The Norm of Reciprocity: Scale Development and Validation in the Chinese Context

Wu, Joshua B.; Hom, Peter W.; Tetrick, Lois E.; Shore, Lynn M.; Jia, Liangding; Li, Chaoping; Song, Lynda Jiwen

doi:10.1111/j.1740-8784.2006.00047.x

Cited by 120 publications

(171 citation statements)

References 73 publications

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“…Future research that investigates the moderation effects of line managers on a wider range of HR practices will provide further insight into the role of line managers have on how HR practices are interpreted, experienced, and perceived by employees, and how these then shape future expectations as recent work by Piening, Baluch and Ridder (2013) show that employee expectations may have a strong influence on their experience of HR practices. Moreover, examining how other social exchange constructs, such as norms of reciprocity (Wu et al, 2006), interact with affective processes will shed light on how social exchange and broaden-and-build processes combine to influence engagement.…”

Section: Limitations and Conclusionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How can personal development lead to increased engagement? The roles of meaningfulness and perceived line manager relations

Fletcher

2016

The International Journal of Human Resource Management

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There is an increasing need to understand the psychological processes that link personal development with employee engagement, particularly the boundary conditions at which these occur. The current study sought to meet this need by testing whether perceived opportunities for development are positively associated with job engagement indirectly through the experience of meaningfulness, and whether this indirect relationship is conditional on the level of perceived line manager relations. Questionnaire data was collected from 152 UK workers from a range of occupations and organizations. The results found support for all the hypotheses. In particular, the positive effects of perceived opportunities for development on job engagement (measured one month later) via meaningfulness was only significant for those who perceived that they had a good relationship with their line manager. Thus, there is a need for line managers to develop high quality relationships with their direct reports in order for development practices to translate into positive psychological outcomes. Engagement theory could be advanced by further understanding broaden-and-build and social exchange processes. IntroductionProviding opportunities for personal development is a crucial practice within a human resource management (HRM) system because such opportunities develop human capital resources within the organization, which enable sustained competitive advantage (Lee & Bruvold, 2003). Moreover, opportunities for development are important for facilitating employee engagement (Bakker & Bal, 2010;Sarti, 2014;Shuck, Twyford, Reio, & Shuck, 2014). Engagement is defined as the authentic, simultaneous expression of one's emotional, cognitive, and physical dimensions of the self whilst performing one's job role (Kahn, 1990).In doing so, personal development connects the individual with their work context because "they provide pathways for employee growth and fulfillment" (Crawford, Rich, Buckman, & Bergeron, 2014, p.61). Over recent years initiatives to improve employee engagement have become widespread because of their potential to leverage organizational success through harnessing the motivation and spirit of its employees (Saks & Gruman, 2014). As HRM practitioners are often responsible for leading organizational change initiatives that seek to improve employee engagement through human resource (HR) practices (Arrowsmith & Parker, 2013;Reissner & Pagan, 2013), and given that a recent evidence synthesis shows that employee perceptions of development are associated with engagement (Bailey, Madden, Alfes, & Fletcher, 2015), it may be particularly useful for HRM researchers to examine the psychological processes that underpin the relationship between personal development and engagement in more depth. Currently, there is a lack of understanding of how personal development leads to engagement, and in what circumstances this process occurs. This is important to address because it provides practical recommendations on how development practices can be best desi...

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Section: Limitations and Conclusionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How can personal development lead to increased engagement? The roles of meaningfulness and perceived line manager relations

Fletcher

2016

The International Journal of Human Resource Management

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“…Believers share the Chinese conviction that guanxi is an important predictor of business success in China, and that individuals who enjoy close relations will feel enough trust to engage in open-ended and long-lasting relationships (Wu et al, 2006).…”

Section: Chinese Guanximentioning

confidence: 99%

The Leader–Member Exchange Theory in the Chinese Context and the Ethical Challenge of Guanxi

Nie

Lämsä

2013

J Bus Ethics

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ABSTRACT.The leader-member relationship has been identified as a key determinant of successful working relationships and business outcomes in China. A high quality leader-member relationship helps managers and employees to meet the demands they face and gives them the opportunity to develop socially, emotionally and morally. Such relationships form the basis of the overall well-being and success of the organisation. This article contributes to relationally oriented leadership theories and more specifically to the leader-member exchange (LMX) theory by examining the theory in the context of Western expatriate managers and Chinese employees in China. The first aim of the study is to analyse the similarities and differences between the LMX theory, which owes its origins to Western corporate experience, and the social and moral norms of guanxi, a crucial element in the Chinese value system. Since Westerners and Chinese people can give different interpretations to guanxi, the second aim of the article is to discuss the ethical challenges to the Western manager arising from guanxi. The findings of this study have implications not only for China, but also for other Chinese communities (Macau, Taiwan, Hong Kong, the Philippines, and Singapore) where guanxi is endorsed and practised.

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“…Tsui and Farh 1997;Xin and Pearce 1996), the Chinese employer counts on Chinese employees' empirically proven adherence to the norm of reciprocity (cf. Buchan et al 2002;Gabrenya and Hwang 1996;Xin and Pearce 1996;Yang 1994;Westwood et al 2004;Wu et al 2006) and transplants this logic to the African setting.…”

Section: Theorizing Chinese-ghanaian Employment Relationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

When Voicelessness Meets Speechlessness – Struggling for Equity in Chinese-Ghanaian Employment Relations

Giese

Thiel

2012

SSRN Journal

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In this article Chinese-Ghanaian employment relations are analyzed using the concepts of foreignness, the psychological contract, equity, and cross-cultural communication. Based on a qualitative study conducted in Accra, Ghana, we discuss the labor market in general and introduce the conditions under which Chinese sojourners operate their family trade businesses in the city. After discussing the phenomenon of Ghanaian employment within Chinese trade companies from a theoretical perspective, we explain how Chinese employers'and Ghanaian employees' culturally based perceptions of employment relations are contradictory and prone to conflict. We then show how, under the condition of the employers' foreignness, Ghanaian employees perceive their psychological contracts as being violated and Chinese employers regard the equity of exchange relations as distorted. We discuss how Ghanaian employees cope with this situation by means of voice, silence, retreat or destruction, while Chinese employers, who lack both sufficient language skills and effective sanctions, choose to endure perceived distortions of equity and in some cases ultimately terminate employment relations when inadequate cross-cultural communication results in a failure to mediate conflicts.

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The Norm of Reciprocity: Scale Development and Validation in the Chinese Context

Cited by 120 publications

References 73 publications

How can personal development lead to increased engagement? The roles of meaningfulness and perceived line manager relations

How can personal development lead to increased engagement? The roles of meaningfulness and perceived line manager relations

The Leader–Member Exchange Theory in the Chinese Context and the Ethical Challenge of Guanxi

When Voicelessness Meets Speechlessness – Struggling for Equity in Chinese-Ghanaian Employment Relations

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