“It’s okay when I do it, but not others.” : How do hotel employees engage in and respond to workplace Guanxi?

This study examined employees’ Guanxi orientation as a quasi-dispositional predictor and organizational Guanxi practice as a contextual predictor of employees’ engagement in personal Guanxi behavior directed at the supervisor, which in turn predicted three work-related outcomes: job satisfaction, job stress, and turnover intention. Using data collected from 226 hotel employees, the conceptualized structural model was tested. Results of this study showed that employees’ Guanxi orientation and organizational Guanxi behavior both positively predicted employees’ engagement in personal Guanxi behavior toward the supervisor; employee personal Guanxi behavior toward the supervisor was positively related to job satisfaction whereas organizational Guanxi behavior was negatively related to job satisfaction and positively related to stress; lastly, personal Guanxi was positively related to employee turnover intention. Theoretical and practical implications were discussed.