Human resource management practices and affective organizational commitment: A comparison of Chinese employees in a state-owned enterprise and a joint venture

Abstract

This study investigated influences on employee satisfaction with HRM systems and affective organizational commitment in a Sino-German joint venture and a state-owned enterprise in China. Employees in the joint venture were found to be significantly more satisfied with their organization’s HRM practices than were employees in the state-owned enterprise. In turn, employee satisfaction with HRM practices was found to have a more significant influence on affective commitment in the joint venture than in the state-owned enterprise. The Chinese human-heartedness cultural value was found to be an antecedent of employee affective commitment but influenced satisfaction of employees in regards to only some of the HRM practices in a state-owned enterprise. Implications for strategic HRM theory and changes in Chinese HRM systems are discussed.