Three essays on national and organizational cultures

• Main Author: Kawasaki, Shota
• Other Authors: Zou Xi
• Format: Thesis-Doctor of Philosophy
• Language: English
• Published: Nanyang Technological University 2024
• Subjects: Business and Management; National and organizational culture; Organizational behavior; Employee well-being
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/174779
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

The thesis comprises three essays examining: How do national and organizational cultures influence employees’ attitudes, behaviors, and relationships in the organizations? In Chapter 1, I conduct a narrative review of cross-cultural differences concerning three main themes in the management literature: 1) individual attitudes and behaviors (e.g., job satisfaction, organizational commitment), 2) employees’ experiences (e.g., feedback, organizational justice), and 3) interpersonal experiences (e.g., leadership, teams) in the organizations. Reviewing over 700 empirical studies, I illustrate a trend in the cross-cultural management research and identify key findings and insights about the effects of national cultures. Chapter 2 illustrates a novel pathway linking employees’ perceptions of organizational cultural strength to job satisfaction and organizational commitment via organizational nostalgia (i.e., one’s sentimental longing or wistful affection for past organizational events). This chapter also shows that the relevance of organizational nostalgia to employee well-being becomes more pronounced when employees work in the office compared to when working remotely. In Chapter 3, integrating cultural tightness theory and the job demands-resources model of burnout, I demonstrate that perception of tight organizational culture is a double-edged sword to burnout by inducing both job demands and job resources. Notably, the association between tightness and job demand is more pronounced among female employees, whereas the association between tightness and job resource is more pronounced among male employees. Shedding light on both advantages and disadvantages of tight organizational culture, this chapter offers several theoretical and practical implications for organizations to cultivate cultures that would benefit both female and male employees.