IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/worbus/v44y2009i3p323-335.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Gender differences in the work commitment of Chinese workers: An investigation of two alternative explanations

Author

Listed:
  • Peng, Kelly Z.
  • Ngo, Hang-Yue
  • Shi, Junqi
  • Wong, Chi-Sum

Abstract

This study explores the differences in work commitment between Chinese male and female employees. We develop a model that specifies the major antecedents of job and organizational commitment in the Chinese workplace. We then examine whether the gender differences can be attributed to factors related to gender role ideology or unfavorable work conditions encountered by women. Several hypotheses are formulated and tested with a data set collected from 582 employees in Beijing. The findings reveal that employee work commitment is related to organizational support, job characteristics, and perceptions of gender discrimination. Further, it is found that the level of job commitment of women is lower than that of men, whereas the level of organizational commitment is the same for both sexes. The lower level of job commitment of women is due largely to their stronger perception of gender discrimination, receiving less challenging job assignments, and engaging in a low level of leader-member exchange. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.

Suggested Citation

  • Peng, Kelly Z. & Ngo, Hang-Yue & Shi, Junqi & Wong, Chi-Sum, 2009. "Gender differences in the work commitment of Chinese workers: An investigation of two alternative explanations," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 44(3), pages 323-335, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:worbus:v:44:y:2009:i:3:p:323-335
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1090951608000515
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Knight, John & Song, Lina, 2006. "Towards a Labour Market in China," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199215553.
    2. Cohen-Charash, Yochi & Spector, Paul E., 2001. "The Role of Justice in Organizations: A Meta-Analysis," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 86(2), pages 278-321, November.
    3. Nancy Chen & Dean Tjosvold, 2007. "Guanxi and leader member relationships between American managers and Chinese employees: open-minded dialogue as mediator," Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Springer, vol. 24(2), pages 171-189, June.
    4. Northcraft, Gregory B. & Earley, P. Christopher, 1989. "Technology, credibility, and feedback use," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 44(1), pages 83-96, August.
    5. Green, Stephen G. & Anderson, Stella E. & Shivers, Sheryl L., 1996. "Demographic and Organizational Influences on Leader-Member Exchange and Related Work Attitudes," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 66(2), pages 203-214, May.
    6. Jawad Syed, 2008. "A context-specific perspective of equal employment opportunity in Islamic societies," Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Springer, vol. 25(1), pages 135-151, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Peng Nie & Lanlin Ding & Alfonso Sousa-Poza, 2020. "What Chinese Workers Value: An Analysis of Job Satisfaction, Job Expectations, and Labour Turnover in China," Prague Economic Papers, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2020(1), pages 85-104.
    2. Rickne, Johanna, 2010. "Gender, Wages, and Social Security in China’s Industrial Sector," Working Paper Series 827, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.
    3. Tatli, Ahu & Vassilopoulou, Joana & Özbilgin, Mustafa, 2013. "An unrequited affinity between talent shortages and untapped female potential: The relevance of gender quotas for talent management in high growth potential economies of the Asia Pacific region," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 22(3), pages 539-553.
    4. Kelly Z. Peng, 2017. "Responding to emotions in China: Gender differences and the emotion-job outcome relationship," Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Springer, vol. 34(2), pages 443-460, June.
    5. Hang Ngo & Sharon Foley & Ming Ji & Raymond Loi, 2014. "Work Satisfaction of Chinese Employees: A Social Exchange and Gender-Based View," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 116(2), pages 457-473, April.
    6. Ming Jia & Zhe Zhang, 2013. "Critical Mass of Women on BODs, Multiple Identities, and Corporate Philanthropic Disaster Response: Evidence from Privately Owned Chinese Firms," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 118(2), pages 303-317, December.
    7. Chi-Sum Wong & Kelly Peng & Junqi Shi & Yina Mao, 2011. "Differences between odd number and even number response formats: Evidence from mainland Chinese respondents," Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Springer, vol. 28(2), pages 379-399, June.
    8. Ye Luo, 2016. "Gender and Job Satisfaction in Urban China: The Role of Individual, Family, and Job Characteristics," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 125(1), pages 289-309, January.
    9. Syaeful Bahri & Ma’ruf Akbar & Billy Tunas & Sukemi Kadiman, 2019. "Employee’s Performance in a Commission for General Election of Banten Province, an Evidence from Indonesia," International Journal of Human Resource Studies, Macrothink Institute, vol. 9(3), pages 176-197, December.
    10. Koveshnikov, Alexei & Tienari, Janne & Piekkari, Rebecca, 2019. "Gender in international business journals: A review and conceptualization of MNCs as gendered social spaces," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 54(1), pages 37-53.
    11. Ramamoorthy Nagarajan & Stringer Donna, 2017. "Equity versus equality norms of justice and organisational commitment: the moderating role of gender," The Irish Journal of Management, Sciendo, vol. 36(3), pages 206-220.
    12. Pengyu Chen & Abd Alwahed Dagestani, 2023. "Greenwashing behavior and firm value – From the perspective of board characteristics," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 30(5), pages 2330-2343, September.
    13. Hayet Kerras & Jorge Luis Sánchez-Navarro & Erasmo Isidro López-Becerra & María Dolores de-Miguel Gómez, 2020. "The Impact of the Gender Digital Divide on Sustainable Development: Comparative Analysis between the European Union and the Maghreb," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(8), pages 1-30, April.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Chenot, David & Boutakidis, Ioakim & Benton, Amy D., 2014. "Equity and fairness perceptions in the child welfare workforce," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 400-406.
    2. Visschers, Vivianne H.M. & Siegrist, Michael, 2012. "Fair play in energy policy decisions: Procedural fairness, outcome fairness and acceptance of the decision to rebuild nuclear power plants," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 292-300.
    3. Amy R. Ward & Mor Armony, 2013. "Blind Fair Routing in Large-Scale Service Systems with Heterogeneous Customers and Servers," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 61(1), pages 228-243, February.
    4. Amar Fall & Fatéma Safy-Godineau & David Carassus, 2018. "Perceptions de justice organisationnelle dans les collectivités locales : quels impacts sur le bien-être psychologique au travail et sur l’intention de quitter des agents ?," Post-Print hal-02142237, HAL.
    5. Thuy-Van Tran & Sinikka Lepistö & Janne Järvinen, 2021. "The relationship between subjectivity in managerial performance evaluation and the three dimensions of justice perception," Journal of Management Control: Zeitschrift für Planung und Unternehmenssteuerung, Springer, vol. 32(3), pages 369-399, September.
    6. Dodgson, Mary Kate & Agoglia, Christopher P. & Bennett, G. Bradley, 2021. "The influence of relationship partners on client managers’ negotiation positions," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).
    7. Hakan Yalçın & Yeliz Yalçın, 2022. "A Meta Analysis of the Relationship between Organizational Justice and Job Satisfaction: The Case of Turkey," Istanbul Business Research, Istanbul University Business School, vol. 51(2), pages 417-432, November.
    8. Liebig, Stefan & Schupp, Jürgen, 2008. "Leistungs- oder Bedarfsgerechtigkeit? Über einen normativen Zielkonflikt des Wohlfahrtsstaats und seiner Bedeutung für die Bewertung des eigenen Erwerbseinkommens," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 59(1), pages 7-30.
    9. Xin Qin & Xin Liu & Jacob A. Brown & Xiaoming Zheng & Bradley P. Owens, 2021. "Humility Harmonized? Exploring Whether and How Leader and Employee Humility (In)Congruence Influences Employee Citizenship and Deviance Behaviors," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 170(1), pages 147-165, April.
    10. Syed, Jawad, 2008. "An Islamic perspective of industrial relations: the case of Pakistan," MPRA Paper 13684, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Chan, Sow Hup Joanne & Lai, Ho Yan Isabella, 2017. "Understanding the link between communication satisfaction, perceived justice and organizational citizenship behavior," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 214-223.
    12. Bowlus, Audra J. & Sicular, Terry, 2003. "Moving toward markets? Labor allocation in rural China," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(2), pages 561-583, August.
    13. Appleton, Simon & Song, Lina, 2008. "Life Satisfaction in Urban China: Components and Determinants," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 36(11), pages 2325-2340, November.
    14. Karakostas, Alexandros & Kocher, Martin G. & Matzat, Dominik & Rau, Holger A. & Riewe, Gerhard, 2023. "The team allocator game: Allocation power in public goods games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 140(C), pages 73-87.
    15. Alder, G. Stoney & Ambrose, Maureen L., 2005. "An examination of the effect of computerized performance monitoring feedback on monitoring fairness, performance, and satisfaction," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 97(2), pages 161-177, July.
    16. Kim, Andrea & Moon, Jinhee & Shin, Jiseon, 2019. "Justice perceptions, perceived insider status, and gossip at work: A social exchange perspective," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 30-42.
    17. Alina Köchling & Marius Claus Wehner, 2020. "Discriminated by an algorithm: a systematic review of discrimination and fairness by algorithmic decision-making in the context of HR recruitment and HR development," Business Research, Springer;German Academic Association for Business Research, vol. 13(3), pages 795-848, November.
    18. Lalit Kumar Yadav & Pawan Gupta, 2017. "Procedural Justice, Job Satisfaction and Organizational Citizenship Behaviour: Mediating Role of Organizational Trust—Indian Tourism Industry Study," Management and Labour Studies, XLRI Jamshedpur, School of Business Management & Human Resources, vol. 42(3), pages 275-292, August.
    19. Hang-yue Ngo & Raymond Loi & Sharon Foley & Xiaoming Zheng & Lingqing Zhang, 2013. "Perceptions of organizational context and job attitudes: The mediating effect of organizational identification," Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Springer, vol. 30(1), pages 149-168, March.
    20. Cynthia Ho & Kylie Redfern, 2010. "Consideration of the Role of Guanxi in the Ethical Judgments of Chinese Managers," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 96(2), pages 207-221, October.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:worbus:v:44:y:2009:i:3:p:323-335. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/620401/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.