Analysis of Concept Construction and Scale Development of Employee Zhengchong Behaviour in Family Firms in Jiangsu Province of China

Figures & data

Table 1 Examples of Interview Records and Open Coding

Original Statement (Example)	Initial Concept	Category
D4: For example, rivalry in front of the boss is a positive and serious work attitude of employees who want to win the favour of the boss through their achievements; D1: If I show some self-confidence, leaders can give me a chance to express myself or let me take on something; … …	Behaving positively; Showing confidence; Exerting merits	Showing merits
B1: When being promoted, leaders tend to choose employees with good performance and good relationships with colleagues and other leaders; E2: Some employees are outgoing and have a high EQ. They are very good at enlivening the atmosphere in the workplace, like cheering for everyone and sharing food during daily work. Leaders of these employees will also pay special attention to them. … …	Setting up good job relations	Establishing public praise
A1: Concerning position, suppose I improve the process and links of the production line on my own, and my work efficiency is increased from 20 to 25, my boss will pay attention to me, then one day, I will have a better chance of being promoted to a team leader or a monitor; A2: Employees need to do their work well, which is mainly reflected in their work performance; … …	Working actively; Improving efficiency	Pursuing lean work
B3: When the interests of employees are consistent, they will unite to win the favour of leaders. It is the case that foreign employees recruited by enterprises tend to be more closely linked; … …	Establishing close ties with people with common interests	Uniting others
E1: In our work, many people have been promoted thanks to their workability or ideas of pleasing leaders rapidly. Moreover, they show off themselves in various situations. Frequently, they recommend themselves, whether in team activities or daily work. They take the lead in projects and complete them with high efficiency; they are ready to do everything possible to help colleagues in need with the hope of attracting their leaders’ attention. … …	Undertaking jobs autonomously; Helping others autonomously	Assisting actively
F1. Team leaders or some team members share knowledge or skills with other colleagues in the same team to improve the team performance. As a result, they get favour from their senior leaders. … …	Sharing knowledge and experience actively	Sharing knowledge and resources
G3: For the favour of their leaders, it is expected that the employees belittle others, praise themselves, suppress each other, or even seize others’ achievements; H3: Now, some bosses of private enterprises like to listen to only one party. This makes some employees focus not on their performance but problems or shortcomings of others. In this way, some behaviours not conforming to the company culture are produced. Some employees snitch on the so-called problems or shortcomings of others to the bosses in private to win the boss’s attention; some employees satirize and slander others to attack others and flaunt themselves; … …	Satirizing and slandering; Whistling; Flaunting oneself and attacking others	Slandering and suppressing
E3: Take a technician at a very high level in his professional field but very bad at communication. He is unpopular with his colleagues, leading some employees to complain to their leaders that he is uncollaborative and challenging to communicate with, etc. Moreover, other colleagues crowd him out, refuse to collaborate with him, and deliberately ignore his work arrangement or opinions. … …	Not collaborating; Ignoring the opinions of others deliberately; Setting up barriers	Excluding in jobs
C1: I crowd out others and see my colleagues around me as imaginary enemies; G2: Some employees possess small groups. It is not easy for the members outside the groups to integrate into the small groups. For example, it is rare for the groups to invite the members outside theirs to dinner or inform them of something important in a timely manner. … …	Setting up imaginary enemies; Forming personal-interest cliques	Excluding in relationships
J3: Some employees create an image that they keep the same pace with their leaders via social apps, making the leader think that they have some interests in common; I1: If leaders drink the night before, some employees will prepare stomach medicine for them the following day; if leaders like smoking, some employees will prepare many lighters for the desired times; C2: Deliberate flattery, untrue language; … …	Praising leaders with words; Flattering leaders with actions	Pleasing leaders continually
G1: Some employees like to flatter the leaders: they assent to all ideas of the leaders and think that what they say is right; … …	Catering to leaders; Agreeing with leaders	Complying with orders blindly
D4: Employees come early in the morning to do chores for leaders: cleaning, boiling water and making tea, etc., to get appreciation; E3: Employees have high executive power for the leaders they prefer to follow. Employees may fulfil the assigned jobs and even ask for their advice to pursue betterment, while they refuse to do their assignments for those they would not like to follow. J1: After work, these employees always ponder over the thoughts of leaders and do life service work; … …	Helping leaders do extra work; Submitting to the very leaders they follow	Offering assistance personally

Table 2 Spindle Coding

Main Category	Initial Category	Category Connotation
Showing abilities	Showing merits	Showing merits emphasizes that those who compete for favour show their strengths in front of the leaders in a targeted way while concealing their defects, clarifying the leaders’ value proposition. Competitors can attract leaders’ attention by showing their merits in front of them.
	Establishing public praise	Establishing public praise means establishing a good personal image in front of leaders and colleagues. Good workplace relations can help the favoured staff get leaders’ attention, and they will have more job opportunities and promotion space.
	Pursuing lean work	Pursuing lean work emphasizes the excellent work performance of employees and increases the organization’s actual performance. In a performance-oriented organization, whether employees have real talents and real learning fundamentally affects the competitiveness of an enterprise. If enterprises lack a competitive advantage, they will risk being eliminated by the market. Therefore, senior leaders responsible for improving organizational performance must appoint people on their merits. At this time, employees who are genuinely talented and fully demonstrated to the leaders will be entrusted with a major responsibility; that is, they win the “favour” of the leaders.
Collaborating and sharing	Uniting others	The social impact theory put forward by Latane pointed out that social impact depends on the pressure intensity, directness, and the number of sources of pressure on the target individual (Latane et al, 1981). According to this theory, employees’ solidarity behaviour with others raises their influence within the team by increasing the number of sources of social shock, and thus they are more likely to be favoured by leaders.
	Assisting actively	Active assistance comprises actively sharing burdens for leaders and helping colleagues on the team finish their work to improve the work efficiency of the whole team to gain the appreciation and trust of superior leaders.
	Sharing knowledge and resources	Sharing knowledge and resources means that employees share knowledge and experience. Knowledge can be spread from the personal level to the organizational level, thereby enabling more employees to obtain methods and tools to solve problems, thus improving organizational performance. Enterprises are performance-oriented, and leaders desire to create an organizational culture of knowledge sharing so that competitors can gain the appreciation of leaders through knowledge sharing.
Excluding outsiders	Slandering and suppressing	Competitors can learn the difference between themselves and others through social comparison with other team members with the same ability, which leads to unfair perception or jealousy and further suppressing others by slandering others and setting up work obstacles. This helps them effectively alleviate their negative feelings with the hope of getting more attention from leaders.
	Excluding in jobs	The specific behaviour of excluding others in work includes setting up work obstacles, deliberately concealing important information, not collaborating with work, etc., which makes the imaginary enemies commit frequent mistakes at work, thus reducing their position in the leader’s mind and further enhancing one’s own position.
	Excluding in relationships	The specific actions of excluding others in a relationship include employees showing explicit, direct and one-to-one oppression or making imaginary enemies feel interpersonal pressure through indirect, obscure and exclusive behaviours. Moreover, specific actions include face-to-face verbal or emotional attacks, suggesting that other colleagues should not contact them, etc.
Ingratiating upwards	Pleasing leaders continually	Pleasing leaders continually includes two aspects: language and action. On the one hand, flatterers look for opportunities to praise leaders in words appropriately; on the other hand, they do what the leaders think and like.
	Complying with orders blindly	Complying with orders blindly means always respecting the leaders’ attitude and agreeing with any ideas or suggestions put forward by the leaders, even if the employees do not agree.
	Offering assistance personally	Private assistance involves attention and help to specific leaders, such as helping the leaders’ private affairs and actively collaborating with the leaders to accomplish extra tasks. In Chinese organizations, loyalty is more emotional. The focus of loyalty does not fall on the whole enterprise but the specific leaders. This is because the loyalty pattern in Chinese organizations reflects the essence of personal loyalty.

Figure 1 Dimensions of employee Zhengchong behaviour.

Table 3 Initial Items of Employee Zhengchong Behaviour

Dimension	Secondary Index	Number	Item	References
Showing abilities	Showing merits	S1	I will look for opportunities to let leaders know my strengths and merits.	Kumar (1991),^Citation18 Janssen and Van Yperen (2004),^Citation19 Gong and others (2009).^Citation20
		S2	I will actively demonstrate my talents and qualities to make leaders believe in my ability.
	Establishing public praise	S3	I will try to let leaders know about my good reputation among colleagues.
	Pursuing lean work	S4	I will fully accomplish my duty to gain the appreciation of the leaders.
		S5	I will actively strive to contribute to the department’s overall performance to gain the leaders’ appreciation.
Collaborating and sharing	Uniting others	S6	To be appreciated by the leaders, I will care about my team colleagues and strengthen communication with them.	Farh et al (2004),^Citation21 Wang Hui and Chang Yang (2017),^Citation22 Zhao Xiping et al (2007),^Citation23 Wang Xingyuan and Ji Zhiheng (2013).^Citation24
	Assisting actively	S7	To be appreciated by the leaders, I will actively assist my team colleagues in completing the work.
		S8	To be appreciated by the leaders, I will try my best to improve my teamwork efficiency.
	Sharing knowledge and resources	S9	To be appreciated by the leaders, I will share my knowledge and experience with the team.
Excluding outsiders	Slandering and suppressing	S10	I will speak ill of colleagues on the team who are appreciated or close to the leaders and those who are equivalent to my ability.	Huang Guozhan (2014),^Citation12 Einarsen and others (2009),^Citation25 Ferris and others (2008).^Citation26
		S11	If possible, I will put obstacles in the work of colleagues who are appreciated or close to the team’s leaders and have the same ability as I.
	Excluding in jobs	S12	I will deliberately ignore the work opinions of colleagues who are appreciated or close to the leaders of the team and are equal to my ability.
		S13	I will not seek to interact or collaborate with colleagues who are appreciated or are close to the team’s leaders and have the same ability as I.
	Excluding in relationships	S14	I will show neglect or even hostility to colleagues on the team who are appreciated or close to the leaders and are equivalent to my ability.
		S15	For colleagues on the team who are appreciated or close to the leaders and have the same ability as I have, I will suggest that others not make contact with them.
Ingratiating upwards	Pleasing leaders continually	S16	I will always look for opportunities to praise leaders.	Huang Guozhan (2014),^Citation12 Kumar and Beyerlein (1991),^Citation18 Bolino and Turnley (1999).^Citation27
		S17	I always cater to the interests of leaders, even if they are not related to my work.
	Complying with orders blindly	S18	When the leader shares his new ideas, I will show the same enthusiasm as he does, even though I do not agree with these ideas.
	Offering assistance personally	S19	I will help the leaders personally and be nice to them.
		S20	I will take the initiative to actively assist the leaders in their work, even if these jobs are beyond my job responsibilities.

Table 4 Characteristics of Participants in Exploratory Factor Analysis

Demographic Variable	Categories	Number of Participants	Percentage (%)
Gender	Male	129	46.4
	Female	149	53.6
Age	Under 20 years old	0	0
	21–25 years old	20	7.2
	26–30 years old	131	47.1
	31–35 years old	95	34.2
	36–40 years old	22	7.9
	Over 40 years old	10	3.6
Education background	Senior high school (technical secondary school) and below	7	2.5
	Junior college	22	7.9
	Undergraduate College	230	82.7
	Postgraduate	19	6.8
Years of work at the company	Under 1 year	1	4
	1–2 years	16	5.8
	2–3 years	39	14.0
	3–5 years	90	32.4
	More than 5 years	132	47.5
Working years with current leaders	Under 1 year	3	1.1
	1–2 years	40	14.4
	2–3 years	90	32.4
	3–5 years	84	30.2
	More than 5 years	61	21.9

Table 5 Results of the Internal Consistency Reliability Test of the Zhengchong Behaviour Scale

Number	CITC	α Coefficient After Entry Deletion	Number	CITC	α Coefficient After Entry Deletion
S1	0.618	0.902	S11	0.683	0.899
S2	0.285	0.908	S12	0.616	0.901
S3	0.606	0.902	S13	0.547	0.903
S4	0.589	0.902	S14	0.358	0.908
S5	0.549	0.903	S15	0.645	0.900
S6	0.553	0.903	S16	0.531	0.903
S7	0.573	0.902	S17	0.521	0.904
S8	0.608	0.901	S18	0.508	0.904
S9	0.556	0.903	S19	0.513	0.904
S10	0.656	0.900	S20	0.401	0.907

Table 6 Results of Exploratory Factor Analysis of Employee Zhengchong Behaviour

Dimension	Number	Factor 1	Factor 2	Factor 3	Factor 4
Showing abilities	S4	0.792	0.190	0.259	0.144
	S1	0.776	0.238	0.177	0.254
	S3	0.772	0.206	0.259	0.179
Collaborating and sharing	S9	0.159	0.892	0.128	0.094
	S6	0.180	0.835	0.150	0.063
	S7	0.129	0.814	0.222	0.088
	S8	0.197	0.707	0.241	0.180
Excluding outsiders	S13	0.057	0.057	0.833	0.136
	S11	0.195	0.195	0.790	0.141
	S15	0.198	0.198	0.784	0.095
	S10	0.190	0.190	0.784	0.122
	S12	0.216	0.216	0.771	0.089
Ingratiating upwards	S18	0.096	0.060	0.117	0.894
	S17	0.116	0.087	0.126	0.890
	S19	0.149	0.100	0.091	0.880
	S16	0.212	0.154	0.156	0.713

Table 7 Characteristics of Participants in Confirmatory Factor Analysis

Demographic Variables	Categories	Number of Participant	Percentage (%)
Gender	Male	162	48.9
	Female	169	51.1
Age	Under 20 years old	0	0
	21–25 years old	37	11.2
	26–30 years old	182	55.0
	31–35 years old	96	29.0
	36–40 years old	9	2.7
	Over 40 years old	7	2.1
Education background	Senior high school (technical secondary school) and below	3	9
	Junior college	30	9.1
	Undergraduate College	273	82.5
	Postgraduate	25	7.6
Years of work in the company	Under 1 year	7	2.1
	1–2 years	39	11.8
	2–3 years	58	17.5
	3–5 years	86	26.0
	More than 5 years	141	42.6
Working hours with current leaders	Under 1 year	9	2.7
	1–2 years	72	21.8
	2–3 years	91	27.5
	3–5 years	88	26.6
	More than 5 years	71	21.5

Table 8 Results of Confirmatory Factor Analysis of Employee Zhengchong Behaviour

Model	χ2	df	χ2/df	RMSEA	GFI	PGFI	NFI	TLI	CFI
Single factor	1075.627	101	10.650	0.171	0.668	0.496	0.670	0.631	0.690
Two factors	847.838	100	8.487	0.151	0.722	0.531	0.740	0.714	0.762
Three factors a	668.992	98	6.826	0.133	0.772	0.557	0.795	0.777	0.818
Three factors b	546.781	98	5.579	0.118	0.794	0.572	0.832	0.825	0.857
Three factors c	403.173	98	4.114	0.097	0.848	0.611	0.876	0.881	0.903
Four factors	219.301	95	2.308	0.063	0.922	0.644	0.933	0.950	0.960
Second-order model	226.867	97	2.339	0.064	0.919	0.656	0.930	0.949	0.959

Notes: Three factors a showing abilities, collaborating and sharing, excluding outsiders+ ingratiating upwards; Three factors b showing abilities, collaborating and sharing + excluding outsiders, ingratiating upwards; Three factors c showing abilities + collaborating and sharing, excluding outsiders, ingratiating upwards.

Figure 2 Parameter estimation of the 4-factor structural model of employee Zhengchong behaviour.

Abbreviations: SA, showing abilities; CS, collaborating and sharing; EO, excluding outsiders; IU, ingratiating upwards. The same below.

Figure 3 The results of second order confirmatory factor analysis of employee Zhengchong behaviour scale.

Table 9 Reliability Coefficient of Employee Zhengchong Behaviour Scale

	Showing Abilities	Collaborating and Sharing	Excluding Outsiders	Ingratiating Upwards	Scale
Chronbach’s α	0.830	0.826	0.885	0.905	0.916
Number of items	3	4	5	4	16

Table 10 Convergence Validity Analysis of Employee Zhengchong Behaviour Scale

	Showing Abilities	Collaborating and Sharing	Excluding Outsiders	Ingratiating Upwards
AVE	0.619	0.545	0.608	0.691
CR	0.830	0.827	0.885	0.899

Table 11 Discriminatory Validity Analysis of Employee Zhengchong Behaviour Scale

	Showing Abilities	Collaborating and Sharing	Excluding Outsiders	Ingratiating Upwards
Showing abilities	(0.787)
Collaborating and sharing	0.530**	(0.738)
Excluding outsiders	0.556**	0.480**	(0.780)
Ingratiating upwards	0.502**	0.363**	0.531**	(0.831)

Note: **p<0.01.

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