娀 Academy of Management Journal

2007, Vol. 50, No. 3, 715–729.

INDIVIDUAL-LEVEL CULTURAL VALUES AS MODERATORS

OF PERCEIVED ORGANIZATIONAL SUPPORT–EMPLOYEE
OUTCOME RELATIONSHIPS IN CHINA:
COMPARING THE EFFECTS OF POWER DISTANCE AND
TRADITIONALITY
JIING-LIH FARH
The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

RICK D. HACKETT
McMaster University

JIAN LIANG
The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

Drawing on a cross-organizational sample of 163 supervisor-subordinate dyads from

mainland China, we examined the moderating effect of power distance and Chinese
traditionality on relationships between perceived organizational support and work
outcomes. We found that both power distance and traditionality altered relationships
of perceived organizational support to work outcomes, in that these relationships were
stronger for individuals scoring low (versus high) on power distance or traditionality.
We also found that, compared to traditionality, power distance was a stronger and
more consistent moderator of perceived organizational support–work outcomes rela-
tionships. Implications for management theory and practice are discussed.

The domain of organizational research is becom-
ing more international, bringing into question the
transportability of social science models from one
society to another (Tsui, 2004), and particularly to
those undergoing profound transitions in institu-
tional rules, social norms, and values. A case in
point is the People’s Republic of China (PRC), with
its recent entry into the World Trade Organization
(WTO; see Tsui, Lau, Schoonhoven, Meyer, & Milk-
ovich, 2004). Within the PRC workforce values are
increasingly diverse, ranging from traditionalist
Chinese to those of the more developed economies,
with a strong international cultural influence (Ral-
ston, Egri, Steward, Terpstra, & Kaicheng, 1999).
This diversity in values poses challenges to China-
based organizations attempting to align manage-
ment practices with the value orientations of their
people—a challenge of heightening significance
given the exponential growth in the number of
We would like to acknowledge Bradley Kirkman and
three anonymous reviewers for their insightful com-
ments, and Kenneth Law and Riki Takeuchi for their
helpful comments on earlier versions of this article. This
research was supported by Research Grants Council of
the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China,
Grant HKUST6458/05H awarded to Jiing-Lih Farh and
Rick Hackett.
715
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foreign businesses with operations in China (Rob-
erts & Arndt, 2005).
A growing body of literature questions the uni-
versality of social exchange theory explanations of
employee attitudes and behaviors (e.g., Brockner et
al., 2001), particularly with respect to traditionalist
Chinese (Lam, Schaubroeck, & Aryee, 2002; Lee,
Pillutla, & Law, 2000; Westwood, Chan, & Linstead,
2004). Social exchange theory describes a series of
interactions that are interdependent, contingent on
the actions of the social exchange partner, generate
obligations, and have the potential to result in high-
quality relationships (Cropanzano & Mitchell,
2005). Social exchange theories have been well
supported in most United States– based research,
particularly with regard to positive employee reac-
tions to perceived organizational support (POS;
Rhoades & Eisenberger, 2002). POS refers to global
beliefs held by employees regarding the extent to
which their organization values their contributions
and cares about their well-being. Little is known on
whether relationships between POS and employee
reactions extend beyond United States– based sam-
ples, especially to countries such as the PRC that
are culturally distinct from the United States.
Our study is part of a much broader effort to
assess whether organizational theory– based pre-
dictions established in the United States hold up in
716 Academy of Management Journal
China (see Brockner et al., 2001; Farh, Earley, &
Lin, 1997; Hui, Lee, & Rousseau, 2004; Lam et al.,
2002; Lee et al., 2000; Spreitzer, Perttula, & Xin,
2005). Researchers undertook this effort at the
individual level of analysis to recognize the in-
dividual diversity in values that is likely to exist
in a transitional society such as the PRC. For
example, it has been shown that economic goals
and values exerted greater influence than cul-
tural values (e.g., collectivism) in resource allo-
cation preferences of Chinese workers (Chen,
1995), thus undermining the homogeneity of tra-
ditional Chinese values more characteristic of a
pretransitional society. Though performed at the
individual level in a single country, our analysis
allows us to compare our findings to those ob-
tained in the United States, and to speculate on
possible explanations for divergent results across
nations. It is at this point that “power distance” at
the national level (societal acceptance of unequal
distribution of power in organizations and insti-
tutions) could be invoked as an explanatory vari-
able. Power distance at the individual level (in-
dividual acceptance of such unequal distribution
of power) is not to be confused with power dis-
tance at the societal level.
We extend previous research in this area in the
following ways: First, we address the validity of
organizational support theory within the PRC,
where norms of reciprocity (social exchange ide-
ology) are likely to play a lesser role in governing
social exchanges (see Rhoades & Eisenberger,
2002). Secondly, we compare the influence of
individual differences in Chinese traditionality
and power distance as moderators of generally
well established positive relationships between
POS and work attitudes and outcomes. Under-
standing the psychological determinants and in-
fluences of value differences within and across
nations can be facilitated by studying relation-
ships at the individual level of analysis (see
Brockner, 2003; Clugston, Howell, & Dorfman,
2000; Spreitzer et al., 2005). Moreover, following
the recommendations of Tsui (2004) and Whetten
(2002), we link a less familiar emic construct
(Chinese traditionality) with a more familiar etic
construct (power distance) and assess whether
they uniquely affect relationships between POS
and employee outcomes. Thirdly, our design rec-
ognizes diversity in fundamental values held by
individuals in a transitional PRC and provides
insights into the influences of these value differ-
ences on relationships established in the broader
management literature.
June
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
Perceived Organizational Support
According to theory on POS, employees form
global beliefs regarding the extent to which their
organization values their contributions and cares
about their well-being. These beliefs are founded in
perceptions of the organization’s readiness to re-
ward increased work effort and satisfy socioemo-
tional needs. POS motivates employees to show
care for the organization’s welfare (Eisenberger,
Huntington, Hutchison, & Sowa, 1986). Norms of
reciprocity underlie attribution-based process ex-
planations for the positive effects of POS on organ-
izational citizenship behavior (OCB), affective
commitment, and retention (Gouldner, 1960;
Rhoades & Eisenberger, 2002). As norms of reci-
procity are considered to apply universally (Gould-
ner, 1960), we hypothesized:
Hypothesis 1. Perceived organizational sup-
port among Chinese workers is positively re-
lated to their work outcomes (affective organi-
zational commitment, job performance, and
organizational citizenship behavior).
There are strong theoretical grounds, however,
for expecting that individual differences in power
distance and traditionality in China will affect the
magnitude of relationships between POS and em-
ployee outcomes.
Power Distance
At the societal level, power distance refers to
“the extent to which a society accepts the fact that
power in institutions and organizations is distrib-
uted unequally” (Hofstede, 1980: 45). Although
Hofstede claimed that studies of cultural values are
meaningful at the societal level only, researchers
have found that each of his value dimensions has
large variation over individuals in societies and
that these individual differences have direct effects
on many outcomes (see Clugston et al., 2000; Kirk-
man & Shapiro, 2001). Indeed, in a review of em-
pirical research of the past quarter century that has
incorporated Hofstede’s cultural values, Kirkman,
Lowe, and Gibson (2006) found more studies in
which these values were examined at the individ-
ual level than studies examining them at the soci-
etal level. Power distance at the individual level
refers to “the extent to which an individual accepts
the unequal distribution of power in institutions
and organizations” (Clugston et al., 2000: 9; empha-
sis added). Since we focus on the moderating effect
of individual power distance on the social ex-
change relationships in organizational settings, we
2007 Farh, Hackett, and Liang
follow the lead of prior research and define and
operationalize power distance at the individual
level and within the organizational domain (Dorf-
man & Howell, 1988). Our treatment of power dis-
tance is narrower than what Hofstede intended
(1980), yet it is consistent with the bulk of previous
work in management, where power distance has
been studied at the individual level in a workplace
frame of reference (Dorfman & Howell, 1988; Earley
& Erez, 1997; Maznevski, Distefano, Gomez, Nood-
erhaven, & Wu, 2002).
Rhoades and Eisenberger noted that the social
exchange theory explanations for a relationship be-
tween POS and employee outcomes are founded in
norms of reciprocity and that therefore “the
strength of this association should be influenced by
employees’ acceptance of the reciprocity norm as a
basis for employee-employer relationships” (2002:
711). Subordinates high in power distance—that is,
those who score high on a power distance mea-
sure—are, because of their strong deference to au-
thority figures, likely to be less reliant on the reci-
procity norm with respect to their performance
contributions than their counterparts with low
power distance scores. Much of this research is
premised on the relational model of authority
(Tyler, Lind, & Huo, 2000), which suggests that
people care most strongly about how they are
treated by authorities when they have “personal-
ized connections” with them. Relationships be-
come personalized when individuals are able to
“negotiate” the terms, rules, and expectations gov-
erning them, which is possible only where the so-
cial and power gap between the exchange partners
is small. Partners holding the high power distance
value maintain greater social distance, and role ex-
pectations bind employees to show deference, re-
spect, loyalty, and dutifulness to authority figures.
Power distance beliefs shape social connections
not only to authorities, but also to organizations
(Tyler et al., 2000). This notion that social exchange
theory explanations for employee attitudes and be-
haviors apply less to individuals high in power
distance has received considerable support (Brock-
ner et al., 2001; Lam et al., 2002; Lee et al., 2000).
Accordingly, we hypothesized:
Hypothesis 2. Individual-level power distance
moderates the relationship between POS and
work outcomes (affective organizational commit-
ment, job performance, and OCB) in such a way
that the relationships are stronger for those
lower, rather than higher, in power distance.
Separate hypotheses were not developed for the
outcomes in Hypothesis 1 because: (1) meta-analy-
ses have shown all of them to associate positively
717
with perceived support (e.g., Rhoades & Eisen-
berger, 2002) and (2) we did not have compelling
theoretical reasons to expect differences by out-
come in our hypothesized relationships.
Chinese Traditionality
Traditionality can also be construed and mea-
sured at the societal and individual levels.
Yang conceived the construct of Chinese individ-
ual traditionality in the 1980s and defined it as “the
typical pattern of more or less related motivational,
evaluative, attitudinal and temperamental traits
that is most frequently observed in people in tradi-
tional Chinese society and can still be found in
people in contemporary Chinese societies such as
Taiwan, Hong Kong, and mainland China” (Yang,
2003: 265). Subsequent empirical works by Yang
and his colleagues have identified five oblique fac-
tors within which these traits manifest themselves
in values and beliefs, including submission to au-
thority, filial piety and ancestor worship, conserva-
tism and endurance, fatalism and defensiveness,
and male dominance (Yang, Yu, & Yeh, 1989).
Among these five factors, submission to authority
is arguably the most prominent, as it is the only
factor correlating positively with all of the other
four factors.
Farh and his coauthors (1997) introduced the
construct of Chinese individual traditionality to
organizational science by focusing on the submis-
sion to authority dimension. They selected five
core items from the submission to authority scale,
which measures an individual’s endorsement of
hierarchical role relationships as defined by the
five cardinal relationships in Confucianism (i.e.,
emperor-subject, father-son, husband-wife, older
brother–younger brother, and friend-friend). Subse-
quent research has adopted this definition and
measure of traditionality (e.g., Farh, Leong, & Law,
1998; Hui et el., 2004; Spreitzer et al., 2005). Fol-
lowing Farh et al. (1997), in this study we defined
and measured traditionality as the extent to which
an individual endorses the traditional hierarchical
role relationships prescribed by Confucian social
ethics. Traditionality thus defined and operation-
alized is distinguishable from power distance. It is
also conceptually and empirically distinguishable
from collectivism (e.g., Farh, Hackett, & Liang,
2004).
“High traditionalists” (those with high scores on
a measure of traditionalism) are less likely than
“low traditionalists” to base their attitudes and be-
havioral responses on how authority figures treat
them. Rather, felt obligation to fulfill the expecta-
tions and responsibilities of their prescribed social
718 Academy of Management Journal
roles governs the attitudes and behaviors of high
traditionalists (Gabrenya & Hwang, 1996). An accu-
mulating empirical literature supports this regulat-
ing influence of traditionality in contemporary
China. Specifically, traditionality moderates rela-
tionships between justice perceptions and subordi-
nate outcomes (Farh et al., 1997), leader member
exchange and subordinate OCB (Hui et al., 2004),
authoritarian leadership and subordinate responses
(Cheng, Chou, Wu, Huang, & Farh, 2004), transfor-
mational leadership and leader effectiveness (Spre-
itzer et al., 2005), and perceived delegation and
both organization-based self esteem and insider sta-
tus (Chen & Aryee, 2007). In keeping with the prop-
osition that traditionalist Chinese respond to their
employers more according to their perceived social
role obligations and less according to their percep-
tions of an inducement-contribution balance, we
hypothesized:
Hypothesis 3. Chinese traditionality moderates
the relationship between POS and work out-
comes (affective organizational commitment,
job performance, and OCB) in such a way that
the relationships are stronger for those lower,
rather than higher, in traditionality.
Both power distance and Chinese traditionality
capture deference to authority figures. However,
power distance is a universal measure originating
from a workplace frame of reference, carrying fewer
cultural and moralistic overtones than traditional-
ity. Traditionality is indigenous to the Chinese and,
compared with power distance, it originates from a
broader societal and familial frame of reference, as
traditionality is rooted in Confucianism and re-
flects a moral obligation to fulfill the normative
expectations of a prescribed role to preserve social
harmony and advance collective interests
(Schwartz, 1992). Moreover, as Westwood and col-
leagues noted, for traditional Chinese in the PRC,
“Employment relations are sustained by a person-
alistic tacit moral order” (2004: 365), and reciproc-
ity is embedded and expressed in a social and
cultural system wider than those of individuals in
the United States and other Western nations. In-
deed, for the traditionalist Chinese, one’s self-iden-
tity is defined by one’s role obligations within net-
works of dyadic social relationships.
Although individuals with high power distance
scores (individuals high in power distance) are
likely to share characteristics with individuals high
in traditionality, such as respect for lines of author-
ity (Hui et al., 2004), the relative moderating impact
of these two constructs on relationships between
POS and employee outcomes has yet to be com-
pared in a single study. Power distance refers to
June
hierarchical value in organizational settings ex-
clusively, whereas traditionality refers to hierar-
chical value in a broader societal context that
includes family and government. Since the rela-
tionship between POS and OCB takes place in the
organizational context only, power distance
should be more relevant in terms of guiding in-
dividual affect and behavior. This “frame of ref-
erence effect” suggests that values measured with
reference to a specific context relate most
strongly to attitudes and behavior that takes place
in that same context (Hunthausen, Truxillo,
Bauer, & Hammer, 2003; Schmit, Ryan, Stierwalt,
& Powell, 1995). Similarly, the moderator that is
referenced in the corresponding context should be
the more potent one. Accordingly, we hypothesized:
Hypothesis 4. Compared to traditionality,
power distance is a stronger moderator of the
relationship between POS and work outcomes
(affective organizational commitment, job per-
formance, and OCB).
METHODS
Sample
Employees were drawn from 27 companies from
Beijing and Tianjin, two major cities of the PRC.
These companies were sampled from various sec-
tors, including banking, transportation, electronics,
and hotels. This strategy ensured variation in POS
and avoided contextual constraints associated with
any particular organization (Rousseau & Fried,
2001). Matching questionnaires were distributed to
supervisors and subordinates in each company,
and each supervisor rated two subordinates. Partic-
ipants were mostly males (61%), relatively young
(60 percent were 21–35 years of age), and fairly
well educated (71 percent had completed voca-
tional college or university). They included manag-
ers and administrators (46%), clerical staff (32.8%),
engineers (7.4%), sales personnel (8.6%), and oth-
ers (5.2%). Questionnaires, coded to facilitate
matching of supervisors and subordinates and to
ensure confidentiality, were distributed to 130 su-
pervisors and 260 of their subordinates and re-
turned by designated coordinators in each com-
pany. We received matching questionnaires from
169 dyads representing approximately 65 percent
of the respondents we surveyed.
Measures
Measures were collected from subordinates ex-
cept for the ratings of employee performance and
OCB, which the supervisors provided. Unless oth-
2007 Farh, Hackett, and Liang
erwise noted, all multi-item scales were measured
on a Likert scale (1 ⫽ “strongly disagree,” 5 ⫽
“strongly agree”). All materials were presented in
Chinese; the OCB and traditionality scales were
originally written in Chinese, and the POS, power
distance, and organizational commitment scales
were translated into Chinese from English.
Perceived organizational support. There is doc-
umented evidence of the reliability and unidimen-
sionality of the 36-item Survey of POS (SPOS; e.g.,
Eisenberger et al., 1986). We used an 8-item version
of the scale developed by Settoon, Bennett, and
Liden (1996), which has been translated into Chi-
nese and shown to have good psychometric prop-
erties (Hui et al., 2004). In our study, we had to
drop the negatively worded item, “If given the op-
portunity, my organization would take advantage
of me,” because it was uncorrelated with the other
7 items. The coefficient alpha was .84 in our study.
Sample items include, “My organization really
cares about my well-being” and “Help is available
from my organization when I have a problem.”
Organizational commitment. We used six items
from the Organizational Commitment Questionnaire
(OCQ; Mowday, Steers, & Porter, 1979). A Chinese
version of this scale has shown good psychometric
properties (e.g., Farh, Tsui, Xin, & Cheng, 1998). Co-
efficient alpha for this scale in our study was .77.
Job performance. Job performance was mea-
sured with three items adapted from Farh, Dobbins,
and Cheng (1991). Supervisors were asked to rate
subordinates on (1) quality of work, (2) efficiency of
work, and (3) accomplishment of work goals (1 ⫽
“poor,” 5 ⫽ “superior”). Its coefficient alpha in our
study was .84.
OCB. We measured three etic dimensions of
this construct, drawing from the PRC OCB scales
developed by Farh, Zhong, and Organ (2004):
work help/altruism, voice, and conscientious-
ness. These dimensions correspond to aspects of
OCB-individual (interpersonal citizenship per-
formance), OCB-organization (organizational cit-
izenship performance), and conscientiousness
(job/task citizenship performance), respectively
(Coleman & Borman, 2000). Altruism was mea-
sured by three items: “Initiates assistance to co-
workers who have a heavy workload,” “Helps
new employees adapt to their work environ-
ment,” and “Willing to offer assistance to co-
workers to solve work-related problems.” Voice
was measured by two items: “Actively raises sug-
gestions to improve work procedures or pro-
cesses” and “Actively brings forward suggestions
that may help the organization run more effi-
ciently or effectively.” Conscientiousness was
measured by four items: “Works diligently and
719
with a great sense of responsibility even when
work outcomes will not count toward one’s per-
formance evaluation,” “Willing to work overtime
without receiving extra pay,” “Takes initiative to
work overtime to complete one’s work whenever
it is necessary,” and “Arrives early and starts work
immediately.” Coefficient alphas were .75 (altruism),
.84 (voice), and .83 (conscientiousness).
Traditionality. This was measured with items
from the submission to authority subscale of the
Chinese Individual Traditionality Scale (CITS;
Yang et al., 1989). The original scale has 15 items,
but some of them were not suitable for a contem-
porary context. We adopted a shortened version of
this scale used by Farh et al. (1997), which includes
the 5 items with the highest loadings from the
source paper. These were (1) “When people are in
dispute, they should ask the most senior person to
decide who is right,” (2) “Children should respect
those people who are respected by their parents,”
(3) “The best way to avoid mistakes is to follow the
instructions of senior persons,” (4) “Before mar-
riage, a woman should subordinate herself to her
father; after marriage, to her husband,” and (5) “The
chief government official is like the head of a
household, the citizen should obey his decisions
on all state matters.” This reduced scale has been
used successfully in studies involving samples
from Taiwan (Farh et al., 1997), Hong Kong (Farh et
al., 1998), and mainland China (Hui et al., 2004).
Coefficient alpha in these studies has been rela-
tively low (.60, Farh, Leong, and Law [1998]; .76,
Farh et al. [1997]; and .74, Hui et al. [2004]). The
relatively low alpha reflects the broad domain of
submission to authority in traditional Chinese so-
cieties, which encompasses hierarchy in family
(parent over child, husband over wife), the political
arena (official over citizenry), and social relations
in general (senior over junior). In our study, coeffi-
cient alpha was .68.
Power distance. We used a six-item measure of
power distance developed by Dorfman and Howell
(1988) for use in Taiwan. The six items were (1)
“Managers should make most decisions without
consulting subordinates,” (2) “It is frequently nec-
essary for a manager to use authority and power
when dealing with subordinates,” (3) “Managers
should seldom ask for the opinions of employees,”
(4) “Managers should avoid off-the-job social con-
tacts with employees,” (5) “Employees should not
disagree with management decisions,” and (6)
“Managers should not delegate important tasks to
employees.” In this study, coefficient alpha was .74.
Subordinate demographic characteristics. Age,
education, and gender comprised our primary con-
trol variables. Age had eight categories: 20 or un-
720 Academy of Management Journal June

der, 21–25, 26 –30, 31–35, 36 – 40, 41– 45, 46-50,
and over 50. Education had six categories: primary
school, middle school, high school, vocational
school, university, and graduate school. Gender was
dummy-coded as 1, “male,” and 0, “female.” To con-
trol potential effects of diversity of organizations, we
coded a dummy variable for industry type as 0, “ser-
vice industry,” and 1, “manufacturing industry.”
RESULTS
Confirmatory Factor Analysis
Because several of the constructs in our study
were related conceptually, we performed a series of
CFAs to verify the constructs’ distinctiveness be-
fore testing hypotheses. The first group of tests
focused on the three OCB dimensions and job per-
formance, which were derived from supervisors’
ratings. A CFA of this four-factor base model
yielded fit indexes within an acceptable range (␹2 ⫽
69.51, df ⫽ 48; RMSEA ⫽ .05, CFI ⫽ .98, GFI ⫽ .94).
We compared these results with those of two alter-
native models: model 1, in which three OCB di-
mensions were combined into one factor and job
performance was distinct, and model 2, in which
all four were combined into one overall factor. As
shown in the upper panel of Table 1, models 1 and
2 exhibited significantly poorer fit than the base-
line model, as can be seen from the significant
chi-square difference tests and model fit indexes.
The second group of tests assessed the distinc-
tiveness of the four constructs obtained from sub-
ordinates (i.e., power distance, traditionality, POS,
and organizational commitment). Considering their
conceptual overlap, we compared three alternative
models with the baseline four-factor model: model
1 was a three-factor model with power distance
merged with traditionality to form a single factor;
model 2 was a three-factor model with POS merged
with commitment to form a single factor; and
model 3 was a one-factor model combining all four
measures to form a single factor. Given the compu-
tational limitation for LISREL models, we con-
structed parcels for the four constructs on the basis
of their unidimensionality. We formed three indi-
cators for each latent construct by sequentially av-
eraging their items with the highest and lowest
loadings, respectively (Little, Cunningham, Shahar,
& Widaman, 2002). As the lower panel of Table 1
shows, the baseline four-factor model fitted the
data well (␹2 ⫽ 72.24, df ⫽ 48; RMSEA ⫽ .06, CFI ⫽
.96, GFI ⫽ .93), whereas models 1–3 exhibited sig-
nificantly poorer fit. These results in tandem pro-
vide clear evidence of the distinctiveness of the
main variables in the study.

TABLE 1
Comparison of Measurement Models for Main Variables in the Studya
Model Factors ␹2 df ⌬␹2 RMSEA CFI GFI

Supervisor survey: Conscientiousness,

altruism, voice, and performance
Null model All the indicators are independent 934.03 78
Baseline model Four factors 69.51 48 .05 .98 .94
Model 1 Two factors; three OCB 147.87 53 78.36** .10 .91 .88
dimensions (conscientiousness,
altruism, and voice) were
combined into one factor.
Model 2 One factor; all four factors were 362.87 54 293.36** .20 .71 .71
combined into one factor.

Subordinate survey: Power distance,

traditionality, POS, and organizational
commitment
Null model All the indicators are independent. 560.63 78
Baseline model Four factors. 72.24 48 .06 .96 .93
Model 1 Three factors; power distance and 129.14 51 56.90** .10 .90 .88
traditionality were combined
into one factor.
Model 2 Three factors; POS and organization- 134.65 51 62.21** .10 .88 .88
al commitment were combined
into one factor.
Model 3 One factor; all four factors were 384.22 54 311.98** .19 .61 .72
combined into one factor.

a
“POS” is “perceived organizational support.”
** p ⬍ .01
2007 Farh, Hackett, and Liang 721

Descriptive Statistics Main effects of perceived organizational sup-

Table 2 shows the means, standard deviations, and
correlations among the variables in this study. The
zero-order correlation between POS and organization-
al commitment was .61 (p ⬍ .01); between power
distance and traditionality, it was .39 (p ⬍ .01); and
among the three OCB scores and job performance,
correlations ranged from .48 to .70 (all p ⬍ .01). Sup-
porting our CFA tests, these measures appeared con-
ceptually and empirically distinguishable.
Hierarchical Regression Analyses
The four hypotheses were tested via multiple
regression analysis (Aiken & West, 1991). We tested
Hypothesis 1, concerning the main effect of POS,
by regressing work outcomes on POS while control-
ling for age, gender, education, and industry
(model 1). Hypotheses 2 and 3, concerning the in-
dividual moderating effects of power distance and
traditionality, respectively, were tested by two sep-
arate moderated regression models (model 2 for
power distance and model 3 for traditionality). We
tested Hypothesis 4, comparing the relative moder-
ating effects of power distance and traditionality,
by including both interaction terms in the same
regression model (model 4). Results are shown in
Table 3. As Table 3 shows, for each outcome vari-
able, results of the tests of Hypotheses 1– 4 are
displayed under columns labeled by model.
port (Hypothesis 1). POS had a significant, positive
effect on only one of our work outcome measures:
organizational commitment (␤ ⫽. 62, p ⬍ .01). Its
effect on job performance was marginally signifi-
cant (␤ ⫽ .15, p ⬍ .07). Hypothesis 1 thus received
limited support.
Moderating effects of power distance (Hypoth-
esis 2). Table 3 shows a significant moderating
effect of power distance on the relationship be-
tween POS and organizational commitment. Spe-
cifically, the beta coefficient for the interaction
term (power distance by POS) was statistically sig-
nificant (␤ ⫽ –.13, p ⬍ .05). In further support of
Hypothesis 2, Table 3 (see model 2) shows that
power distance significantly moderated each of the
other relationships between POS and worker out-
comes in the predicted direction (job performance,
␤ ⫽ –.22, p ⬍ .01; conscientiousness, ␤ ⫽ –.26, p ⬍
.01; altruism, ␤ ⫽ –.29, p ⬍ .01; and voice, ␤ ⫽ –.20,
p ⬍ .05). The negative sign before the beta weights
of the interaction terms for all outcome measures is
consistent with Hypothesis 2, which states that re-
lationships between POS and work outcomes are
stronger for individuals low rather than high in
power distance.
To further clarify the interaction effects of power
distance, we examined separate simple slopes de-
picting the relationships between POS and work
attitude and performance measures. Separate plots
were drawn for individuals whose scores on the

TABLE 2
Means, Standard Deviations, and Correlations among Variablesa

Variablesb Mean s.d. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 10 11 12

1. Job 3.90 0.58 (.84)

performance
2. Conscientious 3.82 0.79 .60** (.83)
3. Altruism 3.76 0.69 .54** .70** (.75)
4. Voice 3.61 0.83 .53** .48** .55** (.84)
5. Organizational 3.77 0.52 .18* .24** .15 .17* (.77)
commitment
6. Power distance 2.38 0.58 ⫺.02 ⫺.06 ⫺.01 .02 .10 (.74)
7. Traditionality 2.62 0.59 .01 .11 .14 .01 .16* .39** (.68)
8. Perceived organ- 3.55 0.53 .13 .11 .07 .03 .61** .21** .13 (.84)
izational
support
10. Age 4.12 1.83 .11 .04 .08 .14 ⫺.04 .13 .19* ⫺.13
11. Gender 0.61 0.49 ⫺.09 .10 .01 .05 .02 ⫺.01 ⫺.01 ⫺.05 .28**
12. Education 4.26 0.87 ⫺.02 ⫺.08 ⫺.01 ⫺.03 ⫺.09 .01 ⫺.10 ⫺.03 ⫺.34** ⫺.19*
13. Industry 0.51 0.50 .05 .05 .00 .13 ⫺.01 .03 .09 .10 .20* .08 ⫺.17*

a
n ⫽ 161–163. Cronbach alpha coefficients for multi-item scales are listed on the diagonal in parentheses.
b
Gender was dummy-coded 1, “male,” and 0, “female.” Industry was dummy-coded 1, “manufacturing,” and 0, “service.”
* p ⬍ .05
** p ⬍ .01
Two-tailed tests.
 TABLE 3
Results of Regression Analyses: Effects of Perceived Organizational Support,
Power Distance, and Traditionality on Employees’ Outcomesa
Commitment Job Performance Conscientiousness Altruism Voice

Independent Model Model Model Model Model Model Model Model Model Model Model Model Model Model Model Model Model Model Model Model
Variables 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4

Controls
Age .03 .02 .00 .01 .19* .18* .18* .18* .01 .01 ⫺.01 ⫺.01 .12 .10 .07 .07 .15† .14 .15 .14
Gender .03 .04 .05 .04 ⫺.14† ⫺.13 ⫺.13 ⫺.13 .08 .08 .09 .09 ⫺.02 ⫺.01 .01 .00 .00 .00 .00 .00
Education ⫺.07 ⫺.07 ⫺.08 ⫺.07 .02 .02 .02 .02 ⫺.07 ⫺.07 ⫺.08 ⫺.07 .02 .02 .01 .02 .03 .02 .02 .02
Industry ⫺.09 ⫺.09 ⫺.10 ⫺.10 .02 .03 .01 .02 .03 .03 .01 .02 ⫺.02 ⫺.02 ⫺.04 ⫺.03 .11 .12 .10 .11

Main effects
POS .62** .60** .60** .60** .15† .12 .14† .12 .11 .08 .08 .07 .08 .03 .04 .02 .04 ⫺.00 .03 ⫺.00
Power ⫺.05 ⫺.08 ⫺.07 ⫺.06 ⫺.12 ⫺.16† ⫺.06 ⫺.11 ⫺.03 ⫺.02
distance
Traditionality .08 .10 ⫺.02 ⫺.01 .08 .12 .12 .15 ⫺.03 ⫺.03

Interactions
POS ⫻ power ⫺.13* ⫺.09 ⫺.22** ⫺.20* ⫺.26** ⫺.22* ⫺.29** ⫺.22** ⫺.20* ⫺.16†
distance
POS ⫻ ⫺.12† ⫺.09 ⫺.11 ⫺.04 ⫺.16* ⫺.09 ⫺.24** ⫺.17* ⫺.15* ⫺.09
traditionality

⌬R2 .02* .01† .02† .04** .01 .05* .06** .03* .07** .08** .06** .10** .04* .02* .04*
(interaction)
Overall R2 .39 .40 .41 .42 .06 .10 .07 .10 .03 .10 .06 .12 .02 .10 .09 .14 .04 .08 .06 .08
df 5, 155 7, 153 7, 153 9, 151 5, 153 7, 151 7, 151 9, 149 5, 155 7, 153 7, 153 9, 151 5, 151 7, 149 7, 149 9, 147 5, 154 7, 152 7, 152 9, 150
Overall F 19.60** 14.80** 15.00** 12.10** 1.84 2.45* 1.60 1.91* 0.90 2.37* 1.45 2.24* 0.50 2.23* 2.14* 2.60** 1.26 1.78† 1.45 1.52

a
“Perceived organizational support” is abbreviated as “POS.” Gender was dummy-coded as 1, “male,” and 0, “female”; industry was dummy-coded as 1, “manufacturing,” and 0,
“production.”
†
p ⬍ .10
* p ⬍ .05
** p ⬍ .01
Two-tailed tests.
2007 Farh, Hackett, and Liang
moderator were one standard deviation below the
mean, at the mean, and one standard deviation
above the mean (Aiken & West, 1991). For organi-
zational commitment, the slopes (betas) were all
positive and significant. The betas were larger for
the low power distance group (␤ ⫽ .72, p ⬍ .01) and
smaller for the high power distance group (␤ ⫽ .46,
p ⬍ .01); the medium group fell in between (␤ ⫽
.59, p ⬍ .01). For the performance and OCB mea-
sures, the slopes for the low power distance group
were all positive and significant, whereas the
slopes for the high power distance group trended
negative in all our simple slope plots, reaching
statistical significance for altruism only. Figure 1
presents a typical significant interaction effect for
power distance—its moderation of the relationship
between POS and job performance. The graph
shows that the relationship is positive and signifi-
cant for the low power distance group (␤ ⫽ .32, p ⬍
.01), positive and nonsignificant for the medium
power distance group (␤ ⫽ .10, n.s.), and negative
and nonsignificant for the high power distance
group (␤ ⫽ –.13, n.s.). The above results, taken
together, provide support for Hypothesis 2.
Moderating effects of traditionality (Hypothe-
sis 3). Hypothesis 3 states that traditionality has the
same pattern of moderating effects on relationships
between POS and worker outcomes. Table 3 (see
model 3) shows that traditionality did not moderate
the relationship between POS and job performance,
and its effect trended toward significance for com-
mitment (␤ ⫽ –.12, p ⬍ .10). However, traditional-
ity did moderate the relationship between POS and
OCB-conscientiousness (␤ ⫽ –.16, p ⬍ .05), OCB-
FIGURE 1
Effects of Perceived Organizational Support by Power Distance Interaction on Job Performance
723
altruism (␤ ⫽ –.24, p ⬍ .01), and OCB-voice (␤ ⫽
–.15, p ⬍ .05). The sign of the beta weights for the
interaction effects was negative for all work out-
comes. Figure 2 presents a graph of a typical sig-
nificant interaction effect for traditionality. This
relationship between POS and altruism is positive
and significant for the low-traditionality group (␤ ⫽
.26, p ⬍ .01), positive and nonsignificant for the
medium-traditionality group (␤ ⫽ .03, n.s.), and
negative and nonsignificant for the high-tradition-
ality group (␤ ⫽ –.20, n.s.). Together, these results
provide support for Hypothesis 3.
Comparing the moderating effects of power
distance and traditionality (Hypothesis 4). To test
Hypothesis 4, we first examined the unique mod-
erating effect of each variable while controlling the
other by including both interaction terms in the
same regression equation. If power distance was
significant while traditionality was not, power dis-
tance was the stronger moderator. If both interac-
tions were significant, we would then test whether
the beta coefficient for power distance was signifi-
cantly larger than that for traditionality. As shown
in Table 3 (see model 4), when both were entered
into the equations simultaneously, power distance
was found to be significant for job performance
(␤ ⫽ –.20, p ⬍ .05), conscientiousness (␤ ⫽ –.22,
p ⬍ .05), and altruism (␤ ⫽ –.22, p ⬍ .01), whereas
traditionality was significant for altruism only (␤ ⫽
–.17, p ⬍ .05). This result indicated that power
distance was a stronger moderator than traditional-
ity for job performance and conscientiousness. We
further tested whether the two beta coefficients for
the moderating effects of power distance and tradi-
724 Academy of Management Journal
FIGURE 2
Effects of Perceived Organizational Support by Traditionality Interaction on Altruism
tionality were significantly different for altruism
and found that they were not. Together, these re-
sults show that power distance was a stronger mod-
erator than traditionality for relationships between
POS and both job performance and OCB-conscien-
tiousness. Hypothesis 4 thus received partial support.
DISCUSSION
Our study makes three primary contributions to
the literatures on social exchange, POS, and the
management of people with high power distance
and high Chinese traditionality orientations. First,
we showed that main effects of POS on employee
attitudes and behaviors do not replicate well in a
sample of Chinese workers drawn from various or-
ganizations in the PRC, suggesting that social ex-
change– based explanations for worker attitudes
and performance may apply less well to Chinese
employees in the PRC than they do to American
workers in the United States. Secondly, although
Chinese traditionality and power distance have
previously been shown to moderate relationships
between justice perceptions (or perceived support)
and employee outcomes, our study is the first to
compare their relative moderating influences on
the relationship of POS to employee outcome rela-
tionships. Although both power distance and tra-
ditionality had moderating influences, power dis-
tance was the stronger and more consistent
moderator. Thirdly, we add to an increasingly com-
pelling body of literature that suggests that social
exchange theory explanations of worker attitudes
June
and performance apply less well to individuals
who rate high in power distance and/or Chinese
traditionality than to their low power distance, less
traditionalist Chinese counterparts. In this way, we
clarify the boundaries of organizational support
theory. Theoretical and applied implications of
these findings follow.
Theoretical Implications
Replication of United States– based findings of
positive main effects of POS on employee attitudes
and work performance using Chinese workers from
mainland China was found only for organizational
commitment. This finding suggests that POS relates
positively to organizational commitment regardless
of one’s power distance or traditionality orienta-
tion. Although those with high ratings for one or
both values who perceive low organizational sup-
port are likely to continue with their performance
contributions, they are likely to feel less organiza-
tional loyalty, which may be expressed in less con-
frontational ways, such as through turnover (i.e.,
organizational exit). That is, rather than not live up
to their prescribed work role responsibilities, em-
ployees with low organizational commitment may
be more inclined to vacate those roles for new ones
with another organization (Chen & Francesco,
2000; Wong, Hui, Wong, & Law, 2001). Supporting
this interpretation, post hoc analyses (not reported)
showed that power distance and traditionality
moderated relationships between affective organi-
zational commitment and OCB in such a way that
2007 Farh, Hackett, and Liang
the relationship was positive for workers low in
power distance or traditionality but statistically
nonsignificant for workers high in power distance
or traditionality. These results lend support to the
relational model of authority (Tyler et al., 2000) in
underscoring the felt obligation that high power
distance and/or traditionalist Chinese feel toward
fulfilling their prescribed social roles.
Our bivariate correlations between POS and our
outcome measures were uniformly lower than
those reported in the meta-analysis by Rhoades and
Eisenberger (2002: 709). Specifically, in our study,
these values were as follows: commitment, .61 ver-
sus .65; job performance, .13 versus .16; OCB-con-
scientiousness, .11 versus .20; OCB-altruism, .07
versus .19; and OCB-voice, .03 versus .24. Although
these findings may be particular to our sample and
not representative of the broader Chinese popula-
tion, they may also reflect underlying individual
differences in power distance among workers com-
prising the samples of predominantly United
States– based studies versus those comprising our
sample of Chinese workers from the PRC. Our data
do not allow for a cross-national comparative anal-
ysis, but they do allow for assessing whether indi-
vidual differences in power distance moderate re-
lationships between POS and worker outcomes in
our sample of Chinese workers.
Power distance moderated all relationships be-
tween POS and worker outcomes, as we hypothe-
sized. Traditionality moderated the relationships
between POS and the three OCB measures. Typi-
cally (as shown in Figures 1 and 2), these relation-
ships were strongest for individuals low in power
distance or traditionality, less strong for individu-
als at the mean value of these orientations, and less
strong still (sloping in the negative direction) for
individuals rated high on one or both orientations.
However, power distance was the stronger moder-
ator of relationships between POS and job perfor-
mance (including OCB-conscientiousness). This,
we attribute to the frame of reference effect (Hunt-
hausen et al., 2003; Schmit et al, 1995). That is,
power distance reflects values more directly rele-
vant to the organizational context than does the
broader construct of tradionality. The moderating
impact of traditionality diminished when power
distance was statistically controlled. However,
given that traditionality is measured outside the
workplace frame of reference, it is less prone to the
influence of organizational processes affecting POS
(such as leadership, organizational culture, and
power politics) than is power distance, which
makes traditionality a more distinct construct in
organizational research. Which of the two con-
725
structs is more useful for organizational research
remains to be determined.
Although the simple slopes for performance mea-
sures trended negative in all our plots of the simple
slopes for workers high in power distance or tradi-
tionality, only one was statistically significant—
that depicting lower altruism associated with
higher POS. Negative slopes are clearly contrary to
predictions of organizational support theory
(Rhoades & Eisenberger, 2002). We are challenged
to explain the negative association between POS
and altruism for high power distance workers and
are hesitant to offer a substantive interpretation, as
this finding could be purely anomalous. However,
perhaps the high power distance Chinese with the
highest levels of POS were receiving special privi-
leges that gave them a special in-group status with
their supervisors. This status difference could cre-
ate a power gap between them and their coworkers
supported in part by their becoming more aloof and
less altruistic.
Managerial Implications
Our findings suggest that providing organization-
al support to individuals high in power distance or
traditionality is unlikely to yield performance im-
provements but should result in increased affective
organizational commitment, which relates nega-
tively to turnover intentions (Chen & Francesco,
2000; Wong et al., 2001). Accordingly, we are not
dismissing entirely the importance of POS for tra-
ditionalist or high power distance Chinese. How-
ever, organizations that employ such individuals in
high numbers and that themselves have a conser-
vative traditionalist culture—as do many compa-
nies in the PRC’s inland cities and many state-
owned enterprises in the PRC (Zhang, Song,
Hackett, & Bycio, 2006)—should consider other
strategies for motivating higher levels of perfor-
mance. One such alternative strategy is to empha-
size employees’ duty to meet work role responsi-
bilities and to remain loyal to their supervisors in
the interest of maintaining social harmony; such a
strategy would be not unlike the frequent propa-
ganda campaigns the government of the PRC has
used to prompt Chinese citizens to fulfill their civic
duties through moral persuasion. Managers must
become aware of the cultural and national bound-
aries of the effective application of United States–
based motivation theories, particularly with re-
spect to countries such as China, where there is
likely to be a much heavier concentration of individ-
uals with a high power distance orientation than
there is in the United States (Zhang et al., 2006).
High-involvement, participatory, egalitarian
726 Academy of Management Journal
firms now emerging in the PRC, particularly in the
coastal regions, where the rate of development is
rapid and Western firms have a strong presence,
should look to recruit and hire workers not strongly
oriented toward power distance so as to enhance
person-organization fit. For these individuals,
workplace policies and practices that enhance POS
will likely result in improved worker attitudes and
performance (task and OCB). In other organizations
within the PRC, such as Haier Limited Corporation,
hybrid performance management systems have
been implemented to satisfy the needs of both tra-
ditionalist and nontraditionalist Chinese workers
(Yi & Ye, 2003).
Limitations and Future Research
Although our results are consistent with Tyler et
al.’s (2000) relational model of authority, we did
not directly test the precise psychological mecha-
nisms that underlie this model (such as lower ex-
pectations of fair treatment, a lower “entitlement
mentality,” and higher felt obligation to work role).
These tests await future research efforts, which
should also be attempts to isolate the specific com-
ponents of power distance and traditionality that
generated the effects we observed. Moreover, al-
though the cross-sectional design of our study pre-
cluded us from making definitive causal state-
ments, our focus was on testing moderator effects,
and a cross-sectional design does not compromise
the integrity of these analyses. Also, performance
(in-role and OCB) and POS were measured from
two different sources (supervisors and subordi-
nates, respectively), allaying concerns of potential
single-source bias.
Although we sampled 27 different organizations
from two major cities in the PRC, the limits on the
generalizability of our results within China need to
be tested. Replication of our findings outside of the
PRC also needs to be pursued, particularly in other
regions with large numbers of citizens holding high
power distance values (e.g., India, the Middle East).
A particularly promising program of research is to
test the effects of Chinese traditionality against
power distance in other research contexts. For ex-
ample, recent studies have shown: (1) Holland’s
model of vocational choice fits better for low-tradi-
tionality Chinese than for their high-traditionality
counterparts (Farh et al., 1998) and (2) in allocating
rewards to teammates, low-traditionality Chinese
were influenced by their perceived team cohesion,
whereas individuals high in traditionality were not
(Pillutla, Farh, Lee, & Lin, 2007). Being a narrow-
band construct, power distance may have stronger
effects than Chinese traditionality where the organ-
June
ization is the frame of reference, but Chinese tradi-
tionality may display stronger effects where the
social frame of reference is broader.
Power distance has also shown stronger moder-
ating effects than collectivism on cross-level rela-
tionships between transformational leadership and
both POS and perceived supervisory support (Kirk-
man, Chen, Chen, & Lowe, 2006). Specifically, rela-
tionships were stronger for individuals lower, rather
than higher, in power distance, and higher, rather
than lower, in collectivism. These findings, together
with our own, support recent calls for researchers to
include more than one cultural value in their studies
so as to allow comparisons of their effect sizes (Kirk-
man et al., 2006; Kirkman & Shapiro, 1997).
In our study as well as in previous research (e.g.,
Brockner et al., 2001; Hui et al., 2004), the reliabili-
ties for power distance and traditionality measures
were found to be marginal. Whereas considerable
attention has been paid to scale development in
research on psychological individualism/collectiv-
ism (Oyserman et al., 2002), in research on power
distance much less attention has gone into devel-
oping scales (e.g., Dorfman & Howell, 1988; Earley
& Erez, 1997; Maznevski et al., 2002). We concur
with Tyler and his colleagues (2000) in the view
that power distance at the individual level is prob-
ably multidimensional. Future research should ex-
plore a finer-grained analysis of this construct.
We also encourage efforts to develop a refined
scale of traditionality (submission to authority).
Yang developed the CITS in Taiwan using a con-
textualization approach, which has the aim of max-
imizing the appropriateness of psychological con-
structs and instruments to local cultures (Farh,
Cannella, & Lee, 2006). Although the submission to
authority scale had 15 items, several of them were
couched in the context of the Taiwan of the 1970s,
making them largely irrelevant to a modern con-
text. Recently, researchers who used the Chinese
tradititionality scale added items beyond the five
core ones to improve reliability (e.g., Chen & Aryee,
2007). Researchers need to develop a more elabo-
rate measure of traditionality, given its wide-rang-
ing impact on behavior in the Chinese context.
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Jiing-Lih (Larry) Farh (mnlfarh@ust.hk) is the Chair Pro-
fessor of Management at the School of Business and
Management at the Hong Kong University of Science and
Technology. He received a Ph.D. in business administra-
tion from Indiana University at Bloomington. His re-
search interests primarily focus on the study of organi-
zational behavior in the Chinese contexts (such as
cultural values, guanxi, leadership, and organizational
citizenship behavior).
2007 Farh, Hackett, and Liang 729

Rick D. Hackett is a professor and the Canada Research
Chair of Organizational Behavior and Human Perfor-
mance at the DeGroote School of Business, McMaster
University. He received his Ph.D. in industrial-organiza-
tional psychology from Bowling Green State University.
His primary research interests are leadership, work atti-
tudes, and cross-cultural management.
Jian Liang is a doctoral candidate in organizational be-
havior at the Hong Kong University of Science and Tech-
nology. His current research interests include cultural
values, leadership, employee proactive behaviors, and
scale development.