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Supervisor–Subordinate Guanxi and Job Satisfaction Among Migrant Workers in China

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Abstract

In urban China, improving rural–urban migrant workers’ subjective wellbeing has become an important goal for workplaces and local governments. Drawing from the social capital theory and using original survey data, we examine the relationship between migrant workers’ guanxi (‘personal relations’ in the Chinese context) with their supervisors and their job satisfaction. Our results show that supervisor–subordinate guanxi is positively related to migrant workers’ job satisfaction. This relationship is mediated by network resources and personal power, which serve as their social resources in workplaces. Our study contributes to the positive psychology literature by understanding the role of guanxi in shaping Chinese migrant workers’ job satisfaction. Implications and future research directions are discussed.

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Acknowledgments

Funding was provided by The Young College Teachers’ Training Scheme of Shanghai (ZZSD15094).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Management, Shanghai University, Shanghai, China

    Jie Li

  2. Antai College of Economics and Management, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China

    Wangshuai Wang

  3. Department of Marketing, Central University of Finance and Economics, Beijing, China

    Gong Sun

  4. Department of Employment Relations and Human Resources, Griffith University, Brisbane, QLD, Australia

    Zhou Jiang

  5. Centre for the Health Economy, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW, Australia

    Zhiming Cheng

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  1. Jie Li
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  2. Wangshuai Wang
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Correspondence to Gong Sun.

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Li, J., Wang, W., Sun, G. et al. Supervisor–Subordinate Guanxi and Job Satisfaction Among Migrant Workers in China. Soc Indic Res 139, 293–307 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-016-1471-6

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