Gender differences in organizational commitment and rewards within Japanese manufacturing companies in China

2022

Sustainability

The development of the local economy and correcting the concentration in the capital city have long been the target for many countries. Furthermore, in the wake of the recent COVID-19 pandemic, the momentum for rural migration has been increasing to prevent the risk of infection with the help of the rise of remote work. However, there is not enough debate about what kind of land will attract the population. Therefore, in this paper, we performed correlation and multiple regression analyses, with the inflow rate and the net inflow rate of the population as the dependent variables, using the average values of government statistics for each prefecture in 2010 and 2017. As a result of the analyses, in addition to economic factor variables, variables of climatic, amenity, and human factors correlated with the inflow rate, and it was shown that the model had the greatest explanatory power when multiple factors had been used in addition to specific factors. It indicated that local prefectures were required to take regional promotion measures focusing not only on economic factors but also on multifaceted factors to attract the outside population. In addition, when the dependent variable was replaced with the 2020 population inflow rate, the model in which human factors were used as the independent variable showed the largest improvement in explanatory power. Therefore, it was shown that human factors have become more important in attracting people during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Section: Examining a Model That Includes Multiple Factorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Factors That Attract the Population: Empirical Research by Multiple Regression Analysis Using Data by Prefecture in Japan

2022

Sustainability

“…Besides, fatigue was composed of the three items of Kokubun (2017), which have been used in a survey of many employees working for Japanese companies in China and other East Asian countries (Kokubun, 2018, 2019; Kokubun and Yasui, 2020, 2021), adding the following two newly developed items: “I always feel gloomy because of my work” and “I sometimes feel frustrated while working.” This is because we thought that observing not only physical but also mental fatigue was more appropriate in the analytical model to see the employee conditions under COVID-19, which has caused various forms of severe mental distress (Evanoff et al. , 2020; Salari et al.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social and psychological resources moderate the relation between anxiety, fatigue, compliance and turnover intention during the COVID-19 pandemic

Ino

Ishimura

2022

IJWHM

Self Cite

PurposeThe workplace health management lessons to be learned from the pandemic are important. However, few studies have examined the relationship between workplace anxiety, resources and behaviors during the pandemic. Therefore, this paper aims to investigate the relationship between anxiety, fatigue, compliance, turnover intention and social and psychological resources during the COVID-19 pandemic by applying the conservation of resources (COR) theory.Design/methodology/approachPath analysis was carried out using data obtained from a questionnaire survey conducted on 2,973 Chinese employees of Japanese companies in China.FindingsThe analysis showed that anxiety had a positive correlation with compliance, but simultaneously had a positive correlation with fatigue and turnover intention; psychological resources moderated to weaken the relationships between anxiety and compliance/fatigue; social resources moderated to strengthen the negative correlation between compliance and willingness to leave.Research limitations/implicationsThis study targeted employees of Japanese companies in China. Therefore, in the future, it is necessary to verify generalizability as to whether it applies to employees of companies of other nationalities in other countries. Also, the authors used newly developed scales instead of the general psychological scales. Therefore, it is necessary to verify the reproducibility using a more general scale.Practical implicationsAnxiety encourages compliance practices but also increases fatigue and willingness to leave. Therefore, a method of inciting anxiety and making employees follow rules reduces the strength of an organization. To overcome this dilemma, managers need to provide psychological and social resources.Originality/valueThis study is the first to show how effective social and psychological resources are in the management of anxiety and fatigue in achieving high performance during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study was conducted in the very early days of the COVID-19 pandemic with the cooperation of employees working for Japanese companies in China. However, the importance of utilizing resources in a crisis revealed by this study can be applied to all kinds of disasters.Highlights:-The current study is the result of a survey conducted on employees of Japanese companies in China in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.-Anxiety had a positive effect of promoting compliance and a negative effect of increasing fatigue and willingness to leave the job.-Psychological resources mitigated these effects of anxiety and, as a result, reduced fatigue and willingness to leave.-Social resources enhanced the effect of compliance on reducing willingness to leave.-Workplace health problems caused by the COVID-19 pandemic should be addressed by increasing employee resources on a regular basis, rather than aggravating anxiety.

“…The data for this study were collected through the Work Motivation Survey (WMS) project, which has been managed and directed by the first author as a project of the International Economy and Work Research Institute (IEWRI) in Osaka and IEWRI Japan Co., Ltd (IEWRI Japan) in Tokyo since 2005. The WMS is an annual survey of Japanese foreign affiliates in China and other East Asian countries that aims to research the employees' work attitudes systemically and longitudinally and give practical advice to the management of participating companies (Kokubun, 2018, 2019; Kokubun and Yasui, 2020, 2021). The wide geographical coverage is one of the advantages of the WMS data because existing studies on OC in East Asia have tended to focus on particular countries and regions.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The WMS's data set covers 64 manufacturing companies in China (Kokubun, 2018; Kokubun and Yasui, 2021). This dataset contains awareness data for 45,874 employees who participated from April 2007 to March 2016.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The wide geographical coverage is one of the advantages of the WMS data because existing studies on OC in East Asia have tended to focus on particular countries and regions. The WMS's data set covers 64 manufacturing companies in China (Kokubun, 2018;Kokubun and Yasui, 2021). This dataset contains awareness data for 45,874 employees who participated from April 2007 to March 2016.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Differences in the organizational-commitment–rewards relationship between Chinese managers and Japanese expatriates in manufacturing companies in China

Yasui²

2022

EBHRM

Self Cite

PurposeAs China attracts more and more foreign enterprises today, it is getting more important to consider how to enhance the organizational commitment (OC) of host country employees. This paper aims to examine the differences in the relationship between OC and rewards among Chinese managers and Japanese expatriates who work for Japanese manufacturing companies in China.Design/methodology/approachHierarchical regression analysis was used to analyze survey data gathered from 539 Chinese managers and 354 Japanese expatriates working for a total of 19 Japanese manufacturing companies in China.FindingsThe findings reveal that, for Chinese managers, role clarity had a stronger influence and autonomy had a weaker influence on OC than for Japanese expatriates. A possible reason is the ethnocentric culture of Japanese companies that leads to Japanese expatriates not sufficiently empowering local human resources. Moreover, there was no difference between senior- and junior-level Chinese managers in the association of any kind of reward with OC.Research limitations/implicationsThe most significant limitation concerns its generalizability. The authors recommend that future research use other nations' expatriates as reference groups to objectively clarify the characteristics of Chinese workers, thus testing the validity of this research.Practical implicationsThe results of this research may be used to reshape future human-resource-management practices in several types of the company located in China to facilitate attracting and employing the employees most able to make long-term contributions to the company.Originality/valueAlthough previous research has elucidated OC–rewards relation in particular countries, it has not met the potential requirements of the expatriates who face the difference in OC–rewards relation with host country national managers. In this sense, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research was the first attempt to tackle this theme by contributing to the literature.