工商管理系学术讲座

Seminar of Department of Business Administration

Title: Relational and group collectivism in management practices: New thoughts and evidence from China

Speaker: Dr. Huadong Yang, Management School, University of Liverpool, UK

Time: 15:00–17:00 Sept 18, 2017

Place: Room 306, Tongji Building A

Abstract：

Recent research suggests that collectivism is not just the opposite end of individualism. Instead, collectivism is a plural form and manifests itself in different forms. In line with this trend of the thoughts on collectivism, in this paper we empirically explored two types of collectivism—relational versus group collectivism and examined their effects on management practices in terms of employees’ preferences for bureaucratic management, power distance and organizational commitment in the Chinese cultural context.   In relational collectivism, interpersonal relationships define self-concept and form the building blocks for social networks. Social norms focus on the regulations of different types of social relationships. In group collectivism, group as a whole defines self; collective effort is the key to success, and members need to conform to group norms and are obliged to group duties. 

Using questionnaire survey, we collected data from 1597 employees working in 22 private and local enterprises across 16 provinces in the mainland China. Our results initially support the theoretical distinction between relational and group collectivisms (both at the individual and the regional level). In addition, relational and group collectivism differed across regions/provinces in China. Finally management practices were found to be differentially prognostic of relational and group collectivism. Overall, our findings contribute to the debate on how to accurately redefine the cultural dimension of collectivism, and how different types of collectivism may shape management practices. 

Short Biography of Speaker：

Dr Huadong Yang is currently a Senior Lecturer in Organisational Behaviour/HRM at the University of Liverpool Management School (ULMS) in UK. He received his PhD degree in Organisational Psychology from the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. Before joining the ULMS, he held academic positions at the Birkbeck College, University of London (UK) and at the University of Twente in the Netherlands.

Huadong’s research interests focus on: Human Recourse Management; Conflict Management, and Cross-Cultural Management. His research has been sponsored by Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (N.W.O). His work has been appeared widely on the high impact academic journals, such as Human Resource Management  (US); Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology; Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, etc.