EMPLOYEE RESPONSE TO NEGATIVE WORKPLACE SITUATIONS: DOES CULTURE MATTER?

EMPLOYEE RESPONSE TO NEGATIVE WORKPLACE SITUATIONS: DOES CULTURE MATTER? By Joo-Young Park The purpose of this paper is to investigate how culture affects employee response to negative workplace situations, by attempting to answer the following questions: (1) Does culture affect employee response to negative workplace situations? (2) If so, how does culture affect employee response to negative workplace situations? In other words, which culture-specific values affect employee response to negative workplace situations? What key features of a nonwestern culture directly make a difference in the application of existing voice-related models? To answer these questions, this dissertation suggested a comprehensive theoretical model built on two theoretical grounds—the exit-voice theory proposed by Hirschman (1970) and the culture model developed by Kozan (1997). This study started with Hirschman‘s initial conceptualization of voice and Rusbult and colleagues (1982)‘s Exit-Voice-Loyalty-Neglect (EVLN) construct for the theoretical framework to explain employee response to negative workplace situations. To explore the cultural factors to be tested in this dissertation, Kozan‘s culture model was used to suggest key cultural values in the Asian countries. This dissertation suggested that in the Asian countries employees will be guided by the values of collectivism, face-saving, and conflict-avoiding when they respond to negative workplace situations. In addition, the predictors found in previous studies—including alternative quality, self-esteem, Power Distance, and LMX quality—were added to the proposed model to examine their effect on EVLN behaviors. A field study was conducted in automotive facilities both in Korea and in the U.S. Based on the data analysis, several interesting findings emerged. First, and most notably, for a leaver,‘ who choose the exit option, culture does not matter such that 1) a country effect was not found in the exit option; 2) none of the three harmony culture values have a significant association with the exit option across countries. Second, for a stayer,‘ who choose voice, loyalty, or neglect option, culture does matter in that 1) country effect was observed in all non-exit options; 2) culture-specific values, such as collectivism, face-saving, and conflict-avoiding were found to affect employees will choose all non-exit options in the Korean sample, but not in the U.S. sample. It supported that these three values guide and predict voice behaviors those belonging to such a culture. Finally, aside from these culture-specific values, global factors working cross cultures were found in both the Korean and the U.S. samples, such as LMX for the voice option and alternative quality for the exit option. Additionally, the results of the data analysis show that these EVLN responses can be categorized as constructive (the voice and loyalty option) or destructive (the exit and neglect option), depending on the consequences of these behaviors. Collectivism and face-saving have a significant and positive association with constructive responses, while conflict-avoiding has a significant and positive association with the destructive responses. Overall, this study presents strong empirical evidence of the effect of culture on employee voice-related behaviors, increasing our understanding of employee voice behavior across cultures. Copyright by JOO-YOUNG PARK 2011