華人傳統性與員工效能之關聯整合分析

A Meta-Analysis of the Relationship between Chinese Traditionality and Employee Work Effectiveness

華人傳統性是華人本土心理學的重要研究構念，自楊國樞等人在1970 年代發展此構念後，迄今已有不少探討華人傳統性與員工效能之研究，包括華人傳統性與員工工作態度、工作行為與職場健康之關係。為統整華人傳統性在組織行為領域中的研究結果，本研究以整合分析對188 篇論文進行量化回顧。根據188 篇實徵研究整合分析結果，華人傳統性與權力距離導向有正向關係，並與以下工作態度有正向關係：組織忠誠、主管忠誠、知覺社會支持、知覺組織支持、個人與組織適配、工作滿意度、薪資滿意度、知覺組織正義、組織承諾、分配正義、適配、認同、主管信任、信任，但與離職意願有負向關係。在工作行為方面，華人傳統性僅和人際導向的組織公民行為有正向關係，但與員工職場健康無關。在員工背景方面，華人傳統性與工作年資、年齡、年資、組織年資有顯著正向關係，而華人傳統性與教育程度有顯著負向關係。在調節分析方面，華人傳統性與部分員工效能之關聯會受到華人傳統性測量向度（單向度或多向度）及樣本地區所影響。本研究並對華人傳統性未來研究方向提出討論。

Chinese traditionality is a central research construct in Chinese indigenous psychology. Originally developed by Kuo-Shu Yang and colleagues in the 1970s, Chinese traditionality has extended to the workplace context. Although many empirical studies have explored the relationship between Chinese traditionality and employee work effectiveness (i.e., work attitude, work behavior, workplace wellbeing), the results are inconsistent. These mixed findings lead to confusion in the nomological network of Chinese traditionality and obstruct the development of Chinese traditionality. Hence, a quantitative review of empirical findings of estimates of effect sizes between Chinese traditionality and its correlates is needed.
To respond to this research call, we conducted a meta-analysis to summarize and clarify the relationship between Chinese traditionality and employees’work attitudes and behaviors. Starting in December 2019, we conducted literature searches on Chinese traditionality, including database search (12 databases) and forward search (18 articles on Chinese traditionality measures). Keywords used were“Chinese traditionality,”“individual traditionality,”“psychological traditionality,”and“traditionality.”In total, our meta-analysis database consisted of 4,930 articles. Based on our inclusion and exclusion criteria, the final database contained 188 empirical studies (138 journal articles, 46 thesis/dissertation, and four conference papers) that examined employee Chinese traditionality and its correlates in the workplace.
Considering the heterogeneity of the studies, we adopted the Schmidt-Hunter random effects. In addition, we corrected all effect sizes for sample error and measurement error. We found that Chinese traditionality is positively related to power distance orientation and the following work attitudes: organizational loyalty, supervisor loyalty, perceived social support, perceived organizational support, person-organization fit, job satisfaction, pay satisfaction, perceived organizational justice, organizational commitment, distributive justice, fit, identification, trust in supervisor, and trust. On the other hand, Chinese traditionality was negatively related to turnover intention. In terms of employee behaviors and well-being, Chinese traditionality is only positively related to organizational citizenship behavior, but it is unrelated to employee well-being.
Furthermore, Chinese traditionality was positively associated with some demographic characteristics, inducing job tenure, age, tenure, and organizational tenure, but negatively with education. The moderation analyses showed that scales used to measure Chinese traditionality (i.e., one dimension or multiple dimensions) and geographical regions of the samples moderated the relationship between Chinese traditionality and its correlates.
We discussed the future research direction of Chinese traditionality. About 87% of studies conducted in the work context measured only the subdimension“obedience-to-authority orientation.”Three possible reasons for this phenomenon have been proposed. First, Farh and his colleagues (Farh, Earley, & Lin, 1997; Farh, Hackett, & Jian, 2007) posited that obedience-to-authority orientation is the core concept of Chinese traditionality, particularly relevant for examining employee interpersonal relationships in the workplace. Second, results of exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses constantly suggest the issue of cross-loading items, challenging the construct validity in empirical studies. As a result, researchers resort to exploring only a single dimension most closely related to workplace context: obedience-to-authority orientation. Third, because the work of Farh et al. (1997) widely influenced the development of Chinese traditionality, most studies in our databases followed their approach.
Obedience-to-authority orientation is prevalent in the studies of Chinese traditionality in the workplace. Although some researchers suggest that the obedience-to-authority orientation is equivalent to the concept of Chinese traditionality (see Hui et al., 2007; Zhao & Liu, 2020), this approach limits the scope and a precise understanding of Chinese traditionality. Our study suggests that future studies should consider including other dimensions and examine their influences. For example, male superiority emphasizes the belief that men are superior to women, which may affect how employees interact in the workplace or how they perceive certain organizational practices. Therefore, the“male superiority orientation”may be a better sub-dimension for exploring gender-related research topics. Finally, we discussed the theoretical and managerial implications of our results.