Solving the mystery of Guanxi-a sociological explanation of social exchange and social networking in Guanxi practice

Guanxi, loosely defined as "inter-personal relations" or "personal connections," is one of the key socio-cultural concepts in understanding Chinese society. This thesis presented a theoretical examination of the Chinese socio-cultural concept of guanxi. By using a broad survey of the available literature, this thesis established the following points: Social structures shape and define the development of guanxi practice in Chinese society. Guanxi relationships are based on the social exchange of gifts and favors in dyadic or multi-stranded social networks. While following the general rules of reciprocity found in social exchange, guanxi exchange is also governed by the internalized social norms such as mianzi (face) and renqing (humanized obligation underpinned by human sentiment). Guanxi relationships are also network-oriented, featuring ties based on familiarity and mutual trust, and characterized by an interplay between expressiveness and instrumentalism.

A study of dual cultures in dyadic relations

Elderly caregiving, a fact of life for millions of Americans, has gained significance with the increase in the elderly population. Over 25 million family caregivers in the US, most of whom are women rearing their own children, care for severely ill or disabled family members. The increased flow of women into the labor force has caused this traditional role to be entrusted to hired caregivers, mainly home health aides. ^ This case study describes and explains the dyadic experiences of elderly Jewish clients and their Jamaican home health aides in a mixed-culture environment. The inquiry was conducted with a purposive sample of four dyads, their case manager, and the placement officer, all of whom were selected through a home care agency in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Strategies of data collection including non-participant observation, interviews, document analysis, and researcher's journals. Data from verbatim transcription of interviews and field notes were coded, sorted into emic categories, and reduced as linkages were identified via cross-case comparison. Three major themes—mixed-culture experiences, relationship building and maintenance, and agency role perceptions—emerged from the interpretative analysis of the data. ^ Assertions from these findings include that dyads have established a range of relationships to meet their personal needs, expectations, and desires in these goal-driven relationships. Relationally, they have reached interactional synchrony with some achieving the ideal family-type bond. Cultural difference is but one of the many contextual variables in the home care environment, which has its own cultural norms and expectations. Conflicts transcend cultural difference and seemed more a factor of individual relational disposition. ^

An examination of psychological meaningfulness, safety, and availability as the underlying mechanisms linking job features and personal characteristics to work engagement

The present study tested a nomological net of work engagement that was derived from its extant research. Two of the main work engagement models that have been presented and empirically tested in the literature, the JD-R model and Kahn's model, were integrated to test the effects that job features and personal characteristics can have on work engagement through the psychological conditions of meaningfulness, safety, and availability. In this study, safety refers to psychological perceptions of safety and not workplace safety behaviors. The job features that were tested in this model included person-job fit, autonomy, co-worker relations, supervisor support, procedural justice, and interactional justice, while the personal characteristics consisted of self-consciousness, self-efficacy, extraversion, and neuroticism. Thirty-four hypotheses and a conceptual model were tested in order to establish the viability of this nomological net of work engagement in which it was expected that meaningfulness would mediate the relationships between job features and work engagement, safety would mediate the relationships that job features and personal characteristics have with work engagement, and availability (physical, emotional, and cognitive resources) would mediate the relationships that personal characteristics have with work engagement. Furthermore, analyses were run in order to determine the factor structure of work engagement, assess whether or not it exhibits differential validity from organizational commitment and job satisfaction, and confirm that it is positively related to the outcome variable of organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). The final sample consisted of 500 workers from an online labor market who responded to a questionnaire composed of measures of all constructs included in this study. Findings show that work engagement is best represented as a three-factor construct, composed of vigor, dedication and absorption. Furthermore, support was found for the distinction of work engagement from the related constructs of organizational commitment and job satisfaction. With regard to the proposed model, meaningfulness proved to be the strongest predictor of work engagement. Results show that it partially mediates the relationships that all job features have with work engagement. Safety proved to be a partial mediator of the relationships that autonomy, co-worker relations, supervisor support, procedural justice, interactional justice, and self-efficacy have with work engagement, and fully mediate the relationship between neuroticism and work engagement. Findings also show that availability partially mediates the positive relationships that extraversion and self-efficacy have with work engagement, and fully mediates the negative relationship that neuroticism has with work engagement. Finally, a positive relationship was found between work engagement and OCB. Research and organizational implications are discussed.

An Examination of Psychological Meaningfulness, Safety, and Availability as the Underlying Mechanisms linking Job Features and Personal Characteristics to Work Engagement

The present study tested a nomological net of work engagement that was derived from its extant research. Two of the main work engagement models that have been presented and empirically tested in the literature, the JD-R model and Kahn’s model, were integrated to test the effects that job features and personal characteristics can have on work engagement through the psychological conditions of meaningfulness, safety, and availability. In this study, safety refers to psychological perceptions of safety and not workplace safety behaviors. The job features that were tested in this model included person-job fit, autonomy, co-worker relations, supervisor support, procedural justice, and interactional justice, while the personal characteristics consisted of self-consciousness, self-efficacy, extraversion, and neuroticism. Thirty-four hypotheses and a conceptual model were tested in order to establish the viability of this nomological net of work engagement in which it was expected that meaningfulness would mediate the relationships between job features and work engagement, safety would mediate the relationships that job features and personal characteristics have with work engagement, and availability (physical, emotional, and cognitive resources) would mediate the relationships that personal characteristics have with work engagement. Furthermore, analyses were run in order to determine the factor structure of work engagement, assess whether or not it exhibits differential validity from organizational commitment and job satisfaction, and confirm that it is positively related to the outcome variable of organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). The final sample consisted of 500 workers from an online labor market who responded to a questionnaire composed of measures of all constructs included in this study. Findings show that work engagement is best represented as a three-factor construct, composed of vigor, dedication and absorption. Furthermore, support was found for the distinction of work engagement from the related constructs of organizational commitment and job satisfaction. With regard to the proposed model, meaningfulness proved to be the strongest predictor of work engagement. Results show that it partially mediates the relationships that all job features have with work engagement. Safety proved to be a partial mediator of the relationships that autonomy, co-worker relations, supervisor support, procedural justice, interactional justice, and self-efficacy have with work engagement, and fully mediate the relationship between neuroticism and work engagement. Findings also show that availability partially mediates the positive relationships that extraversion and self-efficacy have with work engagement, and fully mediates the negative relationship that neuroticism has with work engagement. Finally, a positive relationship was found between work engagement and OCB. Research and organizational implications are discussed.