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Cross-cultural variations in climate for autonomy, stress and organizational productivity relationships: A comparison of Chinese and UK manufacturing organizations

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Abstract

Cross-cultural researchers have questioned the extent to which European–American management practices can be transported to major markets in Asia, such as the People's Republic of China. Applying employee involvement theory, we examined the relationships between climate for autonomy, work demands climate, employee stress and organizational productivity in a cross-national study of 51 UK and 104 Chinese manufacturing organizations. We predicted and found that climate for autonomy was positively and negatively related to stress in the Chinese and UK contexts, respectively. The interaction of climate for autonomy and work demands climate was significant: climate for autonomy was positively related to organizational productivity only when work demands climate was low.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank the Editor and the anonymous reviewers.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Management, Faculty of Business Economics, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia

    Giles Hirst & Brian K Cooper

  2. Aston Business School, Aston University, Birmingham, UK

    Pawan Budhwar, Michael West & Helen Shipton

  3. Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Chen Long

  4. Jiangsu Wuxi Economic Development Zone, Wuxi New District, Wuxi, China

    Xu Chongyuan

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  1. Giles Hirst
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  2. Pawan Budhwar
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  3. Brian K Cooper
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  4. Michael West
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  5. Chen Long
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  6. Xu Chongyuan
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  7. Helen Shipton
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Correspondence to Giles Hirst.

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Accepted by Mark Peterson, Departmental Editor, 15 February 2008. This paper has been with the authors for three revisions.

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Hirst, G., Budhwar, P., Cooper, B. et al. Cross-cultural variations in climate for autonomy, stress and organizational productivity relationships: A comparison of Chinese and UK manufacturing organizations. J Int Bus Stud 39, 1343–1358 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1057/jibs.2008.50

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