Organization's Seminar

Topic:When Work and Personal Spheres Blur: A New Lens of Understanding Cross-cultural Differences in the Dark Side

Speaker:Xiao-xiao Liu,Nanyang Technological University

Time:Thursday, 11 Dec., 9:00-10:30AM

Location:Room K01,Guanghua Building 2

Abstract:Cross-cultural comparison of unethical behaviors has focused onguanxiand collectivism as the roots of unethical conducts in China, such as nepotism and graft. Following the Dynamic Constructivist View of Culture, I define culture as shared representations of knowledge, and examine how cognitive representations influence the evaluation and decision-making of ethics related issues.

In one study (Liu, Keller, & Hong, 2014), I examined the consensus of evaluating the hiring of personal ties among Americans and Chinese. Using Cultural Consensus Analysis, I found that Chinese had harsher fairness evaluation for certain hiring practices involving personal ties compared to Americans. In another study, I examine the cross-cultural differences in people’s intention to graft for personal ties. Using company resources for personal ties was conceptualized as social exchange. The blurry boundary between work and personal spheres could encourage this conduct. In two surveys, I found that Chinese were more intended to use company resource to benefit personal ties than Americans. This cross-cultural difference was partially mediated by the measure of work-personal spheres as overlapping.

This research program contributes to the understanding of cross-cultural differences in ethical judgmentand decision-making. The cognitive representation of work-personal spheres as overlapping could also influence other managerial practices in the Chinese context.

Bio of speaker:Ms. Liu Xiao-xiao is a Ph.D Candidate in Organizational Behavior at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. She has been a part-time research associate in the Asian Business Case Centre in Nanyang Business School since October 2012. Her research interests focus on ethical judgment and decision-making, and cross-cultural management. She has published her work in Management and Organization Review, Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, and PLoSOne, and presented five papers as key authors at the Academy of Management in the past four years. The teaching business cases she has involved in developing cover the topics of joint venture management, human resource management and entrepreneurship. She obtained her Master Degree in Psychology from Beijing Normal University, and Bachelor Degree in Public Management from Renmin University of China.

Your participation is warmly welcomed!