Analyzing work attitudes of Chinese employees
A comparison between state-owned and privately-owned enterprises in China
The Authors
Xiaohui Wang, Department of Economic Management, Lingnan College, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, People's Republic of China
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the work attitudes of native Chinese employees and to identify and resolve current problems challenging human resource management.
Design/methodology/approach – With an empirical design and the data collected from 991 employees of nine companies located in Guangdong, China, this research analyzes the present status of work attitudes through job satisfaction and organizational commitment. The main analytical path bases on comparing differences among demographic groups, and particularly between employees in state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and privately-owned enterprises (POEs).
Findings – First, it was found that employees overall show a higher level of job satisfaction and a lower level of organizational commitment; second, employees with older age and lower education tend to have higher levels of job satisfaction and organizational commitment; third, employees in POEs have a higher level of job satisfaction and organizational commitment than employees in SOEs.
Research limitations/implications – In order to yield broader conclusions, further empirical research should expand sampling to other areas and other ownership-type enterprises in China. Moreover, more work-related attitudinal variables, such as social value and corporate culture, should be included in the future studies regarding work attitudes.
Practical implications – In general, the management in native Chinese enterprises needs to pay more attention to the impact of employees' demographic variables on work attitudes. Specifically, SOEs have an imperative need of heightening employees' job satisfaction and organizational commitment so as to compete with POEs.
Originality/value – While filling a gap in the existing literature of the subjects being studied, this paper provides constructive suggestions in practice.
Article Type:
Research paper
Keyword(s):
China; Employers; Job satisfaction; Employee attitudes; Small- to medium-sized enterprises.
Journal:
Chinese Management Studies
Volume:
2
Number:
3
Year:
2008
pp:
215-228
Copyright ©
Emerald Group Publishing Limited
ISSN:
1750-614X
Attitudes are propensities, or tendencies, to react in a favorable or unfavorable way toward an object that could be anything around us (Tosi and Mero, 2003, p. 38). Work attitudes refer to what people like or dislike as well as act favorably unfavorably toward a job and a workplace. Attitudes toward work can be reflected through various dimensions, such as job satisfaction, organizational commitment, turnover intention, social value, and psychological contract. Nevertheless, job satisfaction and organizational commitment have been two of the most prominent work attitudes in the work and organizational literature (Luthans et al., 2006; Slattery et al., 2006).
Over the last decade, work-related constructs have received a lot of attention in Chinese contexts. More recently, several studies have addressed those issues such as work values and work-related attitudes of Chinese employees (Jaw et al., 2007; Alas, 2008). However, direct studies on work attitudes of Chinese employees have been underconducted. The empirical evidences on current status of work attitudes, especially, the work attitudes' differences among various types of enterprises are also lacking in both Chinese and English management literature. Therefore, this article attempts to overcome the paucity that exists of examination of employees' work attitudes through job satisfaction and organizational commitment in native Chinese business organizations, particularly, in the state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and privately-owned enterprises (POEs). Through examining manifest and latent patterns of the two constructs and contrasting their differences between SOEs and POEs, this study intends to generate new knowledge of the subjects and provide practical suggestions to enterprise management.
Research problem and rationale
Chinese enterprises have put top priority on performance issues because, but placed little emphasis on employees' work-related attitudes and behaviors (Li, 2007, 2005). Thus, this paper aims to investigate present status of employees' work attitudes in native companies; and, specifically, employees' job satisfaction and organizational commitment, as well as their comparisons between SOEs and POEs.
The reason for choosing work attitudes as the key focus is that they are antecedents of individual's work and organizational behaviors, which then determine individual performance and major organizational outcomes. The reason for taking job satisfaction and organizational commitment as the mainstay is that they are of major components of work attitudes.
In addition, SOEs and POEs are traditional, native Chinese enterprises in terms of managerial practices and corporate, and also the principal forces in the Chinese economy. While a small volume of studies on human resource related problems in foreign investment and Sino-foreign jointly owned enterprises (Bruton et al., 2000; Chen et al., 2001) and a number of studies of employees' attitude and behavior in general enterprises (Farh et al., 2004; Chen et al., 2002) can be found, almost no studies of employees' attitudes focused on comparisons between Chinese SOEs and POEs were found except for few related to SOEs (Wang, 2004). Consequently, choosing SOEs and POEs as the investigation settings could yield significant findings and meaningful implications and then might infer them to the whole of Chinese enterprises.
Research questions
For the research problem, this study is guided by the following questions:
RQ1. What is the status quo of Chinese employees' job satisfaction and organizational commitment?
RQ1. What are the differences of job satisfaction in terms of demographic characteristics, and are there any differences between SOEs and POEs?
RQ1. What are the differences of organizational commitment in terms of demographic characteristics, and are there any differences between SOEs and POEs?
Previous studies and conceptual framework
Many theories have been constructed to provide a framework for explaining the complexity of work attitudes; and among them, theories on job satisfaction and organizational commitment have been the most prominent.
Locke (1976) defined job satisfaction as a pleasurable, emotional state resulting from the self-appraisal of one's job or job experiences, while Spector (1997) suggested that job satisfaction is the extent to which people like or dislike their jobs. Arguing that job satisfaction reflected both one's thoughts and feelings toward a job or job facets, Brief (1998) proposed that “job satisfaction is an internal state that is expressed by affectively and/or cognitively evaluating an experienced job with some degree of favor or disfavor” (p. 86). Lofquist and Dawis (1969) noted job satisfaction as “a function of the correspondence between the reinforcer system of the work environment and the individual's needs” (p. 53).
Organizational commitment is a construct that describes the relationship between employees and the organization where they work. Meyer and Allen (1997) defined organizational commitment as “a psychological state that characterizes the employee's relationships with the organization, and has implications for the decision to continue membership in the organization” (p. 67). Three components of organizational commitment have been developed by Meyer et al. (1993), presumably reflecting separate determinants:
- affective commitments or emotional attachments;
- continuance commitment, or the costs of leaving, such as losing benefits and seniority; and
- normative commitment or the individual's moral values.
A number of researches have demonstrated that the economic form of a firm's ownership is significantly related to organizational commitment in both western and Chinese contexts (Liu and Wang, 2004; Wang, 2004; Wetzel and Gallagher, 1990). In Chinese literature, numerous studies have addressed the features caused by or related to different forms of ownership (Zhang et al., 2001). In Chinese native enterprises, SOE and POE is the pair of most contrasting ownerships. Despite more and more SOEs and POEs becoming blended in terms of ownership in recent years, most POEs and SOEs are still in pure ownership, meaning solely owned by individuals or by the government, respectively. Evidence shows that SOEs and POEs significantly differ in many ways, such as leadership, promotion patterns, income allocations, human relations, and so on (Tang, 2005). But, no single piece of previous study has been conducted to verify the differences of employees' job satisfaction and organizational commitment between SOEs and POEs.
Previous studies have shown that demographic characteristics differentiated job satisfaction and organizational commitment (Lincoln and Kalleberg, 1990; Steers and Spencer, 1977) in the western context, as well as in the Chinese context (Cui, 2003; Ling et al., 2001; Liu and Zhang, 2004). However, the previous studies conducted in Chinese companies did not put emphasis on two characteristics, i.e. age and educational level, and did publish in English literature.
The theoretical foundation of this study was based on two conceptual frameworks developed in western countries. Specifically, job satisfaction was assessed via the widely used instrument, Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire (MSQ) published by Weiss, Dawis, England, and Lofquist (1967). Organizational commitment was measured via the three-component-model instrument, the Affective, Continuance, Normative Commitment Scales (ACNCS) developed by Allen and Meyer (1990, 1996; Meyer and Allen, 1991).
Methods
Based on empirical methods, this study used a questionnaire survey method with several statistical analysis techniques.
Instruments
A self-report questionnaire survey was designed to collect individual employees' perceptions of job satisfaction, and organizational commitment. The survey adopted two existing instruments, i.e. MSQ and ACNCS. In this study, the short form of the MSQ was chosen, consisting of 20 items with 1 for each facet. The ACNCS was composed of three subscales measuring the three dimensions (affective, continuous, and normative) of commitment. These original subscales comprised eight items each (Allen and Meyer, 1990), and the revised subscales each comprised six items (Meyer et al., 1993). This study's consolidated questionnaire drew 23 items from the ACNCS.
While using, the contents of the two original instruments were modified, their formats were refined, and then they were merged into a single questionnaire for the research purpose. The original response choices were unified to a five-point Likert scale, and participants' demographic variables were added or revised.
The two instruments used in this study were originally developed in English and validated mainly in the western contexts. Thus, the author carefully undertook the process of English-to-Chinese translation, and then roughly proved their applicability in the Chinese context, especially the MSQ (Wang, 2007).
Participants
The targeted population consisted of all employees who work in SOEs and POEs located Guangdong Province, China. The sampling strategy of this study combined both purposeful and convenience tactics. Nine companies – four SOEs and five POEs scattering in major business sector including finance, manufacture, service, and transportation, agreed to participate. All companies were considered as large in terms of their ownership characteristics, industrial features, and localities.
Of the 1,300 selected sample employees, 991 employees participated in the survey with usable responses, 409 from the SOEs, and 582 from the POEs. The overall response rate was 76.9 percent. Regarding the demographic information, most participants were male (59.6 percent), aged from 23-40 years old (43.8 percent of 23-30 and 30.6 percent of 31-40 years old), with a college education (46.0 percent of two-year and 28.4 percent of four-year college).
Results
A series of statistical procedures was performed to address the research questions. The results of the data analyses revealed a number of significant findings.
Descriptive statistics for the status quo
To provide descriptive understandings of job satisfaction and organizational commitment in Chinese enterprises, individual and overall means and standard deviations were calculated from subscales and items in the two scales. The overall mean score of ACNCS was intentionally calculated in order to compare with the general mean score of MSQ, although it originally was not designed to do so.
As shown in Table I, employees in the sample enterprises had the higher overall score on job satisfaction (3.68), and the lower overall score on organizational commitment (3.00). At the subscale levels, intrinsic satisfaction had the highest score (3.70) and continuance commitment got the lowest score (2.84). These results seem reasonable because most participants were employees under 40 years old and with two-year college or above education background.
As for the two scales' individual items calculated, some interesting results were also found. Within 20 items of MSQ, the item “(I am satisfied with) being able to do things that do not go against my conscience” had the highest score (4.31), and the item “(I am satisfied with) my pay and the amount of work I do” had the lowest score (3.20). This information revealed that most participant employees were less satisfied with their pay (salaries and benefits) or the amount of work they had to do. Within the 23 items of ACNCS, the item “I owe a great deal to my organization” had the lowest score (2.27), meaning that most participant employees do not feel much obligation to their employers, and the item “this organization deserves my loyalty” had the highest score (3.68), indicating that employees generally have a positive evaluation of their employers/organizations.
Descriptive statistics indicated that employees in both SOEs and POEs had higher job satisfaction and lower organizational commitment.
Differences among demographic groups
Age and education, as probably the two most influential demographic variables, were chosen to compare the means scored on each scale and subscale.
Differences between age groups. In the questionnaire, employees' age variable was measured in five groups. Two age groups, 23-30 and 31-40, represent the largest proportion of the sample (over 70 percent). The age group 41-50 is the third largest. There were relatively few respondents in two age groups – those who were below 23 and those who were older than 50. Given the fact that most Chinese enterprises prefer younger employees, this age distribution is reasonable and tends to reflect the age composition of overall Chinese employees. For the purpose of effective comparison, the five groups were merged into three, age group of 18-22 was merged into the next older group, and the group of 51-60 was merged into the next younger group. The ANOVA results are shown in Table II.
Almost in every comparison component, employees in the three groups by age showed differences except in the component of affective commitment. The most significant difference was found in continuance commitment where employees aged 41-60 had much higher “have to stay” commitment to the organization because they had a great deal of opportunity costs if transferring to other organizations, while employees aged 18-30 and aged 31-40 had no differences because both of them were young in tenure and did not have so much time invested in the organization.
The second difference was that senior employees (group C) had higher level of normative commit than junior employees (group B) and young employees (group A), while the last two groups had no differences. This result may be explained by the fact that the senior employees were more influenced by traditional employment values, while younger employees had less traditional values. Consequently, senior employees tend to be more committed to their organizations.
Third, senior employees had a much higher level of both intrinsic and extrinsic job satisfaction, while the two groups of younger employees had no differences in either intrinsic or extrinsic satisfaction. This result reveals that senior employees had lower job-related expectations and were easier to satisfy while employees under 40 years old generally had higher job-related expectations and were harder to satisfy.
Differences among educational levels. The education variable was categorized in five groups from the survey. But, for purposes of effective comparison, they were merged into three groups: senior high school or less; two-year college; and four-year college or above. Then, ANOVA was performed, and Table III shows the results.
First, the employees of group A showed a higher level of intrinsic, extrinsic, and general job satisfaction than the other two groups. The employees between group B and group C showed no differences in the scale and subscales, perhaps because those with some higher education had higher job-related expectations than employees without college education.
Second, employee with lowest education (group A) had higher normative commitment than employees with the highest education (group C). This finding revealed that the less-educated employees were more likely to feel a moral obligation to remain with the organization.
Differences between SOEs and POEs
The t-test assesses whether the means of the two organizational types (SOEs vs POEs) are statistically different from each other. Table IV shows the results.
First, the most comparisons revealed significant differences, while only two dimensions did not show a difference. These non-differentiated dimensions include extrinsic job satisfaction, and overall score of organizational commitment.
Second, significant difference in employees' intrinsic satisfaction was found. Employees from POEs had higher level of intrinsic job satisfaction than employees from SOEs and were more satisfied with their jobs overall.
Third, although the overall scores of organizational commitment between the two groups of employees were not different, the employees from POEs had a higher level of affective commitment that would tend to influence the organization positively, while the employees from SOEs had a higher level of continuance commitment that would tend to influence the organization negatively. In addition, employees from POEs had a higher level of normative commitment than their counterparts from SOEs.
In summary, through one-way ANOVA, it appeared that age and education could have significant association with employees' work attitudes, and different groups within the same demographic character showed differences in most measures. Through the t-test, it was found that there were significant differences in work attitudes between Chinese SOEs and POEs, and generally speaking, employees from POEs showed higher levels than their SOE counterparts on most measures.
Discussion and implication
Based on the results from the data analysis, some features are displayed and major implications can be induced, through the present status, demographic characters, and organizational types for job satisfaction and organizational commitment of Chinese employees.
Western-like employment relations
The results conclude that native Chinese employees currently have higher job satisfaction and lower organizational commitment. This feature can imply that present labor market dynamics and the employee-company linkage in Chinese society have been similar to their counterparts in western society. The comparatively high job satisfaction indicates that both Chinese employees and employers have sufficient freedom to choose each other, and the overall person-environment fit is fairly relevant. The comparatively low organizational commitment indicates that the previously forced loyalty in employee-organization relation has been changed to flexible loyalty, and the “iron rice bowl” employment model (1949-1979) that used to create forced loyalty on the part of employees has gone away. As social and economic restrictions have been disappearing, Chinese employees have become increasingly mobile and flexible in job market.
In dimension or sub-dimension levels, Chinese employees were satisfied the most with “being able to do things that do not go against my conscience;” it may reflect that Chinese employees own their personal sovereignty on what to do and how to do it in their job. Previously, this was minimal in enterprise settings. Meanwhile, the employees gave the lowest single score on “I owe a great deal to my organization.” This partially reflects that Chinese employees hold a low moral obligation to their organizations, and that the traditional Chinese collectivism and kinship that used to foster normative commitment are diminishing.
In short, as employees have a higher level of job satisfaction, and a lower level of organizational commitment, and become more mobile in employment and more flexible in commitment to workplaces and employers; it can be inferred that the forced-commitment model has been broken, that both traditional Confucianism and socialist cultures have decreased influences in the labor relations, and that Chinese employment dynamics have become similar to those in the western context.
Demographic differences in work attitudes
This study revealed that employees who were 41 or older had higher levels of intrinsic, extrinsic, and general job satisfaction, as well as continuance commitment and normative commitment; while employees who were 18-30 and 31-40 did not show differences in the above dimensions; and with regard to affective commitment, there were no differences among the age groups. This phenomenon indicated that older employees were more satisfied with their jobs in both intrinsic and extrinsic facets and more committed to the organization due to moral obligation and personal-cost calculation; while younger employees were less satisfied and less committed to the organization. In addition, this study confirmed the findings from non-Chinese contexts (Lincoln and Kalleberg, 1990; Ross and Reskin, 1992) in which increases in age led to increases in satisfaction and commitment.
This study revealed that employees with lowest education had much higher levels of intrinsic and extrinsic job satisfaction, as well as normative commitment than employees with higher education; while employees in the two higher education groups, did not show clear differences in the above dimensions. With regard to affective and continuance commitment, no differences among the education groups existed. This phenomenon indicated that employees who were less educated were more satisfied in their jobs in both intrinsic and extrinsic facets and were more committed to the organization due to moral consideration; while employees who were more educated were less satisfied and less committed to the organization based on moral consideration, particularly those with a four year college degree or higher. Again, this study confirmed the finding from non-Chinese contexts (Lincoln and Kalleberg, 1990; Ross and Reskin, 1992) in which education level was negatively related to satisfaction and commitment.
The implications report that increases in age positively relate to job satisfaction and organizational commitment, and increases in education negatively relate to job satisfaction and organizational commitment.
Comparisons between SOEs and POEs
During 1949-1978, when the party allegiance and the relationship of an individual with the state were overwhelming, because of Communist ideology and the politicized system of workplace control, workers (employees) were made politically, economically, and socially dependent on the SOEs (Walder, 1986). In that period, job satisfaction and organizational commitment were not regarded as issues from the employees' view, and there were no needs to query employees' feelings and attitudes towards work because employees could not make any choices. Every employee in SOEs was assumed to have the same high level of job satisfaction and organizational commitment. Indeed, employees in SOEs were in a more privileged circumstance than those in non-state settings in all aspects, such as working conditions, social status, job responsibility, pay, and benefits. With the launching of economic reform beginning in 1979, the central-planned economy quickly moved to a market-oriented one; at the same time, the superior status of SOEs has been greatly decreased, to some extent equal to other firms. Employees in SOEs have been deprived of guaranteed employment, and their relatively-higher position and welfare have now been dramatically degraded.
In comparison with SOEs and employees in SOEs, POEs and employees in POEs were under a lowly and menial circumstance in the beginning, and they have experienced a gradual, stable improvement in social status, political rights, and economic interests over the last 30 years. The relations between employees and employers in POEs were more influenced by Confucian culture and social traditions than the socialist culture, which were featured as “harmony and loyalty” (Warner and Zhu, 2002), as well as kinship, hierarchical structure of filial piety, paternalism, and strong pressures for conformity and maintenance of face (Redding, 1990).
The results from this study showed that SOEs and POEs had significant differences in most dimensions of the two constructs. It was expected that employees in SOEs would be more satisfied with their jobs because they have a more relaxed work environment and more secure welfare, but, from the results, employees in SOEs and POEs were not different in extrinsic job satisfaction. This reflects that within POEs the extrinsic facets, such as compensation, supervision, company policy, recognition and advancement, have been upgraded to a similar level with SOEs. On the other hand, employees in POEs had significantly higher intrinsic and general job satisfaction than those in SOEs. This phenomenon may indicate that employees in POEs more likely enjoyed the job itself and were more comfortable with the working condition and co-worker relations than those in SOEs. This can be explained by the fact that employees in POEs preferred more challenging jobs and market-oriented environments; POEs largely bettered work facilities and conditions; and POEs emphasized a more harmonious atmosphere.
Although overall organizational commitment in SOEs and POEs did not differ and they both had a similarly stable workforce, employees in POEs showed a higher level of affective commitment and normative commitment, reflecting that POEs' employees had a higher level of emotional attachment to and value congruence with the organization. In contrast, employees in SOEs had lower affective commitment, reflecting that employees may dissociate themselves from the enterprise objectives due to a lack of transparent internal communication; it also may suggest that such employees have less trust in the organization's senior managers and supervisors, because Chinese employees' affective commitment in fact reflects more of an emotional attachment to the people within the organization rather than to the organization itself (Chen and Francesco, 2003).
Employees in SOEs showed a higher level of continuance commitment, reflecting that SOEs' employees either recognized the costs associated with leaving the organization or had to stay with the organization due to a lack of job alternatives; whereas, employees in POEs heightened in affective commitment. According to Wang's (2004) study, this finding implies that the commitment featured in POEs has an active influence on the organization because “want to stay” employees are more likely to work on behalf of the organization, while the commitment featured in SOEs has a passive influence on the organization because “have to stay” employees are less likely to make great effort for the good of the organization.
As employees in POEs have a higher level of job satisfaction and organizational commitment than employees in SOEs, it can be inferred that POEs have a stronger competitiveness than SOEs in terms of employees' morale, and POEs have a healthier and more productive workforce than SOEs.
Suggestions for managerial practice
This study yields several significant findings and contributes to filling a gap in the literature. Particularly, it has practical importance and provides valuable suggestions for HRD/HRM professionals and managers.
First, relatively low organizational commitment can serve as an alert to organizations and HR professionals. The results from this study show that Chinese employees have relatively low organizational commitment, especially low in normative commitment. Because both traditional Confucianism and socialist cultures used to encourage normative commitment and have been substantially losing their influence now, it is suggested that Chinese companies and HR practitioners should consider fostering organizational norms and values to encourage employees to stay with the organization.
Second, SOEs should pay more attention to employees' affective commitment. This study shows that employees of SOEs have lower affective commitment than employees of POEs. The reasons behind this phenomenon may be a lack of effective internal communication or an unhelpful relationship between ordinary employees and the organization's top management. Thus, it is suggested that managements and HR practitioners in SOEs explicitly state the organization's goals and values to employees to enhance the linkage between the company's and the individuals' goals, and improve mutual trust between rank and file employees and organizational management.
Third, POEs should pay more attention to employees' continuance commitment. The result of this study highlights relatively low continuance commitment featured in POEs, due to the fact that POEs normally have a shorter company history, and employees in POEs are younger in age and job tenure. So, it is suggested that managers and HR practitioners in POEs raise employees' active continuance commitment by pushing employees to realize personal goals and by expanding employees' future career development opportunities.
Fourth, as inferred that demographic characters and groups can have different influences on work attitudes, companies should closely associate employees' demographic characteristics with their job satisfaction and organizational commitment. For instance, the older employees may have higher work morale than the younger. In spite of this, many companies intend to discard this advantage of older workers and blindly prefer the younger; some companies even intentionally lay off older employees. This can be an irrational HR policy and should be revised.
Fifth, organizations need to pay more attention to employees who are younger than 41 in improving their job satisfaction level and in retaining them. Organizations need to pay more attention to employees who are more educated in improving their job satisfaction level and in retaining them because they are less bound by moral consideration on commitment. Noticeably, many companies also blindly welcome employees with higher levels of education, but actually these employees often have lower job satisfaction and organizational commitment than those with lower levels of education; this policy again does not fully consider of the issue of keeping a stable and healthy workforce. It is suggested that organizations and HR managers should learn how to detect the impact of different demographic compositions and groups then simply adopting initiatives that they think will be beneficial.
Sixth, Chinese native companies should largely improve quality of employees' work life so that to assure their job satisfaction and organizational commitment as a whole. For organizational interests, this is especially imperative to younger employees who were less bounded by traditional values and opportunity costs, but more educated with higher turnover capability.
Last, demographic considerations in HR practice incur implications of legal equity. This study found that there were younger employees than older, more male than female, and more with college education than those with high school education in the participants' organizations. It may be a reflection that HR practices in some companies to some extent discriminate against older and female job applicants and those with lower education. Chinese HR practice, at least as represented by the participating companies, calls for legislation to defer any kind of discrimination. Thus, it is suggested that HR professionals should recognize differences in demographic characteristics and their impact on work attitudes and behaviors, treating all employees equally.
Limitations
The narrowly geographically-concentrated and ownership-exclusively company sampling strategy may prevent this study from broader generalizations. Meanwhile, the theoretical framework of work attitudes reflected in this study seems not sound and not well defined. It is recommended that further sampling should be expanded to other areas and other ownership-type enterprises in China, and other relevant work-related attitudinal variables should be included in the future studies.
Table IDescriptive statistics on scales and subscales in job satisfaction and organizational commitment (n=889)
Table IIDemographic differences by age in job satisfaction, and organizational commitment as determined by ANOVA (n=869)
Table IIIDemographic differences by educational level in job satisfaction, and organizational commitment as determined by ANOVA (n=866)
Table IV
t-Test results for mean comparisons in job satisfaction, and organizational commitment between SOEs and POEs (n=889)
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About the author
Xiaohui Wang is an Associate Professor at Lingnan (University) College, Zhongshan (Sun Yat-sen) University, Guangzhou, P.R. China. He received his PhD with a specialization in human resources from the University of Minnesota in 2005. Since 1985, he has published more than 50 journal articles in variety of fields in Chinese, and a number of HR-related research papers in English. His research and teaching interests include human resource management, organizational behavior, organization development, foundations of human resource development, labor economics, and development economics. Xiaohui Wang can be contacted at: wangxh@mail.sysu.edu.cn; wangxiaohui28@hotmail.com