Crafting a Job among Chinese Employees: The Role of Empowering Leadership and the Links to Work-Related Outcomes.

The present study aims to examine the process through which empowering leadership shapes employees' work engagement and in-role performance by facilitating job-crafting behaviors, specifically seeking resources, seeking challenges, and reducing demands. Based on the extensive data from 733 Chinese employees across various organizations located predominantly in Chongqing and Xi'an, China, we carried out different types of statistical analysis such as confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation modeling (SEM) to examine the relationships among empowering leadership, specific job-crafting behaviors, work engagement and in-role performance, test our hypothesis and our conceptual model. The results from structural equation modeling (SEM) suggested that empowering leadership was positively related to employees' work engagement and in-role performance; empowering leadership was positively related to employees' job crafting (seeking resources, seeking challenges and reducing demands); seeking resources, seeking challenges and reducing demands were positively related to in-role performance, and seeking challenges and reducing demands were positively related to work engagement. In the relationship between empowering leadership and in-role performance, seeking resources serves as a mediating factor. Similarly, seeking challenges mediates the association between empowering leadership and both work engagement and in-role performance. Furthermore, reducing demands mediates the links between empowering leadership and both work engagement and in-role performance. The implications of these findings are subsequently discussed.

Study on the use and effectiveness of malaria preventive measures reported by employees of chinese construction companies in Western Africa in 2021.

BACKGROUND: As malaria continues to be a significant global public health concern, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa, Chinese workers in Africa are at increased risk of malaria. The effectiveness of malaria prevention measures implemented by Chinese companies and workers is a question that may correlate with the malaria infection rate in this population. This study explored the use and effectiveness of malaria prevention measures for Chinese employees in West Africa to provide a reference for companies and individuals on improving malaria prevention and control. METHODS: Using a cross-sectional approach, we surveyed 256 participants in 2021, mainly from Nigeria, Mali, Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Senegal in West Africa. The survey duration is from July to the end of September 2021. We selected two companies from the 2020 ENR "World's Largest 250 International Contractors" list, which featured 6 Chinese companies, all of which are state-owned and have a 61.9% market share in Africa. The participants were Chinese workers with more than a year of work experience in construction companies in Africa. A 20-minute WeChat-based structured online questionnaire was used to obtain information on malaria infection status and malaria prevention measures. Descriptive statistical analysis, chi-square test, principal components analysis, and ordinal logistic regression analysis are used to analyze the data obtained. The difference in Statistical significance was set at P < 0.05. RESULTS: Ninety six (37.5%) participants contracted malaria more than once within a year. The principal components analysis found a low correlation between public and individual preventive measures. No significant correlation was found between public preventive measures and malaria infection (p > 0.05), while standardized use of mosquito nets (P = 0.016) and pesticide spraying (P = 0.047) contributed significantly to fewer malaria infections at the individual level, but the removal of vegetation around houses (P = 0.028) at the individual level related to higher malaria infection. CONCLUSIONS: In our sample of Chinese construction workers going to Africa, some individual preventive measures had a stronger association with malaria prevention than a variety of public environmental measures. Furthermore, individual and public preventive measures were not associated with each other. Both of these findings are surprising and require further investigation in larger and more diverse samples. This- study provides important clues about the challenges that risk reduction programs face for migrant workers from China and elsewhere.

Structural Dimension Exploration and Measurement Scale Development of Employee Involution in China's Workplace Field.

The phenomenon of workplace involution has attracted ample attention. How to make employees treat their work with the correct attitude and behavior and improve their work performance has become a realistic proposition. This study uses a combination of qualitative and quantitative research methods, with the help of grounded theory, to conduct an exploratory study on the structural dimensions of employee involution in the Chinese workplace and, on this basis, to develop and test the measurement scale. The research results show that employee involution is a multi-dimensional construct with rich connotations, including four dimensions: inefficient busyness, exhaustion of innovation, promotion anxiety, and internal competition. The measurement scale consists of four factors and 13 items. The factor analysis results showed that the developed scale's reliability and validity reached an ideal level. To a certain extent, this study promotes the recognition and attention of various types of organizations at all levels to involution. The research conclusions provide theoretical guidance for employees to get rid of the involution crisis and will motivate managers to formulate better intervention measures to prevent and reduce workplace involution.

Prevalence of Workplace Bullying and Risk Groups in Chinese Employees in Hong Kong.

Most studies on workplace bullying have been conducted in high-income countries and on Caucasian samples. Little is known about workplace bullying in Asian countries despite its recognition as a serious public health issue in the workplace. We examined the annual and lifetime prevalence of workplace bullying and its risk factors among Chinese employees in Hong Kong. The study was part of a larger project consisting of two waves. Respondents were recruited from a convenience sampling technique and completed a self-reported survey. Respondents reported whether they had been bullied at work for the past 12 months and during their lifetime. A multivariate logistic regression was conducted to explore the sociodemographic risk factors for workplace bullying. There were a total of 2657 respondents (54.6% male), with a mean age of 41.53 years. The annual and lifetime prevalence of workplace bullying were 39.1% and 58.9%, respectively. Multivariate analyses showed that workplace bullying in the past 12 months was associated with a high monthly income, and the combination of a high monthly income and higher educational attainment was associated with bullying at some point in the participants' career. Suitable policies and interventions to reduce the extent of workplace bullying in Hong Kong are warranted.

Core Self-Evaluations Increases Among Chinese Employees: A Cross-Temporal Meta-Analysis, 2010-2019.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the changes in core self-evaluation (CSE) scores among Chinese employees during 2010-2019. We conducted a cross-temporal meta-analysis including 50 studies (17,400 Chinese employees) to evaluate the relationship between the year of data collection and levels of CSE. We found that correlations between levels of CSE and year of data collection were strong and positive (r > 0.500). Regression results showed that the year of data collection could predict the CSE score when the mean sample age and sex ratio (%female) were controlled. In addition, CSE scores were positively related to GDP per capita and negatively related to the unemployment rate.

Changes in Work-Family Conflict of Chinese Employees: A Cross-Temporal Meta-Analysis, 2005-2016.

With the rapid growth of China's economy, work-family conflict (WFC) level of Chinese employees might have changed over time. The present research performed a cross-temporal meta-analysis of 71 papers using the Work-Family Conflict Scale (WFCS) from three Chinese academic databases and three databases in English to investigate changes in Chinese employees' WFC (N = 23,635) during 2005-2016. Results showed that the WFC level of employees increased significantly by 0.77 standard deviations over the past 12 years. The increasing trend over time occurred among both male and female employees, which is slightly more salient among male employees. However, there was no significant gender difference in WFC scores. This study found that the increase in WFC scores among Chinese employees was associated with scores of six social indicators that might cause stress in workplace (the number of employees and number of college graduates) and stress in family (divorce rate, residents' consumption level, elderly dependency ratio, and family size) of 5 years before and the year of data collection, which indicates that social changes played an important role in changes of WFC. The explanations and implications of these changes are discussed.

Why Work Overtime? A Systematic Review on the Evolutionary Trend and Influencing Factors of Work Hours in China.

Objectives: Research that examined changes in the laws in respect to work hours was of great importance for understanding its current status and causes. However, most research on work hours in China is still conducted using self-reported questionnaires, which lack coherence and depth, and are inadequate for exploring the evolutionary trend of work hours and its mechanism. Methods: This study examined the evolutionary trend of Chinese employees' work hours by employing a cross-temporal meta-analysis, and employed the entropy weight method to analyze each influencing factor. The China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), VIP information and WanFang database were searched for Chinese-language peer-reviewed literature, and Google Scholar and the Web of Science were searched for related literature in the English language. Results: A total of 36 pieces of literature were identified as having satisfied the quality standards for screening. The results indicated that work hours in China show a significant fluctuating upward trend. Most of the recent studies on work hours in China were cross-provincial investigations, and the issue of overtime among migrant workers has become the key focus of current research. Most studies on the work hours of Chinese employees were conducted in a manner whereby scholars played a leading role while the government assisted. Thus, government-led, intensive and nationwide research needs to be launched. Conclusions: The issue of work hours in China should be taken seriously. The main influencing factors included survival indicators, such as labor market conditions and levels of medical security levels, followed by power-assisted indicators, such as personal income and distribution, while labor protection had a minimal impact. This study will contribute to a better understanding of the essence of work hours among Chinese employees, and will also help to provide a theoretical basis for further intervention study related to overtime work.

Job security and work performance in Chinese employees: The mediating role of organisational identification.

This research focuses on investigating whether organisational identification mediates the effects of job security on in-role behaviour and extra-role behaviour and how these mediation mechanisms differ according to gender. Through analysing 212 supervisor-subordinate dyads from a Chinese air transportation group, the research indicated that organisational identification partially mediated the effect of job security on in-role behaviour and fully mediated the effect of job security on extra-role behaviour. A multi-group analysis also showed that there were significant differences between male and female employees in these relationships. In addition, moderated mediation analyses showed that gender moderated the indirect effects of job security on in-role behaviour and extra-role behaviour through organisational identification. Limitations and implications of these findings are discussed.