Different responses to job insecurity of Chinese workers in joint ventures and state-owned enterprises

Document Type

Journal article

Source Publication

Human Relations

Publication Date

1-1-2005

Volume

58

Issue

11

First Page

1391

Last Page

1418

Keywords

Job insecurity, Organizational citizenship behavior, Rational choice theory, Social exchange theory, Trust in organization

Abstract

Job insecurity has become an important issue for western organizations in the last decade due to uncertain economic conditions, global competition, and the advancement of information technology In this study, we integrate social exchange theory and rational choice theory to explain employees' responses to job insecurity in the Chinese context. We distinguish short-term transactional exchange from long-term relational exchange, and argue that joint ventures (JVs) and state-owned enterprises (SOEs) are characterized by different kinds of employee-organization exchange. An integrated theoretical framework is developed to explain why workers in these organizations respond differently to job insecurity A total of 548 supervisor-subordinate dyads in a JV and a SOE in China are used to test the hypotheses derived from our framework. The results of hierarchical regression analysis indicate that the effects of job insecurity on organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) and job performance depend on both organizational types and employees' trust in their organization.

DOI

10.1177/0018726705060243

Print ISSN

00187267

E-ISSN

1741282X

Publisher Statement

Copyright © 2005 by The Tavistock Institute

Access to external full text or publisher's version may require subscription.

Full-text Version

Publisher’s Version

Language

English

Recommended Citation

Wong, Y.-T., Wong, C.-S., Ngo, H.Y., & Lui, H. K. (2005). Different responses to job insecurity of Chinese workers in joint ventures and state-owned enterprises. Human Relations, 58(11), 1391-1418. doi: 10.1177/0018726705060243

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