Work outcomes of relational demography in Chinese vertical dyads

Abstract

Relational demography refers to the demographic differences (such as gender, age, race, and tenure) between supervisor and subordinate. This study examines its impact on employees' work outcomes in the setting of a foreign-invested enterprise in China. We hypothesize that dissimilarities on demographic attributes between supervisor and subordinate affect subordinate's leader–member exchange, trust in organization, in-role performance, and organizational citizenship behavior. The hypotheses were tested on 239 supervisor–subordinate dyads via a questionnaire survey. The results of regression analysis showed that dissimilarities in gender and organizational tenure had negative effects on the outcome variables. In particular, a female supervisor with male subordinate displayed the lowest level of leader–member exchange and trust in the organization. Implications of these findings on human resource management are discussed.

Keywords:

• China
• in-role performance
• leader-member exchange
• organizational citizenship behavior
• relational demography
• trust in organization