Organizational virtuousness, subjective well-being, and job performance: Comparing employees in France and Japan

Abstract

Purpose

Past research has convincingly shown that higher employee subjective well-being, or happiness, is a source of higher job performance and retention. This paper therefore examines the relationships between organizational virtuousness, subjective well-being, and individual job performance among French and Japanese employees.

Design/methodology/approach

A questionnaire survey was conducted among Japanese and French managers and staff at Japanese and French domestic companies and structural equation modeling was employed to compare those associations.

Findings

We found that the Japanese and the French have different conceptualizations of organizational virtuousness, suggesting that firms must tailor their virtue-building activities based on the local culture. Subjective well-being is comparatively more important in Japan since it acts in complement to organizational virtuousness to positively affect job performance, while in France, only organizational virtuousness counts as a source of job performance.

Research implications

National culture is revealed to be a new factor explaining differences in how employees consider organizational virtuousness and we provide evidence of positive associations of organizational virtuousness with positive subjective well-being and with job performance for both the Japanese and the French.

Practical implications

Organizational virtuousness cannot be construed from a universalistic perspective where virtues are conceptualized on the same basis regardless of location or region, and firms should also consider their employees' individualist or collectivist inclination when trying to influence work outcomes.

Originality/value

These findings point to the role of national culture on the perception of organizational virtuousness and its effect on subjective well-being and job performance.

Citation

Magnier-Watanabe, R., Uchida, T., Orsini, P. and Benton, C.F. (2020), "Organizational virtuousness, subjective well-being, and job performance: Comparing employees in France and Japan", Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Administration, Vol. 12 No. 2, pp. 115-138. https://doi.org/10.1108/APJBA-10-2019-0210

Download as .RIS