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Employee Orientation and Performance: An Exploration of the Mediating Role of Customer Orientation

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Abstract

Managing stakeholders is an important managerial aspect of corporate social responsibility. Employee stakeholder is one of the primary stakeholders that are critical to a company. Previous studies have shown inconclusive findings regarding the performance impact of managing this stakeholder, with some identifying little impact while others finding a positive association. This study further explores this issue in the context of foreign companies’ subsidiaries in China. A potential mediating mechanism (i.e., customer orientation) between employee stakeholder orientation and performance (both financial performance and innovation performance) was proposed; a sample of 103 Chinese subsidiaries of foreign companies which have new product development responsibilities was used to test hypotheses. A subsidiary’s employee orientation was found to show a significant positive relationship with its product innovation performance, but no significant relationship with its financial results. Moreover, employee orientation showed a significant indirect relationship with both performance outcomes through customer orientation.

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Abbreviations

CSR:

corporate social responsibility

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  1. Hong Kong Baptist University, 34 Renfrew Road, Kowloon Tong, Kowloon, Hong Kong

    Junfeng Zhang

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  1. Junfeng Zhang
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Correspondence to Junfeng Zhang.

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Zhang, J. Employee Orientation and Performance: An Exploration of the Mediating Role of Customer Orientation. J Bus Ethics 91 (Suppl 1), 111–121 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-010-0570-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-010-0570-6

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