Eastern versus Western Control Beliefs at Work: An Investigation of Secondary Control, Socioinstrumental Control, and Work Locus of Control in China and the US

Abstract

La théorie et la recherche concernant les croyances (LOC) et les perceptions du contrôle suggèrent que les Asiatiques tendent à obtenir des scores plus bas et à être plus passifs que les Américains, mais ces travaux ont été menés à l'aide de concepts et d'échelles développés principalement aux USA qui certifient une primauté du contrôle interne (ex: en changeant l'environnement pour l'adapter à soi). Une équipe de recherche internationale a étendu la notion de croyance dans le contrôle en développant des échelles qui permettent de reconsidérer la notion en faisant état de croyances secondaires dans le contrôle (ex: en adaptant le soi à l'environnement) et de faire état d'un concept nouveau de croyances socio-instrumentales (ex: le contrôle par les relations interpersonelles) qui permettent de rendre compte de manière plus pertinente des croyances en un contrôle dans les cultures collectivistes. Nous nous attendions à ce que, par l'utilisation d'échelles culturellement appropriées, les Américains n'obtiennent pas une croyance en un contrôle plus importante que les Asiatiques. Les hypothèses ont été partiellement confirmées en ce que les Américains se sont montrés comme obtenant un contrôle plus bas que les Chinois (de Hong Kong et de RP de Chine) sur ces échelles. Il est suggéré que voir les Asiatiques comme évitant passivement le contrôle au travail peut être incorrect et dû aux insuffisances de contrôle socio-instrumental.Research and theory concerning beliefs (locus of control) and perceptions of control suggest that Asians tend to be lower and more passive than Americans, but this work has been conducted mainly with US-developed constructs and scales that assess primary control (i.e. changing the environment to adapt to the self ). An international research team expanded the notion of control beliefs by developing scales to assess secondary control beliefs (i.e. adapting the self to the environment) and the new construct of socioinstrumental control beliefs (i.e. control via interpersonal relationships), both of which were thought to better fit the control beliefs of collectivist cultures than Westerndeveloped control scales. We expected that, when culturally appropriate scales were employed, Americans would not show higher control beliefs than Asians. Hypotheses were partially confirmed that Americans would be lower than Chinese (Hong Kong and PR China) on these new scales. It is suggested that views of Asians as passive avoiders of control at work may be incorrect and due to the overlooking of socioinstrumental control.

The moderating role of individual variables in the relationship between organizational justice and organizational commitment

“…H3: Since emotion regulation may be costly and ineffective as a coping strategy (Cropanzano et al, 2000) we expected emotion-focused coping to be linked to negative perceptions of organizational justice. H4: Given the important positive role of social support in Eastern cultures (Spector, Sanchez, Siu, Salgado, & Ma, 2004), we expected a moderating effect of culture (France vs. Turkey) according to which social support would have stronger links with positive perceptions of justice in the Turkish than in the French sample. H5: Since the positive or negative effects of seeking social support depend on the end purpose that this support aims to serve (Folkman & Lazarus, 1991;Patterson, 2003) it was expected that social-support seeking would positively moderate the relationship between perceived organizational justice and problem-focused coping.…”

The Relationship Between Belief in Stable Luck and a Propensity for Superstition: The Influence of Culturally Conferred Agency Beliefs

“…As discussed before, Asians who believe they are lucky may tend to have a sense of collective agency -a belief that social collectives can help them to obtain their desired outcomes (Spector, Sanchez, Siu, Salgado, & Ma, 2004). In these contexts, such collectives may include not only human actors but also non-human actors, such as deities or RUNNING HEAD: LUCK AND SUPERSITITION 8 animals (Morris, Menon, & Ames, 2001).…”

Cultural variations in work stress and coping in an era of globalization

“…A study by Spector et al ( 2004 ) investigated differences in job stressors among working college students and university support personnel from mainland China, Hong Kong, and the US. Signifi cant differences were found for role ambiguity, role confl ict, job autonomy, and interpersonal confl ict.…”