Huadong Yang

Effects of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation on task and contextual performance of Pakistani professionals

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine underlying linkages between employees’ intrinsic/extrinsic motivation and their task/contextual performance in a Pakistani health care and educational context. Employees’ affective occupational and organizational commitments were proposed as mediators to explain these relationships. Design/methodology/approach – Data were collected from 181 doctors from a Pakistani hospital and 135 academics from a Pakistani university and analyzed using Baron and Kenney (1986) approach and Preacher and Hayes (2008) bootstrapping approach for testing multiple mediators simultaneously. Findings – As expected, intrinsic motivation is related to task performance (TP) and this relationship is mediated by affective occupational commitment. Extrinsic motivation is related both to TP and contextual performance (CP) and these relationships are mediated by affective organizational commitment. Research limitations/implications – Research has implications both for practitioners and a...

Climato-Economic Imprints on Chinese Collectivism

A still unsolved question is why humans create collectivism. A new theory proposes that poorer populations coping with more demanding winters or summers become more collectivist. Preliminary support comes from a province-level analysis of survey data from 1,662 native residents of 15 Chinese provinces. Collectivism is weakest in provinces with temperate climates irrespective of income (e.g., Guangdong), negligibly stronger in higher income provinces with demanding climates (e.g., Hunan), and strongest in lower income provinces with demanding climates (e.g., Heilongjiang). Multilevel analysis consolidates the results by demonstrating that collectivism at the provincial level fully mediates the interactive impact of climato-economic hardships on collectivist orientations at the individual level, suggesting that culture building is a collective top-down rather than bottom-up process.

Whose side are you on? Relational orientations and their impacts on side-taking among Dutch and Chinese employees

Informal relationships often influence employees who intervene in an interpersonal conflict between colleagues. We investigate and report the effects of relational orientations (reciprocity orientation and communal orientation) on employee preference of choosing sides between an acquaintance and a friend in a workplace dispute in The Netherlands and China. A scenario study was conducted among 104 Dutch and 105 Chinese employees. As hypothesized, the results indicate that employees, especially Dutch employees, with an interest-concerned reciprocity orientation tend to side with the acquaintance who has a greater potential to return the favour. By contrast, employees, especially Chinese, with a sharing-concerned communal orientation tend to side with their workplace friend. Explanations and implications of the findings are discussed.

Promoting VET teachers’ innovative behaviour: exploring the roles of task interdependence, learning goal orientation and occupational self-efficacy

Abstract Changing employer demands, new technological and pedagogical insights are examples of developments which urge Vocational Education and Training (VET) institutes to continually renew and innovate their educational programmes. This, in turn, requires teachers to show innovative behaviour. Our study focuses on the effects of task interdependence on VET teachers’ innovative behaviour. In addition, the mediating roles of learning goal orientation and occupational self-efficacy in this relationship are examined. A two-wave survey study among 342 teachers, from 54 teams of 6 Dutch VET institutes, showed that task interdependence enhanced teachers’ learning goal orientation, which enhanced their engagement in innovative behaviour over time. Task interdependence also increased teachers’ occupational self-efficacy, which in turn increased their engagement in innovative behaviour. This effect, however, appeared short lived. Apparently, once teachers exceed a certain level of occupational self-efficacy, other variables, like learning goal orientation, play a more important role in sustaining innovative behaviour.

Feelings of power lead people to take sides with other powerful parties

Abstract It has often been noted that power has various self-reinforcing effects, in the sense that it leads people to support the interests of other powerful people and harm the interests of the powerless. In the current article we investigate this in a fundamental manner and show that the experience of power makes people more inclined to side with parties that are higher in the hierarchy and against parties that are lower in that hierarchy. Two studies demonstrate that people who experience elevated power side with parties higher in the hierarchy and against parties lower in the hierarchy. A third experiment identifies an important moderator: if people sense their power is unfair and illegitimate, this effect is blocked. These results extend our understanding of the effects of power on moral thinking to actual side taking with one party against another in an interpersonal, moral conflict.

Look who's co-creating: employer branding on social media

Web2.0 changes the way information, services and products are created. Companies engage with consumers in a process of co-creation to invent, shape and generate added value. This trend has been labelled Enterprise 2.0. This interdisciplinary study joins the fields of Infor-mation Systems, Marketing and Human Resource Management and provides an insight into how the models of value-, product- and service co-creation can be applied to the domain of employer branding. Based on the DART-model of value co-creation a qualitative multi-case study investi-gates how social media usage contributes to co-creation of employer brand. The study reveals unexpected trends, paradoxes and potential conflicts, and provides suggestions for further re-search. The paper highlights the lack of Dialogue between employer and employee; new ways of Accessing information by employees outside the control of the employer; the uncertainty of ben-efits and Risks of employee involvement in brand creation; and increased Transparency through inclusion of new participants in the employer brand creation process: alumni and customers. The study identifies an emergent shift of power to control and create information from the or-ganization towards employees and consumers and links this power shift to social media use by organisations and their employees.

Perceived organizational support and knowledge sharing: employees’ self-construal matters

Abstract HR professionals are expected to become more involved in knowledge management and facilitate knowledge sharing among employees in the knowledge economy. In this study, we investigated the relationship between perceived organizational support and knowledge sharing by taking account of employees’ interdependent and independent self-construal. Our hypotheses were examined using a 2-wave survey data-set from 145 teachers working at 4 Dutch vocational education and training schools. The results showed that perceived organizational support was positively related to knowledge sharing for employees either with a high interdependent self or with a low independent self. However, this positive relationship disappeared for employees either with a low interdependent self or with a high independent self. Overall, the moderating effect of self-construal revealed a new avenue towards a better understanding of the relationship between organizational support and employees’ knowledge sharing. It provided a tentative answer to the question of why organizational support does not often succeed in motivating employees to share their knowledge in the workplace.

'We are not creative here!' Creativity and innovation for non-creatives through HRM

The chapter examines the relationship between innovation and HRM, through the literature on recognising, leveraging and releasing the creative and innovative behaviours of employees across specialisms, and across levels of the hierarchy. It develops a four-stage conceptualisation of innovation: problem identification; idea generation; idea evaluation; and implementation. It identifies two areas that would benefit from more focused research. First, distinguishing between environments where creativity and innovation is overtly required, as opposed to job roles where creative outcomes, while valuable, are not expressly called for as part of the job. Second, examining the effect that HRM has on individual creativity (idea generation) and the more collective process of innovation implementation. It examines the process of bottom-up emergence, and the ways in which HRM can support and underpin employees’ efforts not just to generate ideas, but also to work with others to foster their implementation.

Preference for relationship help and emotional help from third parties across cultures: The mediating effects of idiocentric and allocentric orientations

Purpose In this paper, the authors examine the role of idiocentric and allocentric cultural orientations in employees’ preference for relationship help and for emotional help from third parties in two cross-cultural samples. The purpose of this paper is to clarify the psychological dynamics of cultural dimensions in relation to cross-cultural conflict intervention. Design/methodology/approach The authors tested the theoretical assumptions by using questionnaire survey in two cross-cultural samples. Study 1 is a cross-cultural comparison within a country, including 83 Dutch employees and 106 Turkish immigrants in the Netherlands. Study 2 is a comparison between countries, including 123 Germany-based German employees and 101 Pakistan-based Pakistani employees. Findings The results show that employees’ allocentric orientation, but not idiocentric orientation, explains the differences in preference for relationship help in both the within-country comparison (Study 1: individualistic Dutch culture vs collectivistic Turkish culture) and the between-country comparison (Study 2: individualistic German culture vs collectivistic Pakistani culture). However, only in the between-country comparison (Study 2), the findings reveal that the difference in preference for emotional help between individualistic German culture and collectivistic Pakistani culture is mediated by idiocentric orientation (not by allocentric orientation). Research limitations/implications The study confirms that the extent to which disputants’ preference for third-party help regarding social and personal aspects does differ across national cultures, and supports that the argument that social relationship is one of the paramount concerns in conflict handling in the collectivistic cultures. In addition, the study signals an alternative way of conducting two culture comparisons and expands our view on the cultural dimension of individualism-collectivism. Practical implications The findings have practical implications both for third-party intervention and for managing cultural diversity in the workplace. Social implications In general, this study contributes to our understanding on how culture influences conflict handling and provides suggestions for third parties to be culturally adaptive. Originality/value The research demonstrates that culture plays an important role in determining the extent to which disputants favour relationship help and emotional help from third parties. The research is also valuable in terms of reliability. The authors tested the hypotheses in two cross-cultural samples both within a country and between countries.

Professionele ontwikkeling in scholen

De professionele ontwikkeling van leraren ofwel het voortdurend blijven leren tijdens de loopbaan staat volop in de belangstelling in zowel nationaal en internationaal onderwijsbeleid als in de wetenschap. Enerzijds heeft dit te maken met de grote invloed die leraren hebben op de leerresultaten van leerlingen (zie bijvoorbeeld Scheerens & Bosker, 1997). Investeren in professionele ontwikkeling wordt dan ook gezien als een manier om de kwaliteit van het onderwijs te verbeteren. Anderzijds vragen de onderwijsvernieuwingen die massaal plaatsvinden om de nodige professionele ontwikkeling van leraren. Als gevolg van nieuwe leerpsychologische inzichten (zie bijvoorbeeld Boekaerts & Simons, 1995; Kanselaar & Andriessen, 2000) en het belang vanlife long learning skills in de huidige kenniseconomie (Kessels, 2001; Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995) wordt binnen het onderwijsleerproces meer en meer aandacht gegeven aan zelfsturing en actieve kennisvergaring door leerlingen (Kwakman, 1999; Simons, Van der Linden & Duffy, 2000). Deze ‘nieuwe’ vormen van leren brengen ‘nieuwe’ rollen en methoden voor leraren met zich mee (Sol & Stokking, 2008), en vragen van leraren dat zij zich op een zodanige manier ontwikkelen dat zij deze rollen ook adequaat kunnen uitvoeren en nieuwe methoden adequaat kunnen toepassen.