Are Guanxi-Type Supervisor-Subordinate Relationships Culture-General? An Eight-Nation Test of Measurement Invariance

TY - JOUR

T1 - Are Guanxi-Type Supervisor-Subordinate Relationships Culture-General? An Eight-Nation Test of Measurement Invariance

AU - Smith, Peter B.

AU - Wasti, S. Arzu

AU - Grigoryan, Lusine

AU - Achoui, Mustafa

AU - Bedford, Olwen

AU - Budhwar, Pawan

AU - Lebedeva, Nadya

AU - Leong, Chan Hoong

AU - Torres, Claudio

N1 - Funding Information: The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The work of Nadezhda Lebedeva and Lusine Grigoryan was supported by the Higher School of Economics (HSE) Basic Research Program (International Laboratory for Socio-Cultural Research). The work of Claudio Torres was supported by the Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development, with productivity Grant Number 301406/2011-1.

PY - 2014/7

Y1 - 2014/7

N2 - Three dimensions of subordinate-supervisor relations (affective attachment, deference to supervisor, and personal-life inclusion) that had been found by Y. Chen, Friedman, Yu, Fang, and Lu to be characteristic of a guanxi relationship between subordinates and their supervisors in China were surveyed in Taiwan, Singapore, and six non-Chinese cultural contexts. The Affective Attachment and Deference subscales demonstrated full metric invariance whereas the Personal-Life Inclusion subscale was found to have partial metric invariance across all eight samples. Structural equation modeling revealed that the affective attachment dimension had a cross-nationally invariant positive relationship to affective organizational commitment and a negative relationship to turnover intention. The deference to the supervisor dimension had invariant positive relationships with both affective and normative organizational commitment. The personal-life inclusion dimension was unrelated to all outcomes. These results indicate the relevance of aspects of guanxi to superior-subordinate relations in non-Chinese cultures. Studies of indigenous concepts can contribute to a broader understanding of organizational behavior.

AB - Three dimensions of subordinate-supervisor relations (affective attachment, deference to supervisor, and personal-life inclusion) that had been found by Y. Chen, Friedman, Yu, Fang, and Lu to be characteristic of a guanxi relationship between subordinates and their supervisors in China were surveyed in Taiwan, Singapore, and six non-Chinese cultural contexts. The Affective Attachment and Deference subscales demonstrated full metric invariance whereas the Personal-Life Inclusion subscale was found to have partial metric invariance across all eight samples. Structural equation modeling revealed that the affective attachment dimension had a cross-nationally invariant positive relationship to affective organizational commitment and a negative relationship to turnover intention. The deference to the supervisor dimension had invariant positive relationships with both affective and normative organizational commitment. The personal-life inclusion dimension was unrelated to all outcomes. These results indicate the relevance of aspects of guanxi to superior-subordinate relations in non-Chinese cultures. Studies of indigenous concepts can contribute to a broader understanding of organizational behavior.

KW - guanxi

KW - measurement invariance

KW - organizational commitment

KW - subordinate-supervisor relations

KW - turnover intention

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84901391893&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1177/0022022114530496

DO - 10.1177/0022022114530496

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:84901391893

SN - 0022-0221

VL - 45

SP - 921

EP - 938

JO - Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology

JF - Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology

IS - 6

ER -