Drawing on self-verification theory, our aim was to explore the main and interaction effects of utilitarian and long-term orientation on the Chinese millennial generation's in-role and extrarole performance. Participants (N = 208) were millennial-generation employees at 3 companies in mainland China, who completed measures of utilitarian orientation, long-term orientation, in-role performance, and extrarole performance. The results showed that a utilitarian orientation positively predicted in-role and extrarole performance in the participants, and that a long-term orientation significantly moderated this relationship. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.
AbstractTeachers at Higher Education (HE) institutions are expected to do research. However, the level of motivation to engage in research varies with various institutional factors affecting teachers' research motivation. Previous research has shown the need to better understand these factors to facilitate teachers' research motivation. This mixed methods study with 536 English as a foreign language (EFL) teacher participants from Chinese universities investigates the relationship between mentorship, working environment and teachers' research motivation. Our analysis of the questionnaire data using Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) shows the significant influence of working environments on teachers' research motivation. Qualitative data from semi-structured interviews and diaries were thematically analysed to reveal that the examined factors have different impacts on teachers' research motivation on the basis of different university types. Both mentorship and working environments had an influence on teachers' research motivation. Teachers from "Project 985" and "Project 211" universities had a more supportive working environment than those teachers at ordinary/regular universities who appeared to have insufficient mentorship, poor working environments, inadequate time support, and deficient opportunities to attend academic conferences that affected these teachers' research motivation negatively. The implications of our study are that university administrators and policymakers could develop practical mentorship programmes with effective assessment measurements of the mentoring process and stipulate relevant policies to provide conducive working environments, especially for teachers from ordinary/regular universities, to enhance teachers' research motivation and improve their research productivity.
Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to seek to advance the understanding of competitive interaction framework based on competitive dynamics theory that investigates how nonmarket and market factors concurrently affect the relationships among action and response, their integration, and initiating firm performance.Design/methodology/approach– To test the hypotheses for this study, the authors used data collected from the news found in web sites of 72 Chinese firms over a five-year period from January 2007 to December 2011. The authors use the approach suggested by Baron and Kenny (1986) to test the mediated effect of rival response and speed, after structured content analysis is adopted to overcome the challenges of identification and measurement by using a sample of competitive actions and responses.Findings– The results test partial mediating role of rival response and speed in linking nonmarket, market, and integrated action with initiating firm performance outcomes. Rival responses and speed may vary systematically in nonmarket action. The relationship between the integration of competitive action and initiating firm performance is positive, high, and significant.Research limitations/implications– The results of this study were limited by a sample in China. The authors further need to consider how nonmarket and market components are operationalized in different institutional environments. The authors study only captures observable moves reported in the news of Chinese firms' web sites. This single-data source collection raises the specter of cognitive bias. It is advised to collect data from multiple sources, perhaps directly measuring the managers' perception by using a questionnaire-based survey.Practical implications– Firms whose main focus is to launch market actions in an effort to gain competitive advantage should ensure that their nonmarket actions constitute interfirm rivalry. Particularly, this study also encourages managers to continuously and rapidly integrate nonmarket actions into their analyses of market competition for firm success. Additionally, managers need to develop effective information-processing mechanisms to analyze, monitor, forecast, and interpret rival response and speed for each competitor.Originality/value– The research contributes to the authors' understanding of the nature of nonmarket and market competition by bridging nonmarket action into traditional competitive dynamics.
Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to investigate the affective and normative mechanisms linking high-commitment human resource management (HCHRM) to employee turnover intention. Accordingly, the authors hypothesize that positive affect and group job satisfaction mediate the relationship between HCHRM and turnover intention.Design/methodology/approach– Based on a sample of 471 employees and their supervisors from 53 assembly lines in China, the hypotheses were tested with hierarchical linear modeling.Findings– The results suggested that both positive affect and group job satisfaction significantly mediated the negative relationship between HCHRM and turnover intention. Moreover, the indirect effect of HCHRM on turnover intention via group job satisfaction was larger than that via positive affect.Practical implications– In the Chinese context, HCHRM practices are effective in reducing turnover intention of the first-line employees on assembly lines. Organizations should show concerns for front-line workers' positive affect and group job satisfaction to reduce their turnover intention.Originality/value– The present research contributes to the extant literatures by uncovering the affective and normative mechanisms of the HCHRM-turnover intention association.
In: Ecotoxicology and environmental safety: EES ; official journal of the International Society of Ecotoxicology and Environmental safety, Band 168, S. 249-259
Abstract Arrested cells/ cellular debris is component left in the zona pellucida after blastocyst hatching. To identify whether expelling arrested cells/cellular debris from blastocysts is a process of human embryo self-correction by eliminating abnormal cells, 21 pairs of trophectoderm (TE) biopsies and the corresponding arrested cells/cellular debris expelled from the blastocysts from July to December 2020 were collected and analyzed using next-generation sequencing (NGS). Then, the NGS results of TE biopsies and the corresponding arrested cells/cellular debris were compared. We identified that 47.6% of blastocysts (10/21) were aneuploidies and mosaicism. A total of 18 groups of arrested cells/cellular debris (85.7%) expelled from blastocysts were abnormal, including nine aneuploid embryos and nine euploid embryos. In the arrested cells/cellular debris, all the chromosomes were affected. In conclusion, mosaicism and aneuploidies are common features of early embryonic development, and the arrested cells/cellular debris expelled from blastocysts provides evidence of early embryonic self-correction.