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Previous research on the factors influencing mentoring received has primarily focused on protégés' personalities and the similarity between protégés and mentors, whereas understanding on the role of protégés' skills is still limited. Drawing upon the social influence theory, this study investigated how newcomers' political skill influences newcomers' mentoring received and further affects newcomers' socialization outcomes (i.e. person-organization fit perception [P-O fit], performance proficiency and well-being).

Data were collected from 255 newcomers at a large Chinese information and technology (IT) company using a three-wave, time-lagged design.

The authors found that newcomers' political skill positively predicted mentoring received, which in turn positively affected newcomers' socialization outcomes.

These findings indicate that political skill enables newcomers to exert social influence on organizational insiders to achieve desirable socialization outcomes, enlarging both the mentoring and political skill literature.

As a counterproductive interpersonal work behavior, knowledge hiding inhibits team creativity, hampers collaboration and ultimately has a detrimental impact on organizational performance. Drawing upon the impression management perspective. This study aims to investigate how and when employees’ political skill affects their knowledge-hiding behavior in real work contexts.

The authors tested the hypotheses using data gathered from 266 employees in China using a time-lagged research design.

The results indicate that political skill positively influences knowledge hiding through the supplication strategy. Moreover, the positive effect of political skill on this strategy is stronger under higher levels of competition.

A cross-sectional design and the use of self-report questionnaires are the limitations of this study.

The authors contribute to the literature on the emergence of knowledge hiding by identifying an impression management perspective. The authors also contribute to the literature on political skill by exploring the potential negative effects of political skill in the interpersonal interaction. Moreover, the authors enrich the understanding of the literature in competitive climate by introducing the impression management theory and exploring its influence on knowledge floating.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of mentoring on newcomer well-being, as mediated by newcomer socialization and moderated by proactive personality.

Data were collected at four time points in a sample of 227 newcomers. Regression analysis and bootstrapping method were used to test the hypotheses.

Mentoring had a positive and indirect effect on newcomer well-being through socialization. The moderated mediation analysis also revealed that proactive personality augmented the direct effect of mentoring on socialization and its indirect effect on well-being.

Our data were collected in China, thereby limiting the generalization of the research findings. Future research can test our model in different cultural contexts.

Organizations should consider establishing a mentoring program to foster newcomer socialization and achieve well-being. Within the mentoring context, cultivating newcomers to become more proactive can predict higher socialization levels, resulting in higher well-being.

Previous research largely focused on the development of the well-being of tenured employees. Drawing on socialization resources theory, this study focuses on the newcomer well-being and proposes the influential mechanism and boundary condition of the relationship between mentoring and newcomer well-being. It sheds light on exploring the well-being development for newcomers.

Despite the dramatic increase in people's use of social media, relatively few studies have examined its effect on careers. Drawing upon social comparison theory and self-regulation theory, this study aims to investigate how career-oriented social media usage interacts with social comparison orientation (SCO) to influence the career exploration of university students.

Three waves of survey data are collected from 482 university students in China. Hypotheses are tested through ordinary least squares analysis.

Results show that career-oriented social media usage increases career anxiety, which in turn promotes career exploration. Furthermore, SCO strengthens such influence of career-oriented social media usage.

Given the limited attention paid to the effects of social media in career contexts, this study distinguishes career-oriented social media usage and proposes insights into its effect on career exploration. In doing so, this study extends social media literature and provides implications for the transition of university students from school to work in the digital era.

Drawing on benign violation theory (BVT), this paper aimed to investigate the underlining mechanism and boundary condition of the relationship between follower perception of leader failed humor and follower advice seeking.

A three-wave survey with 256 leader-follower dyads and an online experiment with 117 participants were conducted to test the hypotheses.

The results showed that leader failed humor decreased follower liking toward leader and subsequently reduced follower advice seeking. Moreover, this negative relationship was exacerbated when leader and follower had infrequent interaction.

Existing research has encouraged leaders to use humor to build and maintain successful interpersonal relationships. However, the situation that a leader may fail when attempting to present humor is neglected. This study advances the concept of leader failed humor and explores its subsequent consequences.

This study argues that leader humility is an important facilitator of team creativity. Based on social learning theory, the study explores a new mechanism that links humble leader behavior to team creativity through a path of team learning.

Data were collected in two private-owned technology companies located in South China. The two-time survey included 77 team leaders and 310 employees. An analysis of time-lagged, multisource data was conducted.

Evidence shows that humble leader behavior promotes team learning behavior through a social learning process, with a subsequent increase in team creativity. This influence is also strengthened when leader effectiveness is high.

Team creativity is an important determinant of organizational success. This research shows that humble leaders can motivate team creativity by acting as a role model. In addition, this research also reminds us that humble leader behavior loses its effect if the leader is incapable.

This research contributes to existing literature on humble leader behavior and team creativity, especially on the mechanisms and contingency effects between these factors.

This study aims to determine how cognitive diversity at the workplace influences team creativity. In this regard, the authors examined knowledge sharing and team-focused inclusion through which team members’ cognitive diversity was expected to elevate their positive work outcomes.

A quantitative method is used to accumulate the data. The authors surveyed workers and their respective managers at a single China-based food company. The supervisors rated the outcome variables (creativity and team effectiveness) regarding their employees, whereas employees were asked to rate the cognitive diversity, inclusion and knowledge sharing within the workgroup. The final valid sample size (n = 391) consisted of 137 workgroups with an adequate response rate (62.3%).

Cognitive diversity is related to team effectiveness but not creativity. The research found that cognitive diversity can increase creativity only through enhanced inclusion and knowledge sharing. Inclusion, likewise, explained the impact of cognitive diversity on effectiveness.

The originality of the current research lies in its contemporary exploration of inclusion and cognitive diversity and their pathways to team creativity and effectiveness. The social capital theory was applied to explain the proposed relationships.

The purpose of this paper is to study the evolution of Chinese industrial relations after the market reform of 1978, while basing its arguments and conclusion on analysis of the interactions of key actors in the labour arena in China. The significant phenomena in the evolution of industrial relations are the coming of transnational capital and the emergence of self‐organising protests by migrant workers.

The paper uses a case study approach.

The Labour Contract Law and the local political economy experience strong effects from TNCs and other business players. Meanwhile, globalisation has introduced the civil society movement to China, which has given rise to an increasing number of NGOs working for labour rights. Tight financial and technical connections between grassroots NGOs and international donor organisations make it possible for bottom‐up labour activities to counteract the unilateral influence of the state and market over the Chinese workforce. Since the ACFTU, the official trade union umbrella, has many institutional constraints to undertake a thorough transition towards labour in the near future, workers' representation is diversified.

One implication for further theoretical studies is that tripartism cannot fully disclose the reality of Chinese labour, and that labour representation derives from both unions and self‐organisation of workers, such as NGOs, which opens more room for the entrenchment of the grassroots labour movement to sustain the balance of power among the state, ACFTU, firms, international market forces and individual workers in the long term.

When college entrance examinations act as gatekeepers to modern-sector jobs, the entire education system then becomes oriented toward these examinations. This occurs at the expense of learning for the sake of learning and other aspects of education that address the holistic development and well-being of students. In recent years in China, there has been growing concern that examination competition has compromised the quality of classroom teaching and learning and is detrimental to the development of skills necessary for the global knowledge economy. These concerns have given rise to a far-reaching set of education reforms known as the New Curriculum reforms which have aimed to move students to the center of teaching and learning and to transform teaching and learning so as to foster such capacities as creativity, innovation, collaboration, self-expression, engagement, enjoyment of learning, inquiry skills, problem-solving abilities, and ability to apply knowledge in practice. In this chapter, we use videotaped high school New Curriculum demonstration lessons to examine teaching and learning practices that are regarded as exemplary in the current reform context. We investigate how teachers are negotiating the competing demands of preparing students for the examinations and addressing the aims of the New Curriculum reforms. The nature of student participation in the classroom emerges in the analysis as a key indicator of the success of this negotiation.