Organizational commitment of Chinese employees in foreign invested firms

Abstract

Organizational commitment has been studied extensively in Western management research. Much less is known regarding organizational commitment in non-Western environments, in particular in the retail sector. In the present study, we seek to understand if organizational commitment differs between various cultures by exploring the organizational commitment of local employees in the China-invested stores of a UK multinational retailer and its relationship with employees’ willingness to stay. The data is drawn from a survey of 394 employees at four stores owned by this firm and three month’s in-depth ethnographic study at one of these stores. The paper tests several hypotheses based on the literature and taking into consideration of several elements with ‘Chinese characteristics’, i.e., relationships, ‘face’ and job security. The current research provides added insights by combining survey data with in-depth ethnographic data. Amongst the most notable findings of this research are, firstly, loyalty to organisation and belief in company’s values are not associated with employees’ willingness to stay; and secondly, feeling proud of working for the company, good relationship between management and employees, and job security are good predictors of employees’ willingness to stay. These findings indicate the need for management to consider what is important to employees, in terms of building employees’ organisational commitment, and their willingness to stay