of creativity in the workplace. Based on social exchange theory and perceived organizational support (POS) literature, the current study aims to reveal how perceived organizational support (POS) serves as an imperative mediating process between LMX, tie strength, innovative organizational culture, and employee IB. A questionnaire survey was utilized to collect the data from nurses working in public sector hospitals in Jiangsu province China. A total sample size consists of 325 nurses. Structural equation modeling through AMOS 20 was utilized to analyze the survey data. Results from the structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis indicated that LMX, tie strength, and POS are significantly related to affective commitment and employees’ IB. However, innovative organizational culture has a significant influence on POS and IB, but has no impact on affective commitment. This study covers only public sector hospitals and is limited to Jiangsu province, China. The research could be reproduced in other designated areas in different organizational setups with a bigger sample size to further enhance the understanding of the topic. The key understanding of social exchange theory (SET) is that social relationships can be used appropriately to foster an employee’s IB. It also expands research in the area of LMX, tie strength, innovative organizational culture, and POS as antecedents of affective commitment and IB. This study is a remarkable analysis of LMX, POS, organization culture, commitment, and IB in the Chinese organizational context.

无边界职业生涯下职业成功的诱因与机制

<p id="C2">As a frontier topic in the field of career research, career success has garnered extensive attention from organizational scholars and practitioners. By systematically clarifying its concept, measurement, antecedents, consequences, and mechanisms, this study summarizes and evaluates relative research at home and abroad. Future research should focus on career success in the era of the boundaryless career, develop the concept and measurement of career success in the Chinese organizational context, examine the antecedents of career success from the trait activation theory, examine the consequences of career success based on its value, and explore the contingent role of Chinese indigenous culture.

Does the Agreeableness of Employees Reduce the Overall Salary Level? An Empirical Research in the Context of the Chinese Culture and Organizations

Cornell University’s survey of U.S. organizations in 2016 showed that the compensations of agreeable employees were 18% lower than those of the spontaneous” ones. The research that employee personality traits influence their salary levels is merely in Europe and the United States currently and directs to European and American organizations and cultural contexts. In the existing studies, on the one hand, the measurement of pay is economic pay and there are no total rewards to research; on the other hand, how the conclusion drawn from the Western culture and the organizational context adapts to the Chinese culture and organizations, and what is the relationship between employee’s agreeableness and salary levels in the context of the Chinese culture and organizations, domestic and foreign scholars are still relatively lacking in research. Therefore, different from the Western culture, whether the findings of Cornell University are consistent with the organizational context of traditional Chinese culture and can confirm the Chinese saying the honest people suffer more, the squeaking wheel gets the oil” is a scientific question worth exploring. Based on the existing research, combining the Chinese culture and the organizational context, the paper combs the scientific connotation of agreeableness and total rewards, establishes a theoretical model of the relationship between them, and uses the NEO-PIR scale and the U.S. compensation association for comprehensive compensation. The questionnaire is designed by using the NEO-PIR scale and the total rewards defined by the WorldatWork. The questionnaire survey is conducted on a sample of 1, 486 employees in state-owned enterprises and private-owned enterprises in China. On the basis of reliability and validity analyses, the data are statistically analyzed by using correlation and multiple regression analyses. The analysis results show that agreeableness will reduce the overall salary level of employees. But different from Western context of organizations, the employee agreeableness and total rewards are not completely negatively correlated in Chinese organizational context, while the agreeableness is negatively related to monetary payoff and has no correlation with benefits. Furthermore, agreeableness is negatively related to learning and development, and positively related to the work environment. Modesty, altruism and tender mindedness are the important factors that affect monetary payoff, and compliance, straight forwardness and altruism are critical variables that affect non-monetary compensation. Based on the above conclusions, the article proposes management practice implications from two aspects of employees and organizations: employees need to make good use of expectation management” and clearly define their core competencies and capability boundaries to break through the adverse effects of agreeableness on their total rewards; organizations should combine humanization” and dehumanization” to rationally and comprehensively measure the abilities and performance of agreeable employees, and effectively exert the cultural essence of Chinese harmony” to integrate the values and create a harmonious working environment, effectively exerting the advantages of different personality traits of staff to truly let Lei Feng not lose out”.

Influence of organizational rewards on organizational commitment and turnover intentions

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between extrinsic, intrinsic and social rewards and two components of organizational commitment and finally Chinese workers turnover intention in public and private sector.Design/methodology/approach– A questionnaire was utilized as the method for data collection. Structural equation modeling was utilized to examine survey data obtained from 202 employees in the southern part of China.Findings– The findings exhibit that extrinsic, social and intrinsic rewards were significantly related to affective and normative commitment. Findings suggest that satisfaction with extrinsic benefits, supervisor support, coworker support, autonomy, training and participation in decision making has substantial impact on employee’s affective and normative commitment. However, affective and normative commitment was negatively related to employee turnover intention.Research limitations/implications– This study covers different public and private-sector organization employees working in China. Therefore other geographical areas could be designated for future research endeavors with a bigger sample size.Practical implications– With the purpose of boosting employee commitment, managers must provide their employees with greater autonomy, appropriate training and participation in decision making in the organization, as well as enhancing supervisor and coworker support.Originality/value– This research investigates how Chinese employees with different categories of organizational rewards react to different kinds of organizational commitment and turnover intention in Chinese organizational context.

Socialization Content and Adjustment Outcome: A Longitudinal Study of Chinese Employees Beginning Their Career

We explored the trajectories of change and dynamic associations between socialization content and adjustment outcome of Chinese people embarking on their career. We conducted a 3-wave longitudinal survey to measure what career starters learnt and how they adjusted to the workplace and organization during the initial 7 months after organizational entry. The findings suggest that socialization content, task performance, and affective commitment increased, and job satisfaction decreased over time. The faster that newcomers learn a task, the faster their performance improves. For those Chinese employees who worked in both state-owned and private organizations, the sooner they understood social relationships in the organization, the faster they formed affective commitment. In this study we explain how employees develop these skills in China, and it is one of the few studies in which an examination has been carried out within the Chinese organizational context into what newcomers learn, their adjustment process, and their dynamic relations.

Comparison for Chinese subordinates as a motivation approach: Scale Development and Psychometric Properties

Purpose: Chinese people are motivated by social comparison and temporal comparison. Based on this finding, we conceptualized lateral comparison and vertical comparison as two distinct constructs that represent individual self-enhancement toward the nature of social comparison with others and temporal comparison with self over time. We hypothesized that as stable individual psychological difference, lateral comparison and vertical comparison would have differential effects on people’s working behavior in the Chinese organizational context. Design/methodology/approach: Based on a conceptualization approach to Chinese management research, we conducted three studies to develop and validate a two-factor comparison scale which includes three-item lateral comparison and a three-item vertical comparison. Findings: Results from qualitative data in Study 1 provide evidence of convergent and discriminate validity of the scale, while Study 2 demonstrates the scale’s predictive validity. Furthermore, in Study two, a field survey in multiple Chinese organizations showed that lateral comparison and vertical comparison had differential effects on employee task performance and organizational citizenship behavior. Research implications: The theoretical and practical implications of this study are discussed in the working context in Chinese organizations and beyond. Originality/value: This finding integrates insights from previous research in social comparison and temporal comparison into a motivation approach that supervisors use toward subordinates in the Chinese organizational context.

The Effectiveness of Servant Leadership Behaviors in Chinese Organizational Context: A Longitudinal Research

The essential characteristic of servant leadership is serving first, which transcends any other leadership behaviors of organizational benefits first. However, the relevant research in Chinese organizational context is not enough. This research explored the construct of servant leadership and developed a measure of servant leadership in Chinese context with qualitative method and quantitative method. This research also examined the effectiveness of servant leadership with the techniques of structural equation model and hierarchical regression analysis dealing with the longitudinal data from paired supervisor-subordinate. Three studies were included:(1) The construct and measurement of servant leadership;(2) the longitudinal research of the effectiveness of servant leadership based on the perspective of comparing leadership behaviors; and(3) the longitudinal research of the effectiveness of servant leadership based on the perspective of influencing mechanism. The results are helpful to clarify the connotation and dimensions of servant leadership, recognize and measure servant leadership behavior, and examine the effectiveness of servant leadership. The results also compare the effects of servant leadership on team's and employee's performance with the ones of paternalistic leadership and transformational leadership, and reveal the mediating mechanism between servant leadership and team's and employee's performance.

Antecedents of Destructive Leadership Behaviors in Chinese Organizational Context: A Longitudinal Research

Antecedents of Destructive Leadership Behaviors in Chinese Organizational Context: A Longitudinal Research