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The goal of this paper is to examine the relation of reciprocity to organizational commitment and the employment exchange relationship. In addition, it aims to investigate cross‐cultural differences on this relation between China and the USA.

Data were collected from a sample of Chinese employees working on their MBAs (n=321), a sample of employed MBA students in the USA (n=199), and a sample of employed undergraduates from the USA (n=348). Hierarchical moderated regression analyses were used to explore the interactive effects of the three dimensions of reciprocity on organizational commitment and the employment exchange relationship.

The three dimensions of reciprocity were related to organizational commitment and the employment exchange relationship in all three samples. Nonetheless, in the US samples these dimensions reflected an additive model and in the Chinese sample the dimensions interacted, supporting the notion that Chinese perceive their employment exchange relationships more holistically than Americans.

The data were cross‐sectional and therefore causal inferences need to be made with caution.

Different strategies should be adopted to manage Chinese and American employees' commitment and employment relationship.

This study offers new insights on the relation of reciprocity to organizational commitment and the employment exchange relationship in different cultures. It integrates cross‐cultural differences in cognition into organizational research and reveals that Chinese employees tend to use a more holistic approach to understand their employment exchange relationships than their American counterparts.

The article aims to introduce two Special Issues of Journal of Managerial Psychology on age diversity in organizations. It reviews two frameworks for understanding age diversity. The first framework focuses on age stereotypes and bias that have a negative influence on human resource decision making about older workers. The second framework emphasizes that the retirement of older workers will create a shortage of talented employees in organizations. As a result, we need to find ways of retaining older workers in organizations, and these goals are more important in some nations than others.

Conceptual article.

This is a conceptual article, but the results offer suggestions for increasing age diversity in organizations.

The article suggests that additional research is needed on the two frameworks noted above.

This article suggests several strategies for reducing biases against older workers, and increasing their retention in organizations, for example flexible work arrangements, training, and a supportive climate.

Little research has examined the challenges associated with age diversity, and the shortage of talented employees in organizations. Thus, this article makes a unique contribution to the literature because it examines these important issues. It also highlights directions for research, practice and society as a whole.

In the past decade or so, workplace organisation and restructuring processes, have been subjected to the most intense scrutiny. Driven by rapidly intensifying competitive pressures, work organisations sought increased flexibility, especially from labour, as they struggled to maintain market shares in an economic environment increasingly characterised by excess in labour supply. Pressures for change were probably most evident in the public sector where economic and ideological forces combined to limit the growth of government services and increase their exposure to competitive forces.

Based on the psychological contract (PC) theory, the purpose of this paper is to identify PC profiles, differentiating between permanent and temporary agency workers (TAW). Moreover, the authors analyzed whether different profiles presented different levels of work engagement.

A cross-sectional survey data analysis of 2,867 workers, of whom 1,046 were TAW, was analyzed using latent profile analyses.

Four PC profiles were identified, which differed quantitatively in terms of the overall dimension levels (i.e. balanced, relational and transactional) for PC (i.e. content and fulfillment). ANCOVAs showed that the relational/balanced dominant and transactional dominant profiles presented similar engagement levels for TAW, but for permanent workers the former profile showed higher engagement than the latter. However, for both permanent and TAW the fulfillment profile showed higher engagement than the unfulfillment profile.

The cross-sectional design and the reliance on self-report measures are the limitations of this study, although no causality was claimed and method biases were controlled.

Actions that increase PC fulfillment positively affect the employment relationship of TAW with the client organization.

Few studies have addressed PC typologies. Furthermore, most studies have focussed on temporary workers, but not on TAW and their contract with the client organization. Finally, this study emphasizes the crucial role played by the PC in the levels of work engagement.

The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, it attempts to examine how employees’ career planning (CP) interacts with the quality of leader-member exchange (LMX) to explain subjective career success. Second, the authors investigate how the pattern of such interactions differs between male and female employees.

To increase the generalizability, the study tested hypotheses in two studies whose data were collected in different national settings. Study 1 was designed to analyze 144 Korean employees and Study 2 investigated 140 Japanese employees. Both groups of employees worked for privately owned firms.

The authors found a three-way interaction effect between gender, CP, and LMX quality in predicting subjective career success. As hypothesized, the positive relationship between quality of LMX and subjective career success was stronger for males with high CP, whereas for females such a stronger relationship was found for women with low CP.

This study contributes to the literature in two ways. First, it extends career research by considering the interactive effects of individual and interpersonal factors on employees’ subjective career success. Second, it combines the research streams of social exchange theory (LMX), career theory (the boundaryless career), and gender theory (agentic and communal personality traits). This suggests that the ideas of the three theories could serve together as a useful framework for explaining gender differences in subjective career success through setting career goals and building relationships with supervisors.

The findings have important practical implications for managers and leaders, who generally seek to motivate their employees toward career achievement.

This study is one of the first to provide a new perspective for understanding the process by which men and women perceive their subjective career success differently with regard to social exchange relations with their supervisors and CP.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between job- and organization-based psychological ownership. In addition, the authors explored the emergence and outcomes of psychological ownership in Chinese context.

Time-lagged survey data from 158 Chinese participants were used to test several hypothesized relationships employing partial least square techniques.

Job-based psychological ownership appeared to mediate the relationship between experienced job control and organization-based psychological ownership. In addition, a statistically significant relationship between job-based psychological ownership and job satisfaction, organizational citizenship behaviors and turnover intentions, and a statistically significant relationship between organization-based psychological ownership and job satisfaction were observed. A negative relationship between organization-based psychological ownership and knowledge withholding was also observed.

Managers who want to enhance employees’ job- and ultimately organization-based psychological ownership should empower their employees by enabling them to exert control over their work.

This paper examined how organization-based psychological ownership emerges from control over work via job-based psychological ownership. The authors also investigated the impact of psychological ownership in Chinese context.