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Drawing on basic psychological needs theory, this paper aims to delineate how an indigenous Chinese concept guanxi HRM would undermine employee well-being in China.

The authors tested this moderated mediation model based on a survey of 321 Chinese employees.

The results are consistent with the hypotheses except for the moderating effect when employee well-being is operationalised as emotional exhaustion.

This study contributes to the literature by investigating the dark side of guanxi via basic psychological needs theory and acknowledging the multidimensionality of employee well-being in the Chinese workplace.

The current study examines the relation of guanxi human resource management (HRM) practices with subjective evaluations of creative performance by direct supervisors, as well as conceptualizes the employee ambidextrous behavior as a mediator, and social comparison orientation and leader–member exchange (LMX) as moderators for understanding the relation.

Survey data were collected from 211 employee–supervisor dyads in China. Hierarchical regression analyses, Preacher and Hayes’ (2008) indirect effects PROCESS macro, and Preacher et al.'s (2007) moderated mediation analysis approach were conducted to test the hypothesized relationships.

Guanxi HRM practices were negatively associated with employee creative performance, mediated by the employee ambidextrous behavior. The authors also found that social comparison orientation showed a strong moderating effect, such that it amplified the indirect relationship between guanxi HRM practices and employee creative performance via ambidextrous behavior. In contrast, LMX showed a weak moderating effect, such that it attenuated this indirect relationship.

This study provides evidence that the extent to which employee ambidextrous behavior mediates the relationship between guanxi HRM practices and creative performance depends on LMX and social comparison orientation. It represents a promising new direction for the guanxi HRM practices and creative performance literatures.

Creativity and innovation have been buzzwords of managerial discourse over the last few decades as they contribute to the long-term survival and competitiveness of firms. Given the non-linear, causally ambiguous, and intangible nature of all innovation-related phenomena, management scholars have been trying to uncover factors that contribute to creativity and innovation from multiple lenses ranging from organizational behavior at the micro-level to strategic management at the macro-level. Along with important and insightful developments in these research streams that evolved independently from one another, human resource management (HRM) research – especially from a strategic perspective – has only recently started to contribute to a better understanding of both creativity and innovation. The goal of this chapter is to review the contributions of strategic HRM research to an improved understanding of creativity at the individual-level and innovation at the firm-level. In organizing this review, the authors rely on the open innovation funnel as a metaphor to review research on both HRM practices and HRM systems that contribute to creativity and innovation. In the last section, the authors focus on more recent developments in HRM research that focus on ambidexterity – as a way for HRM to simultaneously facilitate exploration and exploitation. This chapter concludes with a discussion of future research directions.

The purpose of this paper is to present a conceptual model of guanxi‐oriented human resource management (HRM) appropriate for organisations located in China that wish to maximise knowledge sharing and exchange. The recognised need by Western‐based organisations to develop trusting relationships through appropriate HRM approaches presents the setting to introduce the importance of guanxi in Chinese culture. The added complexity for Chinese organisations that employ a diversity of what are termed, in this paper, Conventional and Foreign Educated Chinese and Acculturated and Newly Arrived Expatriates is also presented.

Building on a review of literature about what challenges the knowledge revolution is having on the way that Western organisations manage their human resources, the paper presents an overview of the notion and function of guanxi in the Chinese context. The paradoxical and ambiguous nature of guanxi and its implications for interpersonal interactions are explained as being important for HR practitioners to understand.

The paper presents a conceptual guanxi‐oriented HRM model that incorporates the Chinese mindset that is, at one and the same time, paradoxical, holistic, dynamic, interdependent, flexible and reciprocal in nature.

While conceptual, the paper is based on a model developed from research by one of the authors that identified a guanxi‐oriented model of conflict resolution. The paper acknowledges that this model requires further research to test its applicability.

The paper is original in its attempt to link guanxi to HRM practices on Western concepts of human resources.

The speedy development of information technology (IT) is indeed a significant issue to support the enterprises to spread their products and services to their customers. Although the adoption of IT in the enterprises can help employees' work, it will increase their work exhaustion and job burnout too.

The survey data of this study was collected from Chinese IT personnel (ITP): 543 and Chinese information systems (IS)/IT users: 525, totaling 1,068 respondents.

The result shows that the influences of the organizational factors and guanxi on the work exhaustion are different between Chinese ITP and IS/IT users in the research model. Also the implications of the study are discussed and made some contribution to the research and management practice.

By comparison between the Chinese ITP and IS/IT users, this study shows that guanxi can be antecedent factor to some organizational factors, and the organizational factors guanxi have had a different effect on the work exhaustion of Chinese ITP and IS/IT users. Given that the critical successes to the organizations, management should focus on what direction to reduce Chinese ITP and IS/IT users work exhaustion.

The purpose of this paper is to trace back the roots of US-driven “Human Resource Management” (HRM) school of thought which now become widely institutionalized in China, up to the present day.

It looks at the diffusion of management knowledge over the period to Chinese business, which involved in turn scientific management (SM), human relations (HR) and HRM, respectively, from the interwar years onwards, by using a bibliometric analysis of Chinese language sources, searching a number of databases now available.

The authors scanned the international, as well as Chinese, literature to support a conjecture of a HR route towards China and how it morphed into HRM and went on to conclude that there was by the end of the year 2015 still a significant output of academic publications with references to both HR and HRM, respectively, but that we must be cautious in asserting a firm conclusion.

This paper traces back the roots of Chinese HRM back to the US-driven HR school of thought.

Drawing on the challenge–hindrance stressor framework and the “too-much-of-a-good-thing” principle, this study examined the curvilinear effects of two emic social challenge stressors (guanxi beliefs and participative decision-making (PDM)) and the moderating effect of an etic social hindrance stressor (perceived organizational politics) on Hong Kong and United States nurses’ job satisfaction.

A quantitative survey method was implemented, with the data provided by 355 Hong Kong nurses and 116 United States nurses. Structural equation modeling was used to examine the degree of measurement equivalence across Hong Kong and US nurses. The proposed model and the research questions were tested using nonlinear structural equation modeling analyses.

The results show that while guanxi beliefs only showed an inverted U-shaped relation on Hong Kong nurses’ job satisfaction, PDM had an inverted U-shaped relation with both Hong Kong and United States nurses’ job satisfaction. The authors also found that Hong Kong nurses experienced the highest job satisfaction when their guanxi beliefs and perceived organization politics were both high.

The results add to the comprehension of the nuances of the often-held assumption of linearity in organizational sciences and support the speculation of social stressors-outcomes linkages.

Managers need to recognize that while the nurturing and development of effective relationships with employees via social interaction are important, managers also need to be aware that too much guanxi and PDM may lead employees to feel overwhelmed with expectations of reciprocity and reconciliation to such an extent that they suffer adverse outcomes and become dissatisfied with their jobs.

First, the authors found that influences of guanxi beliefs and PDM are not purely linear and that previous research may have neglected the curvilinear nature of their influences on job satisfaction. Second, the authors echo researchers’ call to consider an organization’s political context to fully understand employees’ attitudes and reactions toward social interactions at work. Third, the authors examine boundary conditions of curvilinear relationships to understand the delicate dynamics.

The high-pressure nature of the construction industry, along with the COVID-19 pandemic, triggered abusive supervision (i.e. workplace bullying and incivility behaviour) that has diminished workers' well-being. However, despite the growing prevalence in practice and increasing concern in academia, abusive supervision remains largely unexplored by construction management scholars. This study aims to fill the gap in the current literature by analysing the effects of abusive supervision on construction workers' well-being, the mediating role of guanxi closeness and the moderating role of trust in the manager.

A questionnaire survey was completed by 258 Chinese construction workers. The data underwent mediation and moderation analyses using PROCESS macro 3.5 for SPSS.

The results revealed that managers' abusive supervision reduced construction workers' well-being at work and in life. Guanxi closeness between manager and workers mediated the relationship between managers' abusive supervision and construction workers' well-being. Additionally, trust in managers moderated the mediating effect of guanxi closeness. This study further revealed that the emotional connection between construction managers and workers, such as expressive guanxi closeness and affective-based trust, is important in handling the impact of abusive supervision on the workers.

The findings of this study provide support for recent calls to address negative manager behaviours such as abusive supervision in construction management. They aid the development of a more comprehensive internal mechanism that considers the influence of guanxi closeness on the outcomes of abusive supervision by managers at construction sites. Additionally, interventions that develop trust in managers may be particularly effective in alleviating the tension of abusive supervision. More attention should be paid to managers' emotional connections in daily construction project management.

Rather than concentrate on positive leadership, this study shifts the focus to negative leadership in construction project management by identifying abusive supervision as a negative primary antecedent of workers' well-being. While prior research has highlighted how negative manager behaviours affect workers' well-being from the conservation of resources theory (COR) perspective, this study is the first, to the authors’ knowledge, to adopt a social exchange theory perspective by introducing guanxi closeness as a mediator. It contributes to a greater understanding of how trust in the manager alleviates the negative effect of the person's abusive supervision on construction workers.

This study aims to examine distinct influences of two dimension job stress on job satisfaction and the moderating effects of guanxi-oriented attitude on the relationship between job stress and job satisfaction under cognitive appraisal theory and transactional theory.

In this study, surveys are conducted among state-owned younger bank employees. The author uses the scale of job challenge stress and hindrance stress developed among Chinese younger bank employees to measure the two dimension job stress. After demonstrating guanxi-relative concepts, the moderating effects of guanxi-oriented attitude are examined in this study.

The results demonstrate that guanxi-oriented attitude does not significantly moderate the influence of challenge stress on job satisfaction, while it significantly moderates the noxious influence of hindrance stress on job satisfaction. Theoretical contributions are also discussed.

First, this study suggests specific procedures to conduct hierarchical regression analysis and confirms the effects by parameters. It also proposes and summarizes specific procedures on how to calculate regression equations and draw regression lines to check the interaction received from the hierarchical regression analysis visually. Second, based on cognitive appraisal theory, guanxi-oriented attitude, a Chinese indigenous cognitive concept, was verified in this study. According to the importance of guanxi in Chinese society, the paper shows that employees who value guanxi more will buffer the noxious effects of job stress. Trainings and counseling should be designed to regulate the normal guanxi-oriented-related cognition.