The International Journal of Human Resource Management, Vol. 21, No.

12, October 2010, 21422155

A study of subordinate supervisor guanxi in Chinese joint ventures

Yui-Tim Wong*, Shiu-Ho Wong and Yui-Woon Wong
Department of Management, Lingnan University, Tuen Mun, N.T., Hong Kong Previous studies showed that guanxi is important for research in Chinese management and business activity. However, the concepts and nature of this practice in the context of China are not yet clear, because guanxi has various related meanings in Chinese society. In addition, only a limited number of researchers have studied this topic in the workplace. This study has the aims to describe and examine this construct in Chinese joint ventures. A model that links the construct of trust in a supervisor with subordinate supervisor guanxi, together with antecedents of trust in an organization is proposed. The proposed model considers it as an antecedent of trust in a supervisor; procedural justice and job security as antecedents of trust in an organization. It further compares how trust in a supervisor and trust in an an organization affect the turnover-intention of workers. A data set consisting of 292 employees in joint ventures in Southern China was used to test the hypotheses. The results of LISREL (a widely available software package) supported the proposed model. Trust in an organization was found to have a stronger effect on employees turnover intention than trust in a supervisor. The role of subordinate supervisor guanxi at work in Chinese joint venture is examined and discussed. The ndings of the present study provide practical implications for managing Chinese employees in joint ventures. Keywords: Chinese management; job security; procedural justice; subordinatesupervisor guanxi; trust

Introduction Since the adoption of the open door and market-oriented policies by the Chinese authority, guanxi had been recognized as one of the major dynamics in Chinese society and business behaviour has revolved around it for the last few centuries. Both local state-owned enterprises and foreign joint ventures have to face guanxi dynamics today. Human resource management (HRM) in China is at the cross-roads, as it encounters a fast-changing environment (China Economic Review 2009; Warner 2009). Between 2000 and 2009, Chinese guanxi had been widely studied in management (e.g., Chen and Tjosvold 2007; Hsu, Chen, Wang and Lin 2010, Ren 2007), marketing (e.g., Wang 2007) and supply management (e.g., Lee and Humphreys 2007). All these studies showed that it is important for research in Chinese management and business activity. However, the concepts and nature of guanxi in the context of China are not yet clear, because guanxi has various related meanings in Chinese society (Bian 1994). In addition, few have studied the subordinate supervisor guanxi in the workplace. In light of the paucity of research on personal guanxi in Chinese management literature, this study investigates the nature and characteristics of subordinate supervisor guanxi and provides managerial implications pertaining to guanxi.

*Corresponding author. Email: wongyt@ln.edu.hk

ISSN 0958-5192 print/ISSN 1466-4399 online q 2010 Taylor & Francis DOI: 10.1080/09585192.2010.509621 http://www.informaworld.com

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The purpose of this study is to describe the construct of subordinate supervisor guanxi, present a model that links the construct of trust in a supervisor and trust in an organization with procedural justice and job security and examine their effects on turnover intention. A number of hypotheses have been derived from our proposed model. To test the hypotheses, a data set consisting of 292 employees in four Chinese joint venture factories was analyzed. We try to throw light on the salient role played by employees guanxi with supervisor and its relationship with trust in a supervisor in the context of Chinese joint ventures. Guanxi and Chinese culture In Chinese society, guanxi can be dened as relation or relationship and has various related meanings (Bian 1994). The Chinese word guanxi consists of guan and xi. Guan meant a gate or a pass; xi means belongingness and extends into relationship, such as kinship; guanxi has the meaning of connection or relation today. Although the term is commonly used nowadays in China, it does not appear in the classic Chinese dictionaries, such as other recently used instances, such as ci hai (Word Sea, published rst in 1936) and ci yuan (Source of Words, published in 1915). This term cannot be found even in the later edition of ci hai (1978) and ci yuan (1970). Guanxi then became the focus of research in the recent decades of reform. However, the origins have been deeply rooted in Chinese culture with a long history of more than 2000 years. Chinese culture has been characterized by collectivism (Zhu, Warner and Rowley 2007) and Confucianism (Warner 2009) with emphasis on harmony and reciprocity (Earley 1989; Warner 1993). All these cultural characteristics should have a positive impact on the development of guanxi. Drawing on studies from China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore, Wong (2002) has examined the logic of Confucian collectivism prevailing in the traditional Chinese family and suggests that future research should be devoted to examine the effect of reward allocations on Chinese individualism and collectivism in the workplace. Guanxi is one of the practical ways to express the harmony between two persons in both daily life and workplace. Generally speaking, the development of guanxi between two persons involves the exchange of both renqing (social or humanized obligation) and the giving of mianzi (face in the society). Renqing is a precondition for the establishment of guanxi. It is unpaid obligations to the other party as a consequence of invoking the guanxi relationship. The Chinese people also emphasize the importance of face (mianzi). This is the idea of not losing ones face and at the same time saving another face. Hence, it is a key component in the dynamics of guanxi (Reddings and Ng 1982). These features make guanxi often named as social capital. The study of Bozionelos and Wang (2007) has investigated the attitudes of Chinese workers in a Chinese new state-owned enterprise (SOE) towards individually based performance-related reward systems. Their ndings suggest that guanxi and mianzi were indeed impacting evaluations of performance, especially where there is an absence of objective performance criteria. Reciprocity is also a key Chinese cultural value inherent in the development and maintenance of guanxi (Wu 1994). It has been suggested that guanxi-based reciprocity behaviour in China is similar in Western culture where an exchange takes place involving mutual benet (Movondo and Rodrigo 2001). The norm of reciprocity creates an obligation on the part of the beneciary towards the benefactor; hence their network relationship is sustained. Research has found that those managers who take time to interact

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and socialize with employees can gain their employees respect and trust, once guanxi has been established between them (Wu 1996). Hence, Chinese managers are encouraged to develop and maintain guanxi with their staff (Pearce and Robinson 2000). Literature review The concept of guanxi in traditional Chinese society is important. The collectivism of the Chinese leads themselves to believe that an effective way to get things done is through ones guanxi, or interpersonal connections (Hwang 1987). Chang and Holt (1991) noted that each person is born into a social network of family members, and as that person grows up, group memberships involving education, occupation, and residence can provide opportunities for expanding this social network. Chang and Holt also used interviews with adults in Taiwan to investigate their perceptions of how one might establish (pull/la, manipulate/gao or climb/pan) guanxi with each other. As a result, Gabrenya and Hwang (1996) suggested that the relative permanence of social networks among the Chinese contributes to the importance and enforceability of the Chinese conception for reciprocity (bao). This is important for the development of guanxi to each other. Tsui and OReilly (1989) related the concept of guanxi in China to the Western idea of relational demography, which refers to similarities or differences between an individual and others with regard to such factors as age, gender, race, religion, education and occupation. They concluded in their study that the ideas of guanxi and relational demography are conceptually related but distinct in certain aspects. For instance, guanxi is based on particularistic ties that involve interpersonal interactions between individuals, whereas relational demography is based on the individuals physical or personal attributes (Farh, Tsui, Xin and Cheng 1998). The bases of guanxi also constitute the sources of Chinese peoples social identity and play a signicant role in inuencing behaviour in their social relationships (Tsui and Farh 1997), and factors in guanxi may also inuence the relationship between an individual and others at work through the role of obligation and friendship. According to Yang (1994), guanxi in China refers to relationships between people. It may also mean social connections and dyadic relationships based implicitly (rather than explicitly) on mutual interest and benet. Once guanxi has been established between two persons, each can ask a favour of the other with the full expectation that the debt incurred will be repaid sometime in the future. However, guanxi may be used with different meanings. Bian (1994) had classied three different related meanings of guanxi. First, guanxi indicates the existence of a relationship between people in the same status group or are related to a particular person. That is to say, guanxi is established because of the existence of direct particularistic ties between an individual and others, e.g., a former classmate, relative, former colleague, former neighbours (Tsui and OReilly 1989). Second, guanxi refers to people (or contact person) with whom one has a strong connection. According to Bian (1994), some expressions indicate that guanxi is a person. For instance, She is not my guanxi. Its no use mentioning my name to her. Forget it! Third, guanxi refers to actual connections or contact between people. This type of guanxi emphasizes the strength and intimacy of direct social ties. However, some other authors dene guanxi as the general quality of the relationship between two parties not linked with particular ties (Davies 1995; Leung, Wong and Wong 1996). Law, Wong, Wang and Wang (2000) argued that guanxi refers to the connection between two parties through a system link when one party can choose to lock oneself up or open the link to the other party. Xin and Pearce (1996) also dened guanxi as a simple connection between the respondent and the person who is useful for day-to-day problems of

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the respondents current jobs and are helpful to the respondents long-run career success. Therefore, in this study, subordinate supervisor guanxi is dened as the relationships between a subordinate and supervisor, and can have the sense of social connections and dyadic relationships based implicitly on mutual interest and benet (Yang 1994). For instance, how often two persons are in contact, how well they know each other, or how much they like each other can all reect their degree of guanxi (Bian 1994).

Hypotheses The study by Farh et al. (1998), which examined guanxi in a sample of 560 vertical dyads (i.e., between supervisor and subordinate) in Taiwan, had supported the importance of guanxi for a subordinates trust in a supervisor. However, Ren (2007) had tested the impact of guanxi on trust in a supervisor in both the USA and China. Results showed that the hypothesized effect was not signicant. In this study, trust in a supervisor is dened as a psychological state comprising the intention to accept vulnerability based upon expectations of positive intentions or behaviour of his or her supervisor (Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Moorman and Fetter 1990; Rousseau, Sitkin, Burt and Camerer 1998). Some studies (e.g., Buttereld 1983; Li 1992, 1993) suggested that Chinese people have a strong tendency to display favouritism to people with better guanxi or direct particular ties, and perceive people with better guanxi as fairer and more likeable. It is thus anticipated that a supervisor is seen as more dependable and trustworthy to subordinates if they have better guanxi with subordinates. Gabrenya and Hwang (1996) contended that guanxi among Chinese contributes to the enforceability of reciprocity, which is important for the development of a subordinates trust in supervisor. Farh, Tsui, Xin and Cheng (1995, 1998) also found that guanxi predicted a high level of trust expressed by the subordinates toward their supervisors. In line with the current literature, the following hypothesis is proposed: Hypothesis 1: Employees subordinate supervisor guanxi will be positively related to their trust in a supervisor.

Empirical research has explored trust in an organization and trust in top management. For instance, McCauley and Kuhnert (1992) found that system-wide variables (such as fairness of the organizations performance appraisal system and job security) explained additional and unique variance in trust in management over and above the job and relational variables (e.g., autonomy and supervisory support). Alexander and Rudermans study (1987) also found that trust in management showed substantial unique effects of procedural justice. Procedural justice has been found to affect the evaluation of the organization and its authorities (Cropanzano and Folger 1991; Sweeney and McFarlin 1993), and thus it may have an effect on trust in an organization. Rubins study (2009) of the federal employees in the USA had found that employees perception of procedural justice had signicant effect on their trust in management. Based on justice literature, it is reasonable to expect that employees will have a high level of trust in organization, if they are guaranteed with fair procedural treatment. As joint ventures in China tend to have fair procedures in allocating the material rewards, a higher level of perceptions of procedural justice among workers would increase their trust in the organization. Thus, it is hypothesized that: Hypothesis 2: Employees procedural justice is positively related to their trust in an organization.

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Job insecurity has become a concern for workers in Chinese joint ventures today. Zhu (1995) found that local employees in foreign-invested enterprises are typically blue-collar workers. Most of them are employed as either contract workers or temporary workers. As compared with the permanent workers, these contract workers and temporary workers have less job security. In particular, those workers that do not have the ability to cope with the job requirements may perceive a high level of job insecurity, and hence their trust in the organization would be negatively affected. The expected positive effect between job security and trust in an organization is theoretically grounded in the psychological contract literature. Given that employees have implicit expectations about job security (Rousseau 1989; Shore and Tetrick 1994), a perceived threat to job security implies a possible violation of the psychological contract. Since perceived violations of the psychological contract trigger reassessment of the contract, the psychological distancing can be manifested in terms of a reduction of trust between the parties (Parks and Kidder 1994). Ashford, Lee and Bobkos study (1989) also showed that the greater the perceived job insecurity, the lower would be the trust in an organization. Fonner and Roloff (2006) found that student interns exposed to job insecurity show low trust in the organization. Based on the above arguments and ndings, it is hypothesized that: Hypothesis 3: Employees perceived job security is positively related to their trust in an organization.

With the economic reforms in China after 1978, a team-approach has been adopted as a major human resource strategy to integrate group responsibility and authority with team interests (Wang 1986, 1988). The team approach that emphasizes efciency, group responsibility and collective interests, has been found in some joint ventures. Given the responsibilities of the supervisors as well as their frequent and direct interaction with subordinates, it is common for the Chinese workers to view their supervisors as belonging to management level and being the representatives of the organization. In their study of middle managers in China, Zhang, Tsui, Song, Li and Jia (2008) found that supervisor support is important in creating trust to the organization. Hence, employees trust in supervisor is likely to be linked to their trust in organization. It is therefore hypothesized that: Hypothesis 4: Employees trust in supervisor will be positively associated with their trust in an organization.

Tett and Meyer (1993) suggested that turnover intention should be considered to be a conscious and deliberate willfulness to leave the organization (p. 262). This is often measured with reference to a specic interval (e.g., within the next six months), and has been regarded as the last stage in a sequence of withdrawal cognitions, consisting of a set of thinking of quitting and an intent to search for alternative employment (e.g., Tett and Meyer 1993). After the open-door policy with the substantial inow of foreign investment, joint ventures and wholly foreign-owned rms have become economically signicant in China (Zhu 1995). Moreover, other forms of enterprises such as collective ownership enterprises and domestic private enterprises have also increased both in number and size. As a result of employment reform, state-owned employees were allowed to leave their work units and move to the non-state sector (Chow, Fung and Ngo 1999). These changes not only have increased job mobility of workers, but also provide more job opportunities for the Chinese workers, including those employed in joint ventures.

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Among various reasons that may affect employees turnover intention, trust in top management had been found to be a key factor in a study of the restaurant industry (Davies, Schoorman, Mayer and Tan 2000). Additionally, Costigan, Itler and Berman (1998) reported that employees trust of the top management was highly and negatively correlated with the employees desire and intent to leave the organization. Way, Gregory, Davis and Baker (2007) also had found that there was a strong and positive link between trust in organization and intent to stay of clinical managers. It should be noted that trust in an organization is an institutional trust (Ashford et al. 1989; Fox 1974), and turnover intention is a conscious wilfulness to leave the organization (Tett and Meyer 1993). Trust in a supervisor is a dyadic trust between subordinate and his or her supervisor, and thus should be less related to turnover intention. In view of such differences, it is hypothesized that: Hypothesis 5: Employees trust in an organization will have a stronger and negative effect on turnover intention than their trust in a supervisor.

Methods Sample The sample for this study was composed of 292 employees and their 98 immediate supervisors. Data were collected from workers in four joint venture factories in Southern China in 2007. During this period, the economy was bouyant in both China and Western countries. These four factories manufactured handbags, purses, cosmetic bags and shopping bags, with a total workforce of around 1000 employees. They were in the same industry and had a similar organization size and background. The contractual joint ventures had the capital, equipment and management from the Hong Kong partners; while the China partners provided land, industrial buildings and labour. The products of handbags, etc., were mainly exported to Western countries, such as the USA, the UK and other European countries. The sample of employees was 36.8% male and 63.2% female with a mean age of approximately 26 years. The average job tenure for the sample was 27 months. Short job tenure was typical of the region, because most of the workers in the factories had a high mobility. In addition to local workers in Guangdong, the majority of the workers came from other provinces. In this sample, 19.2% of the employees were local workers, 15.2% came from other cities within Guangdong, and 65.6% came from other provinces. Procedures Data collection involved a number of personal trips by the principal author to each datacollection site. During the rst two trips, the production managers, production ofcers, supervisors and production workers in the four factories in the sample were interviewed in order to gain a better understanding of the factories under study. This step was undertaken to ensure that a questionnaire relevant to the sample would be created. After designing the questionnaire, a pilot test consisted of 20 subordinates and ve supervisors was conducted in the four factories with the aim of determining the appropriateness of the contents, the proper use of words, the ease of understanding and any modications needed. During the following trips, the principal investigator was there together with the assistance of two local members of staff to collect the research data, after learning from previous experience that in collecting quality research data in China, the presence of research professionals is often important. Based on the name-lists of all staff and workers in the four factories,

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the respondents and their immediate supervisors were identied in advance by systematic sampling. Questionnaires were distributed personally to each respondent. To assure all respondents that their individual responses would not be revealed to members of their working unit, the questionnaires for subordinates were collected immediately after completion. The subordinates were assured that the information they provided would be kept condential. Responses regarding subordinate supervisor guanxi, trust in a supervisor, trust in an organization, perceived job security, procedural justice and turnover intention were obtained from participants. The survey questionnaires were written in Chinese. To ensure equivalence of the measures in the Chinese and the English versions, back-translation from Chinese into English was rst performed (Brislin 1970). The two translations revealed no substantial differences in the meanings of the items. Two local research assistants with university degrees in English in China then personally reviewed all Chinese translated items to ensure that they would be meaningful to Chinese participants. Finally, the Chinese version of the questionnaire was examined by two Chinese scholars with PhDs in Hong Kong. All items were modied to t into the 5-point Likert-scale format (1 extremely disagree, 2 slightly disagree, 3 neither agree nor disagree, 4 slightly agree, 5 extremely agree). Measures Subordinate supervisor guanxi Since there are no suitable scales for measuring the guanxi between a subordinate and a supervisor in the context of Chinese joint ventures, a new scale was designed for this study. The dimensions of the frequencies of the interactions, and the degree of mutual interests and benets between a subordinate and a supervisor (Yang 1994) were used to measure the subordinate supervisor guanxi. For instance, a subordinate is expected to have better guanxi with his or her immediate supervisor if he or she has more frequent interactions, or has a higher degree of mutual interests and benets with the supervisor. Examples of this eight-item scale include: I have frequent interactions with my immediate supervisor after work and I am quite willing to help my immediate supervisor after work (e.g., nding, moving and decorating a house). (Please refer to Appendix 1 for all the items.) Based on conrmatory factor analysis, one item with very low extraction (item 6) was deleted. Coefcient a for the nal seven items in this sample is 0.82. Trust in supervisor Three items from the Trust in/Loyalty to the Leader Scale (Podsakoff et al. 1990) were selected for this study. The original four items are: I have complete faith in the integrity of my supervisor; My supervisor would not try to gain an advantage by deceiving employees; I feel a strong loyalty to my supervisor; and I would support my supervisor in almost any emergency. The fourth item is excluded because exclusion of this item signicantly increases the coefcient a for this scale to 0.71. Trust in an organization The employees trust in an organization was measured by an eight-item scale, which combines the two-item scale on trust in an organization developed by Ashford et al. (1989) and the six-item scale on trust in management developed by Cook and Wall (1980) with

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some modications to render the items more appropriate for the Chinese context. We combine these two existing scales because, rst of all, the concepts and measurements of trust in an organization and trust in management are often used interchangeably in the literature (e.g., Ashford et al. 1989; Cook and Wall 1980). Additionally, based on the interviews with the Chinese workers in the research sites, it was noted that the workers often consider their trust in management and trust in an organization nearly to be one and the same, and cannot be distinguished clearly. An example item is: I trust this organization to look out for my best interests. Coefcient a for this sample is 0.79. Procedural justice The four items used by Balkin and Gomez-Mejia (1990) were modied and adopted. An example of item is: Managers at all levels participate in pay and performance appraisal decisions. Coefcient a for this sample is 0.71. Perceived job security The four items used by Caplan, Cobb, French, Van Harrison and Pinneau (1975) were modied and adopted. The responses were obtained on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from extremely certain (5) to extremely uncertain (1). An example item is: How certain are you about your job security in this factory? Coefcient a for this sample is 0.72. Turnover intention The three-item measure of intention to change jobs from Camman, Fichman, Jenkins and Klesh (1979) were modied and adopted in this study. The three items are: I often think about quitting, I will probably look for a new job in the next year, and If I may choose again, I will choose to work for the current organization. Coefcient a for this sample is 0.74. Analytical strategy reskog and So rbom 2002) to test the proposed model. This We used LISREL 8.52 (Jo option remained a popular and widely available software package for structural equation modeling, which provided a unique analysis that simultaneously considered questions of both measurement and prediction (Kelloway 1998). Owing to the limited sample size in this study, the measurement and structural models cannot be examined simultaneously. Therefore, the single indicator method widely used in past research (e.g., Anderson and Williams 1992; Williams and Hazer 1986; Wong and Kung 1999) was adopted. By this method, the parameters of the measurement models are estimated from the variances and reliability coefcients of the measures. To set the measurement parameters for the single indicator model, the factor loadings were set equal to the square root of the reliability, whereas the error variances were set equal to the variance of the measure multiplied by the reliability coefcient subtracted by one. Since most of the measures are well-established scales with acceptable reliability, it is reasonable to x the measurement by this method. Data collected by us were used to test the hypotheses of the proposed model, because coefcient as of this sample for all measures were similar to past research. Specically, H1 was tested by a path coefcient between subordinate supervisor guanxi and trust in a supervisor. H2 was tested by a path coefcient between procedural justice and trust in an organization. H3 was tested by a path coefcient between perceived job security and trust in an organization. H4 was tested by a path coefcient between trust

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Table 1. Descriptive statistics and correlations. Variable 1 Subordinate supervisor guanxi 2 Trust in supervisor 3 Trust in organization 4 Procedural justice 5 Job security 6 Turnover intention Mean 2.657 3.774 3.495 3.292 2.985 2.441 SD 0.671 1 0.651 0.593 0.759 0.750 0.671 0.215** 1 0.249** 0.412** 1 0.335** 0.234** 0.378** 1 0.248** 0.144* 0.372** 0.186** 1 0.012 2 0.196** 2 0.346** 2 0.012 2 0.311** 1 1 2 3 4 5 6

Notes: *p , 0.05; **p , 0.01.

in a supervisor and trust in an organization. Since the employees turnover intention was hypothesized as a consequence of their trust in an organization and trust in a supervisor respectively, H5 was tested by comparing the path coefcient between trust in an organization and employees turnover intention with the path coefcient between trust in a supervisor and employees turnover intention. Results The means, standard deviations and correlations between the variables for the sample are reported in Table 1. A preliminary examination of the correlations indicates that trust in a supervisor and trust in an organization are correlated signicantly with their antecedents. For instance, subordinate supervisor guanxi is positively related to trust in a supervisor (r 0.215, p , 0.01), and perceived job security is positively related to trust in an organization (r 0.372, p , 0.01). Figure 1 summarizes the results of LISREL analysis, which show that the proposed model is supported. All the path coefcients in standardized estimates are reported in Figure 1. The goodness of t statistics indicated that all the t indexes for the proposed model are satisfactory and well above 0.90 (i.e., GFI 0.97; CFI 0.93; and IFI 0.93). The specic ndings are discussed below.

Subordinate supervisor Guanxi

+0.29***

Trust in Supervisor

0.088

Turnover Intention Procedural Justice

+0.42*** +0.50*** 0.28***

+0.42***

Trust in Organization

Job Security
Note: ***p<0.01.

Figure 1. Path coefcients for proposed model.

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As regard to the antecedent of trust, it is found that subordinate supervisor guanxi has a signicant and positive effect on trust in a supervisor (b 0.29, p , 0.01); while employees procedural justice has a signicant and positive effect on trust in an organization (b 0.42, p , 0.01) and employees perceived job security has a signicant and positive effect on trust in an organization (b 0.42, p , 0.01). In addition, trust in supervisor is signicantly and positively related to trust in an organization (b 0.50, p , 0.01). Thus, H1, H2, H3 and H4 are all supported. H5 states that the employees trust in an organization will have a stronger negative effect on their turnover intention. As Figure 1 shows, trust in an organization is signicantly and negatively related to employees turnover intention (b 0.28, p , 0.01), while trust in a supervisor is not signicantly related to employees turnover intention (b 0.088). This nding conrms H5. To summarize, we nd that the proposed model is good-tted and all the hypotheses are accepted at 0.01 level. Discussion The research questions revisited The study of trust is important for understanding the guanxi of Chinese employees. However, limited studies have been done on subordinatesupervisor guanxi so far. In this study, we highlight the role of employees subordinatesupervisor guanxi because Chinese people value relationships at work and after work. We expect that employees trust in supervisor will be inuenced by their subordinatesupervisor guanxi. In addition, the antecedents and consequences of employees trust in an organization, which is another aspect of trust, are also examined in the present study. Specically, we postulate that employees procedural justice and perceived job security affect their trust in an organization, which in turn has a signicant impact on their turnover intention. All these hypotheses are conrmed in our LISREL analysis. Implications This study endeavours to make both theoretical and practical contributions to the existing literature, and it also contains some implications for future research. First, it enhances our understanding of the role of Chinese employees guanxi with their supervisor. In particular, it is the rst study that examines the relationships among subordinatesupervisor guanxi, employees trust and turnover intention in the Chinese context. By doing so, one can understand more about how social relations after work affect employees job attitude and work behaviour. These social relationships should not be neglected in the future study of human resource management and organizational behaviour in Greater China and beyond. Practically speaking, knowing how the subordinatesupervisor guanxi could affect trust in supervisor, and how procedural justice and job security could affect trust in organization, management can take appropriate actions to improve human relations at work. It has been shown that higher level of trust in supervisor was experienced when employees had better subordinatesupervisor guanxi. Given these ndings, management should encourage the development of subordinatesupervisor guanxi to achieve the desirable outcomes. Limitations Several limitations that may restrict the generalizability of the present study need to be noted. First of all, in this study, the scale of subordinate supervisor guanxi has been

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designed specically for this study. It includes different dimensions such as frequencies of the interactions and the degree of mutual interests and benets between a subordinate and a supervisor after work. As a new scale, it needs to be tested for its validity in other Chinesemajority societies. Second, we employed the scales of trust in an organization and trust in a supervisor. Both of them were developed in the Western setting. However, as nonindigenous scales, these two scales may not be able to capture their full meaning in the context of China. It should be noted that their coefcient a was not high in this study. It is therefore suggested to rene these concepts in future research. Finally, the sample of this study comprised 292 employees in four joint venture factories in Southern China. The majority of them were short-term contract workers from other provinces outside Guangdong. Their high geographical and occupational mobility may affect the development of subordinate supervisor guanxi and trust at work. More future studies need to be conducted in other provinces in China to see whether these ndings can be generalized to other parts of China. Conclusions and future research All in all, our study demonstrates that, the inuence of traditional work culture of guanxi and Chinese employees value trust in the workplace are core concepts in the study of work behaviour. Although our ndings have to be cross-validated by larger samples in different organizational settings, results of this study clearly reveal that the concepts of guanxi and trust in supervisors deserve more research attention when studying HRM in Greater China. Future studies should explore their effects on other employee outcomes, such as job satisfaction, work commitment and organizational behaviour that we have not examined in the present study. References
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Appendix: Scale of subordinate supervisor guanxi (newly-developed; coefcient a 5 0.82 for seven items)
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. I have frequent interactions with my immediate supervisor after work. I have a high degree of mutual interests with my immediate supervisor after work. I have a high degree of mutual benets with my immediate supervisor after work. I am quite willing to help my immediate supervisor after work (e.g., nding, moving and decorating a house). My immediate supervisor is quite willing to help me after work (e.g., nding, moving and decorating a house). I am willing to use my personal network to help my immediate supervisor. (deleted) My immediate supervisor and I often visit each other after work. My immediate supervisor and I often have dinner together after work.

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