Abstract
This chapter aims to substantiate a theory-driven and context-specific conceptualization of employee well-being for Chinese employees. Drawing on three primary defining characteristics of well-being in psychology, i.e., the distinction between hedonia and eudaimonia, the imperative consideration of social dimension, and the indispensable attention to negative affect, this chapter conceptualizes Chinese employee well-being as a multidimensional concept consists of positive affect, individual well-being, social well-being, and negative affect. The qualitative and quantitative data from 544 Chinese employees support the proposition of multidimensionality but cannot distinguish individual well-being from social well-being. Aligning with this context-specific profile of employee well-being, future research would better clarify employee well-being-related concepts and select appropriate measures to address specific research gaps. The results also generate context-specific recommendations for management practitioners to improve employee well-being in China.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Allport GW (1961) Pattern and growth in personality. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
Aristotle, Reeve CDC (2014) Nicomachean ethics/Aristotle; translated with introduction and notes by C.D.C. Reeve. Hackett Publishing Company, Indianapolis
Berkman PL (1971) Life stress and psychological well-being: a replication of Langner’s analysis in the midtown Manhattan study. J Health Soc Behav 12(1):35–45. https://doi.org/10.2307/2948452
Boxall P, Macky K (2014) High involvement work processes, work intensification and employee well-being. Work Employ Soc 28(6):963–984
Bradburn NM (1969) The Structure of Psychological Well-being. Chicago: Aldine
Bryson A, Forth J, Stokes L (2014) Does worker wellbeing affect workplace performance? London: Department for Business Innovation & Skills. Available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2655044
Chen CC, Chen Y-R, Xin K (2004) Guanxi practices and trust in management: a procedural justice perspective. Organ Sci 15(2):200–209. https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.1030.0047
Chen CC, Chen XP, Huang S (2013) Chinese guanxi: an integrative review and new directions for future research. Manag Organ Rev 9(1):167–207
Chuang CH, Liao H (2010) Strategic human resource management in service context: taking care of business by taking care of employees and customers. Pers Psychol 63(1):153–196
Daniels K (2000) Measures of five aspects of affective well-being at work. Hum Relat 53(2):275–294
Danna K, Griffin RW (1999) Health and well-being in the workplace: a review and synthesis of the literature. J Manag 25(3):357–384
Deci EL, Ryan RM (2000) The “what” and “why” of goal pursuits: human needs and the self-determination of behavior. Psychol Inq 11(4):227–268
Deci EL, Ryan RM (2008) Self-determination theory: a macrotheory of human motivation, development, and health. Can Psychol 49(3):182
DeJoy DM, Wilson MG, Vandenberg RJ, McGrath-Higgins AL, Griffin-Blake CS (2010) Assessing the impact of healthy work organization intervention. J Occup Organ Psychol 83(1):139–165
Diener E (1984) Subjective well-being. Psychol Bull 95(3):542–575
Diener E (2000) Subjective well-being: the science of happiness and a proposal for a national index. Am Psychol 55(1):34
Diener E, Suh EM, Lucas RE, Smith HL (1999) Subjective well-being: three decades of progress. Psychol Bull 125(2):276
Diener E, Oishi S, Lucas RE (2009) Subjective well-being: The science of happiness and life satisfaction. In: Snyder, C. R. and Lopez, S. J. (eds) Oxford handbook of positive psychology. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 187–194.
Diener E, Wirtz D, Tov W, Kim-Prieto C, Choi D-w, Oishi S et al (2010) New well-being measures: short scales to assess flourishing and positive and negative feelings. Soc Indic Res 97(2):143–156. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-009-9493-y
Feng Y (1983) A history of Chinese philosophy. New Jersey: Princeton University Press
Fisher CD (2010) Happiness at work. Int J Manag Rev 12(4):384–412
Fisher CD (2014) Conceptualizing and Measuring Wellbeing at Work. In: Chen, P. Y. and Cooper, C. L. (eds) Wellbeing: A Complete Reference Guide, Work and Wellbeing. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, pp. 48–71. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118539415.wbwell018
Fredrickson BL (2013) Updated thinking on positivity ratios. Am Psychol 68(9):814–822. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0033584
Fredrickson BL, Branigan C (2005) Positive emotions broaden the scope of attention and thought-action repertoires. Cognit Emot 19(3):313–332
Gagné M, Deci EL (2005) Self-determination theory and work motivation. J Organ Behav 26(4):331–362. https://doi.org/10.1002/job.322
Gallagher MW, Lopez SJ, Preacher KJ (2009) The hierarchical structure of well-being. J Pers 77(4):1025–1050. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6494.2009.00573.x
Grant AM, Christianson MK, Price RH (2007) Happiness, health, or relationships? Managerial practices and employee well-being tradeoffs. Acad Manag Perspect 21(3):51–63
Gruber J, Mauss IB, Tamir M (2011) A dark side of happiness? How, when, and why happiness is not always good. Perspect Psychol Sci 6(3):222–233
Harter JK, Schmidt FL, Keyes CL (2003) Well-being in the workplace and its relationship to business outcomes: A review of the Gallup studies. In: Keyes, C. L. M. and Haidt, J. (eds) Flourishing: Positive psychology and the life well-lived. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, pp. 205–224
Hofstede G (2016) Country comparison. https://www.hofstede-insights.com/country-comparison/china/. Accessed 20 July 2016
Huppert FA, Marks N, Clark A, Siegrist J, Stutzer A, Vittersø J et al (2009) Measuring well-being across Europe: description of the ESS well-being module and preliminary findings. Soc Indic Res 91(3):301–315
Jackson SE, Schuler RS, Jiang K (2014) An aspirational framework for strategic human resource management. Acad Manag Ann 8(1):1–56
Jung CG (1923) Psychological types: or the psychology of individuation. London: Kegan Paul
Kern ML, Waters LE, Adler A, White MA (2015) A multidimensional approach to measuring well-being in students: application of the PERMA framework. J Posit Psychol 10(3):262–271
Keyes CL (1998) Social well-being. Soc Psychol Q 61(2):121–140. https://doi.org/10.2307/2787065
Keyes CL (2007) Promoting and protecting mental health as flourishing: a complementary strategy for improving national mental health. Am Psychol 62(2):95
Keyes CL (2009) Brief description of the mental health continuum short form (MHC-SF). Emory University, Atlanta
Keyes CL, Waterman MB (2003) Dimensions of well-being and mental health in adulthood. In: Bornstein MH, Davidson L, Keyes CLM, Moore KA (eds) Well-being: positive development across the life course. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah, pp 477–497
Kooij DTAM, Guest DE, Clinton M, Knight T, Jansen PGW, Dikkers JSE (2013) How the impact of HR practices on employee well-being and performance changes with age. Hum Resour Manag J 23(1):18–35. https://doi.org/10.1111/1748-8583.12000
LePine JA, Podsakoff NP, LePine MA (2005) A meta-analytic test of the challenge stressor–hindrance stressor framework: an explanation for inconsistent relationships among stressors and performance. Acad Manag J 48(5):764–775
Leung K, Koch PT, Lu L (2002) A dualistic model of harmony and its implications for conflict management in Asia. Asia Pac J Manag 19(2–3):201–220
Lu L, Gilmour R (2006) Individual-oriented and socially oriented cultural conceptions of subjective well-being: conceptual analysis and scale development. Asian J Soc Psychol 9(1):36–49
Manganelli L, Thibault-Landry A, Forest J, Carpentier J (2018) Self-determination theory can help you generate performance and well-being in the workplace: a review of the literature. Adv Dev Hum Res:1–14. https://doi.org/10.1177/1523422318757210
Maslow AH (1943) A theory of human motivation. Psychol Rev 50(4):370
Maslow AH (1968) Toward apsychology of being. Van Nostrand Reinhold, Princeton
Nulty DD (2008) The adequacy of response rates to online and paper surveys: what can be done? Assess Eval High Educ 33(3):301–314
OECD, M (2013) OECD guidelines on measuring subjective well-being. OECD Publishing. http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/economics/oecd-guidelines-on-measuring-subjective-well-being_9789264191655-en. Last accessed 4 Sept 2013
Porath C, Spreitzer G, Gibson C, Garnett FG (2012) Thriving at work: toward its measurement, construct validation, and theoretical refinement. J Organ Behav 33(2):250–275
Rogers CR (1963) The concept of the fully functioning person. Psychother Theory Res Pract 1(1):17
Ryan RM, Deci EL (2000) Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being. Am Psychol 55(1):68
Ryan RM, Deci EL (2001) On happiness and human potentials: a review of research on hedonic and eudaimonic well-being. Annu Rev Psychol 52(1):141–166
Ryff CD (1989) Happiness is everything, or is it? Explorations on the meaning of psychological well-being. J Pers Soc Psychol 57(6):1069
Ryff CD, Keyes CLM (1995) The structure of psychological well-being revisited. J Pers Soc Psychol 69(4):719
Seligman MEP (2004) Authentic happiness: Using the new positive psychology to realize your potential for lasting fulfillment. New York: Simon and Schuster
Seligman MEP (2012) Flourish: A visionary new understanding of happiness and well-being. New York: Simon and Schuster
Taris TW, Schreurs PJG (2009) Well-being and organizational performance: an organizational-level test of the happy-productive worker hypothesis. Work Stress 23(2):120–136. https://doi.org/10.1080/02678370903072555
Van De Voorde K, Paauwe J, Van Veldhoven M (2012) Employee well-being and the HRM-organizational performance relationship: a review of quantitative studies. Int J Manag Rev 14(4):391–407. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2370.2011.00322.x
Vanhala S, Tuomi K (2006) HRM, company performance and employee well-being. Manag Rev 17(3):241–255. https://www.jstor.org/stable/41783520
Warr P (1987) Work, unemployment, and mental health. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Warr P (1990) The measurement of well-being and other aspects of mental health. J Occup Psychol 63(3):193–210
Warr P (2007) Searching for happiness at work. https://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/volume-20/edition-12/searching-happiness-work2014
Warr P (2011) Work, happiness, and unhappiness. London: Psychology Press. Available at: https://books.google.st/books?id=9_J5AgAAQBAJ
Watson D, Clark LA, Tellegen A (1988) Development and validation of brief measures of positive and negative affect: the PANAS scales. J Pers Soc Psychol 54(6):1063
Wilhelm R, Baynes CF (1951) The I Ching or book of changes(1951) (R. Wilhelm and C. F. Baynes, Trans.) London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
Wright TA, Cropanzano R (2004) The role of psychological well-being in job performance: a fresh look at an age-old quest. Organ Dyn 33(4):338–351
Wright TA, Huang C-C (2012) The many benefits of employee well-being in organizational research. J Organ Behav 33:1188–1192. https://doi.org/10.1002/job.1828
Wright TA, Staw BM (1999) Affect and favorable work outcomes: two longitudinal tests of the happy–productive worker thesis. J Organ Behav 20(1):1–23
Wright TA, Cropanzano R, Bonett DG (2007) The moderating role of employee positive well being on the relation between job satisfaction and job performance. J Occup Health Psychol 12(2):93
Wright TA, Cropanzano R, Bonett DG, Diamond WJ (2009) The role of employee psychological well-being in cardiovascular health: when the twain shall meet. J Organ Behav 30(2):193–208. https://doi.org/10.1002/job.592
Yan A, Gray B (1994) Bargaining power, management control, and performance in United States–China joint ventures: a comparative case study. Acad Manag J 37(6):1478–1517
Yu D, Srinivasan R (2013) Employee engagement increases in China, but still very low. http://www.gallup.com/poll/160190/employee-engagement-increases-china-low.aspx. Accessed 20 Oct 2015
Zheng X, Zhu W, Zhao H, Zhang C (2015) Employee well-being in organizations: theoretical model, scale development, and cross-cultural validation. J Organ Behav 36(5):621–644.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2021 The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this entry
Cite this entry
Liu, L. (2021). How Chinese Conceptualize Employee Well-Being. In: Dhiman, S.K. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Workplace Well-Being. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-30025-8_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-30025-8_6
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-30024-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-30025-8
eBook Packages: Business and ManagementReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences