Yiqiong Li

HRM lives inside and outside the firm: employers, skill shortages and the local labour market in China

We examine the experiences of foreign-invested enterprises with localized shortages of skilled process workers in a local labour market in China: Suzhou Industrial Park (SIP). In particular, we examine how they respond to three major challenges: deficiencies in the vocational education and training system (VET); provision of workplace-based training; and poaching of skilled workers by other companies. We statistically examine employers’ responses to these challenges by using five independent variables: firms’ duration in SIP; size of firms’ skilled workforces in SIP, employers’ experiences of recruitment difficulties; employers’ perceptions of VET deficiencies; and employers’ experiences of employee poaching by other employers. Our findings show a range of approaches within firms that both confirm and contradict the economics-oriented human resource management (HRM) literature and recent discussion on the effects of Confucian values on HRM. As well, more innovatively, we find that firms use their HRM practices to link their internal labour markets and the local external labour market. Moreover, these firms engage with local institutions to meet their market-oriented requirements, suggesting the need for a more locationally sensitive approach to ‘HRM with Chinese characteristics’.

Roles of fatalism and parental support in the relationship between bullying victimization and bystander behaviors

This article examines how past bullied victims engage two types of bystander behaviors (defender and outsider) when they witness bullying situations.We also investigate if fatalism mediates the relationship between past victimization and two bystander behaviors. Finally, we test if parental support moderates the relationship between fatalism and two bystander behaviors. Based on 3,441 students from 20 middle schools in Taiwan, results support the mediation hypotheses that the relationships of past victimization with defender and outsider behaviors are mediated through fatalism. Furthermore, the results support the moderation hypotheses that parental support is positively associated with defender behavior even when the level of fatalism is high. Future school bullying prevention research and practice may benefit from understanding how to reduce fatalistic belief and strengthen parental support.

Preventing School Bullying: Investigation of the Link between Anti‐Bullying Strategies, Prevention Ownership, Prevention Climate, and Prevention Leadership

School bullying has been a major health and safety concern for teachers and students, which calls for effective strategies to address the issue. In this study, we explored individual and organisational factors that improve the effects of teachers’ use of anti-bullying strategies in reducing or preventing student bullying. Specifically, we examined the moderating role of teachers’ psychological ownership of their schools anti-bullying system in the relationship between teacher-reported use of anti-bullying strategies and student-reported bullying incidents. We also investigated how principals’ bullying prevention leadership, rated by a group of directors who are the immediate subordinates of these principals, inspires teachers’ psychological ownership of their schools anti-bullying system through building teachers’ shared perceptions of a bullying prevention climate. Results of multilevel analyses of multisource data from 2,123 teachers, 407 directors, and 15,967 students in 110 junior and senior high schools indicated that the impact of teacher-reported use of anti-bullying strategies on student-reported bullying incidents was strengthened when teachers have a high level of psychological ownership of their schools anti-bullying system. Further, principals’ bullying prevention leadership was significantly positively related to teachers’ psychological ownership of their schools anti-bullying system through teachers’ shared perceptions of a bullying prevention climate.

Prevention through job design: Identifying high-risk job characteristics associated with workplace bullying.

Work environment hypothesis, a predominant theoretical framework in workplace bullying literature, postulates that job characteristics may trigger workplace bullying. Yet, these characteristics are often assessed by employees based on their experience of the job. This study aims to assess how job characteristics, independently assessed via Occupational Information Network (O*NET), are related to perceived job characteristics reported by employees, which, in turn, are associated with self-reported workplace bullying. Multilevel mediation analyses from 3,829 employees in 209 occupations confirmed that employees, whose work schedules are more irregular and whose work involves a higher level of conflictual contact (as assessed by O*NET), report experiencing higher job demands, which are associated with higher exposure to bullying. Moreover, employees working in jobs structured to allow for more discretion in decision-making (as assessed by O*NET) report experiencing more job autonomy and are less likely to experience bullying. The results offer some clues as to how the way in which a job is structured is related to how that job is perceived, which in turn is associated with exposure to bullying. Our findings also suggest that a job design perspective to redesign certain job characteristics may offer an additional viable approach to prevent workplace bullying.

The role of transformational leadership in workplace bullying: Interactions with leaders’ and followers’ job characteristics in a multi-level study

The purpose of this paper is to examine the moderating role of transformational leadership on the relationship between job characteristics of both leaders and followers and workplace bullying within the workgroup. The central hypotheses were that, in a process of resource erosion, leaders’ task demands would be positively associated with workplace bullying in the workgroup, but that transformational leadership would moderate this effect, and the effect of followers’ autonomy on bullying.,Anonymous surveys were completed by 540 volunteer fire-fighters’ from 68 fire brigades and, separately, by 68 brigade captains.,The multi-level analyses show that leaders’ task demands positively predicted both bullying outcomes, after controlling for followers’ emotional demands and autonomy. Of most interest, transformational leadership moderated the influence of leaders’ task demands and followers’ autonomy on workplace bullying assessed by two approaches: self-labeling and behavioral experience. Further, a significant three-way interaction demonstrated that transformational leadership is actually associated with higher bullying as followers’ emotional demands increase under conditions wherein followers’ autonomy is constrained, but not when followers’ autonomy is high.,This study offers important practical implications in terms of leadership development in bullying prevention and reduction. For transformational leadership to be effective in reducing bullying at work, the situation must be matched to support this leadership style, or bullying could actually increase.,The study contributes to the research on workplace bullying by advancing the understanding of organizational factors that can influence bullying at work. The study also provides the first quantitative evidence of a relationship between the demands faced by leaders and the bullying experienced by members of the workgroup.

Collaborations between foreign-invested enterprises and China’s VET schools: making the system work amid localised skill shortages

This article examines collaborative initiatives individual foreign-invested enterprises (FIEs) develop with China’s vocational education and training (VET) schools amid localised shortages of skilled workers. It thus focuses on employer initiatives in responding to VET system weaknesses rather than, as is common, those weaknesses. Using Suzhou Industrial Park (SIP) as the research site, it provides a local labour market perspective for understanding how firms have redirected their interactions with local VET institutions in an economically advanced area. As a mixed-method study, data collection was through face-to-face interviews with FIE managers and local government officials and firm-level surveys. Employer initiatives take a number of forms and follow diverse motivations. Motivations include firm-focused needs and commitments to improving the system. A firm’s duration in SIP explains choices for more, and more demanding collaborations. Furthermore, through their collaborative programmes, the most engaged FIEs reshape those VET schools and also the choices of other local FIEs.