The Study of Cultural Influences on Dyadic Role Identification in Organizations
Date Issued
2014
Date
2014
Author(s)
Lin, Ching-Fuh
Abstract
Increasing studies show that western psychological theories cannot well explain the psychology and behaviors of oriental people because culture is a strong influential factor. In recent years, the economic prosperity of Chinese societies has attracted the attention of many scholars. Many attribute their economic success to Confucianism. As a result, based on Confucian cardinal relations, some scholars propose paternalistic leadership that can well explain the success of Chinese entrepreneurs. However, such theory is purely based on Chinese culture, making almost no dialogue with western theories. It turns out that the western and oriental sides both have its own theories to separately explain the psychology and behaviors of each society, but they cannot be compared closely. Therefore, in this thesis, the Confucian cardinal relation and the Christian cardinal relation are placed in equal and parallel positions for close comparisons of their similarities and differences in order to reveal their possible impacts on the dyadic role identification of people in organizations.
In Confucian cardinal relations, leader-subordinate relations are particularly emphasized, so the dyadic role identification is fixed. In contrast, in Christian cardinal relations, people are more likely to adapt dual or multiple roles toward the same person and so have flexible dyadic role identification. Therefore, we propose that Christian cardinal relations give rise to more flexible dyadic role identification than the Confucian cardinal relations. Based on this theory, we design questionnaires to investigate the differences of dyadic role identification between the US and Taiwan. Here the US is used to represent Christianity, while Taiwan represents Confucianism. The comparison between 204 US respondents and 189 Taiwan respondents shows that the US indeed has more flexible dyadic role identification than Taiwan. The further analysis of correlation shows that the childhood dyadic role identification is positively and significantly related to the adult dyadic role identification for both societies. Also, in the US part, the childhood dyadic role identification is positively and significantly related to the dyadic role identification in the workplace. In comparison, the Taiwan part shows that the childhood dyadic role identification is not well related to the dyadic role identification in the workplace. Thus this study reveals that the role experiences of Taiwan people between the family and the workplace are disconnected, while the flexible dyadic role identification gives US people continuous role experiences from the family to the workplace. This discrepancy can also be explained by the cultural cardinal relations in the two societies.
Subjects
儒家五倫
基督教五倫
固定對偶角色定位
彈性對偶角色定位
Type
thesis
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