Work ethic and workplace behavior: Essays on direct and moderated relationships across national cultures.

摘要

As the working environment changes (e.g., globalization, outsourcing, offshoring), the "nature of work" also changes. In order to find employees who can perform at work and cope with these changes, organizations put efforts in finding favorable employees. Consequently, the work ethic employees hold becomes one of the important measures organizations use to assess their workforce. Building on Max Weber's work ethic framework, this dissertation examines the relationship between employees' work ethic and their organizational citizenship behavior (OCB)/deviant behavior across cultures and provides empirical evidence to support the proposed theoretical models. In particular, three sets of models are examined in the format of a combination of three independently publishable essays. The first essay (Chapter 3) builds on OCB literature, examines the relationship between work ethic dimensions and OCB, and provides empirical testing for the proposed theoretical models. The focus on social learning theory links the internal (employees' work engagement)/external (supervisor's OCB) moderators to the work ethic-OCB relationship. The second essay (Chapter 4) examines the relationship between work ethic dimensions and workplace deviance. By incorporating stress theory, internal (emotional exhaustion) and external (abusive supervision) moderators are identified and empirically tested. The third essay (Chapter 5) builds on the differences between individualistic and collectivistic cultures and empirically tests the work ethic-workplace behavior models in a Chinese setting. It is envisioned that this dissertation will contribute to our understanding of work ethic and its influence on employee workplace behavior with the consideration of potential moderators in both the West and the East.