نقش قابل توجه تعهد سازمانی کارکنان چینی:مفاهیمی برای مدیریت کارکنان در جوامع چینی

The high rate of turnover has been a substantial problem in managing Chinese employees in joint ventures in the People’s Republic of China. Organizations operating in the PRC face a dilemma of whether it is worthwhile to invest in better compensation packages and training and development programs if their employees will leave the organizations anyway. This study argues that because traditional Chinese culture values loyalty, guanxi and pao, organizations will benefit in the long run if they cultivate employees’ organizational commitment. Data from two samples from the PRC and Hong Kong were analyzed to understand the role of organizational commitment in affecting other attitudinal antecedents (i.e., job satisfaction and turnover intention) to turnover. Results indicate that organizational commitment among Chinese employees has a much stronger effect on job satisfaction and turnover intention than results from studies conducted in the West. Our analysis provides strong support for the effect of Chinese traditional values in the modern Chinese work place. Practical implications for organizations operating in China are discussed.

Organizational commitment has received extensive research attention in Western countries since this construct was proposed by Porter, Steers, Mowday, and their associates (e.g., Mowday et al 1979 and Porter et al 1974). According to these researchers, organizational commitment represents an employee’s (a) strong belief in and acceptance of the organization’s goals and values; (b) a willingness to exert considerable effort on behalf of the organization; and (c) a strong desire to maintain membership. Although this definition has been refined by more recent researchers (e.g., Meyer, Allen, & Smith, 1993), its basic concepts of the employee’s identification with and attachment to the organization’s values and practices have been accepted by most researchers. Before the 1990s, Western researchers concentrated their efforts in identifying the antecedents and consequences of organizational commitment. For antecedents, organizational attributes (e.g., extent of decentralization, compensation practices), job details (e.g., job complexity) and personal characteristics (e.g., gender, age, tenure, and personality and values) have been proposed and investigated (e.g., Bateman and Strasser 1984 and Mowday et al 1982). As consequences, turnover, and job performance have been investigated as results of organizational commitment (Mathieu & Zajac, 1990). Similar studies have been conducted in Chinese societies and similar results have been found (e.g., Wong 1991, Wong 1997 and Yang 1982). The most relevant research question raised in our present investigation is the relative effect of organizational commitment on turnover compared with that of job satisfaction. Just like organizational commitment, job satisfaction has been identified as an important attitudinal antecedent of turnover (e.g., Mobley, 1977). Although Muchinsky and Morrow (1980) identified three classes of antecedents to turnover (i.e., individual, economic opportunity, and work-related factors), work-related factors are of particular importance in human resource management because they can be influenced by various management practices. The most important work-related factors are attitudinal, including job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and turnover intention. There is considerable debate concerning the causal relationship among these attitudinal antecedents to turnover in the Western literature before the 1990s. Three potential relationships among job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and turnover intention have been suggested. First, organizational commitment is hypothesized only as a mediator on the job satisfaction-turnover intention relationship Porter et al 1974, Steers 1977, Stevens et al 1978 and Rusbult and Farrell 1983. That is, job satisfaction will affect organizational commitment, which in turn will affect turnover intention. Second, job satisfaction is hypothesized to mediate the commitment-turnover intention relationship (Bateman & Strasser, 1984). That is, organizational commitment does not have a direct effect on turnover intention. Its effect is on job satisfaction, which in turn will affect turnover intention. Third, job satisfaction and organizational commitment are reciprocally related Farkas and Tetrick 1989 and Mathieu 1991, and both lead to turnover intention. The third model of the reciprocal relationship received strongest empirical support in Western studies (e.g., Farkas and Tetrick 1989, Mathieu 1991 and Williams and Hazer 1986). Basically, existing evidence suggests that for Western employees, job satisfaction and organizational commitment will affect each other and they both affect turnover intention. These studies also provide support that the effect of job satisfaction on organizational commitment is probably greater than the reverse effect. This is not a surprising result because Western societies are more individualistic and the employment relationships are regarded more as a rational and voluntary choice. Employees will pay more attention to the specific job that they need to perform than their feeling towards the whole organization. Thus, although organizational commitment plays an important role in affecting turnover intention, its effect on turnover is smaller than that of job satisfaction. During the 1990s, Western researchers have developed three new lines of research on organizational commitment. The first concerns the dimensionality of organizational commitment that enriches our understanding about the exact bases of this construct. For example, Meyer and Allen (1991) identified three dimensions of organizational commitment which allow researchers and practitioners to examine why employees form greater commitment towards their organizations. These dimensions are “affective commitment” (i.e., commitment as an affective attachment to the organization), “continuance commitment” (i.e., commitment as a perceived cost associated with leaving the organization), and “normative commitment” (i.e., commitment as an obligation to remain in the organization). The second line of research concerns foci of commitment. It investigates the commitment towards specific constituencies such as supervisor, work group, top managers, and the overall organization (e.g., Becker 1992 and Becker et al 1996). Some researchers have carried this line of research to Chinese societies and they have demonstrated that Chinese employees’ commitment towards their supervisors will develop faster and have effects on their overall organizational commitment (e.g., Chen et al 1998 and Wong and Kung 1999). Finally, in the 1990s, Western researchers have attempted to examine the psychological process through which employees develop their organizational commitment. Perceived fairness, job security and trust have been proposed and investigated as important underlying factors contributing to organizational commitment (e.g., Cropanzano and Folger 1991 and Davy et al 1997; Sweeney & McFarlin, 1993). This line of research has recently been applied to Chinese societies. For example, Wong (2000) found out that for a sample of PRC employees, trust mediates the effect of perceived fairness on organizational commitment, which in turn affects job performance and turnover intention.

In Study One, the model and its parameter shown in Figure 1b were found to fit the data best. For Study Two, the final accepted model and its parameters are shown in Figure 2b. For both studies, the final accepted models provide strong support for our hypotheses. That is, organizational commitment has direct effects on job satisfaction and turnover intention, while job satisfaction has no effect on organizational commitment and turnover intention.