Transformational Leadership in China: the Role of Trust and Harmony

Transformational leadership attracted a significant amount of scholarly attention in the past few decades. This study is designed to develop an effective transformational leadership model that works in the Chinese context. A model is proposed to clarify the mediating effects of trust and harmony on the relationship between transformational leadership and its effectiveness. The model provides a new perspective on leadership in the Chinese context that is ignored in the Western leadership literature. It also offers a clearer understanding of how best transformational leadership practice combines with traditional Chinese wisdom to do a better job in accounting for the leader-follower dynamics in contemporary Chinese society

The Effect of Employee Engagement on Continuance and Normative Commitment to the Organization

A positive relationship between employee engagement and affective commitment is already documented in the literature. However, we do not adequately know how engagement is associated with continuance and normative commitment. Using survey methodology we find that while engagement has a non-significant positive association with continuance commitment, it has a positive association with normative commitment. No negative association was found between engagement and continuance commitment. This study’s results support recent critiques to Allen and Meyer’s three-dimensional model of organizational commitment

The Role of Organizational Learning Capabilities in Strategic Alliances

Recent studies on strategic alliance show great interest on how firms develop alliance capabilities to achieve alliance success. This study examines the relationship between organizational learning capabilities and alliance performance. The concept of organizational learning capabilities in this study is developed comprising training availability, technical expertise, and alliance experience. It proposes that a greater alliance learning capability is positively related to alliance goal achievement. The research further investigates how the inter- and intra-firm mechanism, the average level of technical expertise and alliance experience, and the gap of technical expertise and alliance experience between the partners impact alliance objectives

The Impacts of Personality Traits and Goal Commitment on Employees\u27 Job Satisfaction

The present research investigates the effects of personality traits, such as self-efficacy and locus of control, on job satisfaction. It also examines the mediating impact of goal commitment on relationships between personality and job satisfaction. The results indicate that both self-efficacy and locus of control are positively associated with goal commitment. In addition, locus of control is found positively related to job satisfaction. However, self-efficacy does not have the same positive relationship with job satisfaction. The study further confirms the mediating effect of goal commitment on relationships between personality traits and job satisfaction

Factors Influence on Success Mass Customization

This paper summarizes the common elements of mass customization (MC). It argues that MC should be viewed as a manufacturing management system that synergizes and integrates all the elements. Then, three factors, customer, technology, and organizational factors are identified. The moderating effects between implemented MC and improved performance are discussed

The Effects of Leadership Style and Employee’s Participation on Perceived Justice

The present study proposes and tests a model that examines the relationship between leadership style, employee’s participation, and justice perceptions. Results indicate that transactional, transformational, and dynamic leadership have positive impact on distributive, procedural, and interactional justice. Moreover, the effect of leadership style on organizational justice was indirect through employee’s participation. There are also some interesting differences across different types of leadership style and justice

Personality Traits Effects on Job Satisfaction: The Role of Goal Commitment

The present research investigates the effects of personality traits, self-efficacy and locus of control, on job satisfaction. It also examines the mediating impact of goal commitment on relationships between personality and job satisfaction. The results indicate that self-efficacy and locus of control are positively related to goal commitment. Goal commitment is positively associated with job satisfaction. In addition, locus of control is fund positively related to job satisfaction while self-efficacy does not have such relationship with job satisfaction

Retail Internationalization: JC Penney’s Global Expansion

In apparel industry, as domestic markets become overstored and/or mature, retailers consider international market involvement as a strategy for growth. Retailers have been successful in expansions to some countries, but not in others. This paper analyzes and evaluates JC Penney’s positioning and retailing strategies in domestic market, international expansion strategies, and factors such as culture influences on its international expansion strategies. This study presents a prototype for other retailers to follow when looking inside and outside national borders for expansion opportunities

The Effects of Leadership Style on Employee’s Perception of Justice: The Role of Employee’s Participation

The present research examines the effect of leadership style (classical, transactional, transformational, and dynamic) and employee’s participation on employee’s perception of justice (distributive, procedural, and interactional justice). It is proposed that different leadership styles are expected to display different effects on employee’s participation and perceptions of justice. Moreover, employee’s participation in decision making process is predicated to positively influence his/her perception of justice

A Study of Effective Leadership in the Chinese Context

The study of leadership is one of the most often researched management topics. However, most research and theory contributions are to a great extent limited to accounting for leadership practice in the West. This study is designed to develop an effective leadership model that works in the Chinese context. Paternalistic leadership, a dominant leadership style in an Eastern business environment, is compared with transformational leadership, a dominant leadership style in a Western business environment. In addition, the cultural differences between China and the West relating to leader-follower relationships suggest different leadership behaviors may be more effective in one of these cultures than in the other. For example, trust in the West is treated as the expectation that arises within a community of regular, honest, and co-operative behavior. It is important to examine how the Western versus the Chinese view of trust differs and how trust in each culture relates to leadership effectiveness. Another factor highly prized by Chinese traditions and associated with Chinese leadership is harmony. The best Chinese leaders display a distinctive and effective way of negotiating complex environments. They do so in such a way as to create a harmonious result in which all parties are at least reasonably satisfied with the result. This study will, therefore, also explore how harmony mediates the relationship between leaders’ behavior and leadership effectiveness. Moreover, as employees’ individual differences such as generation is considered as an important factor that will impact the outcome as people in different generations have different values and beliefs, thus viewing leaders differently, it is interesting to see how younger people perceive leaders differently from the older people in China. In summary, the purposes of this study are to propose a Chinese culture-specific leadership theory, built on traditional Confucianism, and to examine and articulate a culturally informed and warranted ground for a leadership model in the Chinese context