Wu Sherry Jueyu, Yuhan Mei Bruce, Cervantez Jose
Anderson School of Management, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, United States.
Front Psychol. 2022 Feb 14;13:806481. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.806481. eCollection 2022.
Despite the amount of theorization on the forms and effects of participation, relatively little research directly examines what the concept of workplace participation entails in the minds of employees, and whether employees across cultures think positively when the concept of participation is activated in their mental representation. Three studies ( = 1,138 full-time employees) investigated the perceptions and preferences of full-time employees from the United States and China, cultures that might be expected to differ in their societal participation norm. Using a free association test and text analyses, Study 1 demonstrated that Chinese and American employees differed in their construal of workplace participation, yet both culture groups associated positive valence to the concept of participation. Study 2 showed that employees' preference for workplace participation is positively related to their perceptions of its outcomes on productivity, job satisfaction, and workplace conflict. Study 3 had employees interact with either a prototypically high or low participation work environment and tested whether clear cultural contrasts might occur. American employees expressed unambiguous endorsement and predicted positive outcomes of a high participation workplace, whereas Chinese employees expressed slightly higher endorsement to a low participation work environment and associated it with higher productivity. This research provides insights on how workplace participation is construed by employees from different cultures, especially from cultures where democratic participation is not the normative default. Different perspectives on workplace participation across cultures may inform practitioners of the goals and approaches when shaping a more participatory workplace and a more democratic society.
尽管关于参与的形式和效果已有大量理论探讨，但相对较少的研究直接考察员工心中工作场所参与概念的内涵，以及当参与概念在其心理表征中被激活时，不同文化背景的员工是否会持积极看法。三项研究（涉及1138名全职员工）调查了来自美国和中国的全职员工的看法和偏好，这两种文化在社会参与规范方面可能存在差异。研究1采用自由联想测试和文本分析方法，表明中国员工和美国员工对工作场所参与的理解存在差异，但两个文化群体都将积极情感与参与概念联系起来。研究2表明，员工对工作场所参与的偏好与其对参与在提高生产力、工作满意度和解决工作场所冲突方面的结果的认知呈正相关。研究3让员工与典型的高参与度或低参与度工作环境进行互动，并测试是否会出现明显的文化差异。美国员工明确支持高参与度的工作场所，并预测其会带来积极结果，而中国员工对低参与度工作环境的支持度略高，并将其与更高的生产力联系起来。这项研究为不同文化背景的员工如何理解工作场所参与提供了见解，尤其是在民主参与并非默认规范的文化背景下。跨文化对工作场所参与的不同观点可能会为从业者在塑造更具参与性的工作场所和更民主的社会时提供目标和方法上的参考。
