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Abstract

Employees in the role of outsider can be faced with a dispute between colleagues. Taking sides is a crucially important, yet neglected tactic in handling disputes. In a study of 226 Chinese employees, we investigated the influence of employees' moral and expedient orientations on their siding intentions in a workplace dispute characterized by different distributions of legitimacy, negative sanctions and guanxi. Results indicate that legitimacy information leads moral-oriented employees to side with a legitimacy party whereas sanction information leads expedient-oriented employees to side with a sanction party. However, the Chinese employees also take guanxiinto account. Guanxias contrasting information decreased both the extent to which the strong-moral, weak-expedient-oriented Chinese employees sided with a legitimacy party, and the extent to which weak-moral, strong-expedient-oriented employees sided with a sanction party. Implications of these results for developing a universal theory of siding are discussed.

Keywords

expedient orientation guanxi moral orientation outsiders siding

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Cultural Perspectives : Siding in a Workplace Dispute in China

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