The Role of Perceived Quality of Social Relationships within Organizations in Chinese Societies

Abstract

In recent years, there is growing research attention concerning the effects of interpersonal relationships in the workplace for Chinese employees. In this paper, we pointed out that the overall quality of social relationship within an organization would be important for Chinese employees. We collected data from comparable samples in Hong Kong and Taiwan, with total sample size of 763. Results support our idea that perceived quality of social relationship within an organization has direct effect on organizational commitment after controlling for other important determinants of organizational commitment. Implications for future research and management practitioners were discussed. In recent years, the Chinese concept of interpersonal connections (i.e., guanxi) has received a lot of research attention. Many authors have argued that interpersonal relationship is of particular relevance in Chinese management (e.g., Davies, 1995; Davies, Leung, Luk, & Wong, 1995; Farh, Tsui, Xin, & Cheng, 1998). In fact, western management scholars have also recognized the importance of the social and interpersonal component of organizational life (e.g., Schneider, 1987). However, most of the past research has concentrated their efforts on dyadic relationship (i.e., interpersonal relationship between two person) instead of the overall quality of relationships with all the people working together in an organization. For examples, the western developed concept of leader-member exchange (LMX) theory (Dansereau, Graen & Haga, 1975; Graen & Uhl-Bien, 1995; Wayne & Green, 1993) concentrates on the working relationship between supervisor and subordinate. Organizational justice researchers (Clark & Mills, 1979; Deutsch, 1985) argue that the type of interpersonal relationship between two parties may be the primary factor influencing their choice of distributive justice and procedural justice norms. Most Chinese scholars have also concentrated on specific form of guanxi between two person, especially that between the supervisor and the subordinate. For examples, Farh, et al. (1998) measured supervisor-subordinate guanxi by particular ties such as former classmate, relative, same last name, same natal origin, former colleague, former teacher/ student, former boss/subordinate, and former neighbor. They demonstrated that these particularistic ties would affect subordinates' performance ratings, intention to quit, and organizational commitment. Law, Wong, Wang and Wang (2000) measured guanxi by certain particular behavior/activities between the supervisor and subordinate. They showed that guanxi between the supervisor and the subordinate will affect the supervisor's administrative decisions in promotion and bonus allocation. Although these studies have advanced our understanding concerning the effects of dyadic relationship in the workplace, the potential contribution of the Chinese concept concerning interpersonal relationships may be underutilized. It is well known that Chinese society is more collective and Chinese employees value harmony in personal relationships. For example, Yg and Huo (1993) pointed out that the overlap between work and social relations is much more pervasive in China. It is extremely hard for Chinese employees to imagine working in an organization in the absence of broad or far-reaching personal interactions with co-workers. Thus, it is reasonable to hypothesize that Chinese employees will have more favorable work attitudes and behaviors if they perceive favorable social relationships among employees within the organization. Unfortunately, this potential effect of overall quality in social relationship within an organization has seldom been discussed and explored in empirical studies. In western literature, network research may be the only exception that researchers focus on the effect of overall relationships among workers other than dyadic relationship (e.g., Bovasso, 1996; Meyer, 1994). …