Ray Friedman

We proposed that in a Chinese context, rather than in the U.S. context, subordinates' experience of relationship harmony is a culturally grounded mediating mechanism, beyond leader‐member exchange, linking leader's humor to subordinates' perceptions of leadership warmth and competence. We collected a two‐wave sample in Taiwan ( n = 166) and in the U.S. ( n = 202) through internet platforms. Structural equation modeling and bootstrapping were employed to test both direct and indirect effects, and measurement invariance was assessed to ensure sample comparability. We found that the mediating effects of relationship harmony at work only exist in the Taiwan data, not in the U.S. data. Our results of the Taiwan data showed that acts of humor are associated with perceptions of leadership warmth and competence via an elevated level of harmony. Our results suggest that both cultural‐free construct (e.g., LMX) and cultural‐specific construct (e.g., relationship harmony) could operate simultaneously within a given cultural context (in our case, in Chinese contexts).

As I read Zhang and Chen's (2024) perspective paper, I was impressed with the authors' flexibility moving into the medical field and the impact of their research. Moreover, I agreed wholeheartedly with their call to learn by working across fields and with their assessment of how differently management and healthcare scholarship is created, disseminated, and used. Yet I was quite stumped by the editor's request that I suggest some ‘urgent and pressing’ issues that might help management scholars achieve the kind of practical relevance of medical researchers.

Much of organizational behavior research looks at how social context influences individuals’ experiences and behaviors. We add to this view by arguing that some individuals create their own contexts, and do so in a way that follows them across dyads, groups, and organizations. We call these individual-specific contexts “personal ecosystems,” and propose that they are created when an actor consistently engages in visible behaviors that trigger similar and visible reactions across targets of that behavior. We attribute the formation of personal ecosystems to social inertia, and identify three individual traits that increase the likelihood that an individual’s behavior is consistent across people and situations: low self-monitoring, implicit beliefs, and low levels of emotional intelligence. Finally, we discuss why understanding personal ecosystems is important for organizations, identify managerial implications of this phenomenon, and strategies for diminishing the likelihood of having personal ecosystems.

Research has shown that anger can be both detrimental in negotiations (increasing the chance of impasse or conflict) and helpful to the angry person (by eliciting concessions from the other party). Much of this work has focused on a receiver's emotional response to anger. Yet little work has examined the influence of anger on information search, an important cognitive mechanism for joint value creation in integrative negotiations. We propose a cognitive approach: that negotiators facing an angry partner are more likely to seek out diagnostic information about their partner's preferences and priorities. In turn, this information should enable negotiators to reach higher joint gains. Across multiple studies, we find that negotiators facing an angry versus a happy counterpart seek out more information, which leads to increased value creation. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these findings. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Behavioral integrity (BI)—a perception that a person acts in ways that are consistent with their words—has been shown to have an impact on many areas of work life. However, there have been few studies of BI in Eastern cultural contexts. Differences in communication style and the nature of hierarchical relationships suggest that spoken commitments are interpreted differently in the East and the West. We performed three scenario-based experiments that look at response to word–deed inconsistency in different cultures. The experiments show that Indians, Koreans, and Taiwanese do not as readily revise BI downward following a broken promise as do Americans (Study 1), that the U.S.–Indian difference is especially pronounced when the speaker is a boss rather than a subordinate (Study 2), and that people exposed to both cultures adjust perceptions of BI based on the cultural context of where the speaking occurs (Study 3).

Of the major dimensions of cross-cultural differences, universalism- particularism (Parsons, 1951) is the one that has received the least research attention. Built on the work of Trompennars (1994) we explore cultural differences in particularistic orientation and its implications on relational favoritism, i.e., making decisions in favor of special relations. Based on data from predominantly managerial samples from Brazil, China, Germany and the United States of America we found that although particularistic orientation is stronger in Brazil and China than in Germany and the U.S., Brazilian and Chinese managers also perceive more negative consequences of relational favoritism and hold a more critical attitude toward it. Furthermore, through scenario manipulations, in which a general manager makes a promotion decision in favor of candidates with special relations such as a relative, a hometown fellow, an alumnus, and a close friend, we assessed the level of perceived procedural justice. Similarities and differences are found between Brazilian and Chinese respondents on one hand and American and German respondents on the other. Limitations and research and practical implications are discussed.