Influences of Chinese values on employee organizational citizenship behavior within the context of international five-star hotels in the People's Republic of China

Abstract

The current study seeks to investigate the possible influence of Chinese values (CVs) on employee organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) within the five-star international hotels in Mainland China. The research questions focus on whether CVs have a directional or moderating impact on OCB and its verified antecedents, namely, leader-member exchange (LMX) and employee organizational commitment (OC). Beginning with the implementation of reform and the Open Door Policy in 1978, China's tourism industry has rapidly developed over the past three decades. As a key and promising component of the tourism industry and a symbol of the "opening and reform," the hotel sector has likewise experienced continuous expansion. Still, scores of issues have remained unresolved within China's hotel sector, such as unsatisfactory service quality, low guest loyalty, and high employee turnover rates. Noting that OCB, a type of discretionary behavior going beyond formal job requirements, could lead to numerous desirable outcomes that hotels in China are seeking, the author of the current study endeavors to find a possible mechanism that could enhance the inclination of hotel employees to display such citizenship behavior. In brief, this study generates two groups of testable hypotheses associated with two conceptual models to explore both the directional and moderating impacts of CVs on hotel employee citizenship behaviors. The research involves use of a triangulation technique composed of both qualitative and quantitative methods with a focus on the latter. The results generated in the context of this study provide substantial evidence that CVs can positively affect hotel employee OCB under the effective mediation of LMX and OC. With the substantiation of the postulated associations among the constructs, all research objectives have been successfully achieved, allowing the author to make a number of theoretical and practical contributions to the advantage of both the academic field and the hotel industry. Theoretically speaking, this study answers the call of prior scholars and fills in several key research gaps. It serves as an extension of the existing research and presents essential findings pertaining to the influence of CVs on employee OCB performance. Practically speaking, the study examines the cultural values held by Chinese hotel staff today, and offers an effective mechanism through which CVs could be used to promote employee citizenship behaviors. The research findings may benefit the target hotels in various aspects of human resources development and utilization. In summary, this thesis is divided into six chapters. The main components including the research background, literature review, methodology, data analysis of the preliminary tests and the main survey, as well as the discussions and implications, are reported in a clear and logical manner. It is hoped that the study's findings will provide significant insights and lay a solid groundwork for future research.