Acceptance of Supervisory Direction in Typical Workplace Situations

Abstract

US, Taiwanese and PRC employees responded to two vignettes in which they decided whether to accept the direction of a supervisor. Multiple versions of the vignettes which varied systematically with respect to the workplace circumstances surrounding the decisions (company policy, peer consensus and independent assessment) were distributed to create a factorial research design. In most circumstances, PRC employees demonstrated the strongest tendency to accept, followed by Taiwanese employees, and finally by US employees. The tendency to accept a supervisor's direction is influenced by peer consensus to a greater extent among US employees than among Taiwanese and PRC employees. Compared with US and Taiwanese employees, PRC employees were more sensitive to a supervisory direction's consistency with company policies and less responsive to their own assessment of the direction's merit. Both cultural traditions and modern developments appear to influence employees' reaction to supervisory authority.