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Publication

What does democratic management do in Chinese workplaces? Evidence from matched employer–employee data (with Liwen Chen, Zhong-Xing Su) Human Resource Management Journal, 1– 26. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/1748-8583.12471

Abstract

Democratic management (DM) is an important set of statutory employee participation institutions that goes beyond trade unions in Chinese workplaces; however, its effects on pay and performance are unstudied. Using data from the China Employer–Employee Matched Survey, this study examines how DM is associated with pay and performance levels in China. The study finds that DM is positively associated with workers' hourly wages, fringe benefits, and firms' labour productivity on average, suggesting that it is not merely ‘window-dressing’ as perceived by conventional wisdom. This study also reveals that workplace transparency mediates the relationship between DM and employees' earnings, while the industrial relations climate mediates the relationship between DM and firms' productivity.

Exposure to socially influential peer parents: Evidence from cadre parents in China (with Liwen Chen and Bobby W. Chung), China Economic Review, DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chieco.2023.101943

Abstract

Parents with a special social status generate spillover effects to other parents and children. Because cadres (government officials) in China have a broad influence on resource allocation, their presence elicits responses from surrounding parents and students. Exploiting random classroom assignments in Chinese middle schools, we find that increased exposure to classmates' cadre parents raises parents' attention to their children's friendships and guidance over schoolwork. We also find evidence suggesting that parental changes raise the child's test scores. The findings highlight parental adjustments as a mediator of the external influence of peer parents on children.

What they want to say and what they say: Employee voice gap and associated outcomes in the Chinese context. (with Liwen Chen, Zhong-Xing Su, and Fang Lee Cooke) Asia Pac J Manag (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10490-024-09960-6

Abstract

This study addresses an understudied research area in current voice research—the employee voice gap, defined as the extent to which employees perceived actual voice falls short of their demand for voice. Drawing on social exchange theory, we propose that the employee voice gap can be a significant reason for turnover intention, and such a relationship is mediated by employees’ perceptions of working conditions and industrial relations climate. We also argue that these relationships exist at the firm level and that the aggregated voice gaps are associated with organizational turnover rates. We provide empirical evidence for the relationships using the 2019 China Employer-Employee Matched Survey data of 4602 employees from 301 firms. The findings of our study point to similar voice gap patterns to those found in the North American context, indicating the universal effects of workplace voice gaps. In addition, our analysis reveals that having more voice than needed is not associated with these outcomes. Our study enriches the employee voice literature in general and in the Chinese context specifically through an interdisciplinary lens.

Good personality traits in bad times: Does conscientiousness mitigate the adverse effects of graduating in a recession? (With Liwen Chen) Labour Economics (2024-91). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.labeco.2024.102643.

Abstract

This paper studies whether and how conscientiousness, a personality trait, helps individuals mitigate the adverse effects of graduating during a recession on early career outcomes. By analyzing college-educated individuals who graduated in the 1980s, we find that conscientiousness reduces the income losses of workers who graduated during a recession. This effect results mainly from workers’ adjustments in the labor supply. When graduating during a recession, college graduates high in conscientiousness are more likely to find full-time jobs and work more hours per week than their counterparts low in conscientiousness. Regarding the other four Big Five personality traits, while agreeableness has a modest effect on mitigating the effects of adverse labor market entry conditions on hourly wages, extraversion, openness to experience, and emotional stability do not appear to buffer against such early career losses. Additionally, cognitive ability does not offset the challenges posed by graduating during a recession.

Composition of peer mothers and gender norms: Class randomization and short-run effects. (with LIwen Chen and Bobby W. Chung), Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2025 (June), DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2025.107008

Abstract

Increased exposure to gender-role information affects a girl’s educational performance. Leveraging the classroom randomization in Chinese middle schools, we find that the increased presence of peers’ working mothers significantly enhances a girl’s performance in mathematics. The exposure also reduces gendered attitudes toward mathematics and future careers. Long exposure and a distant parent–daughter relationship enhance peer mothers’ influences. As falsification tests against unobserved confounding factors, we find that exposure to peers’ working mothers does not affect boys’ outcomes.

Working Paper

1. Occupational Shopping of Youth: The Strength of A Worker’s Comparative Advantage (Job Market Paper ) Download

I study how the strength of a worker’s comparative advantage affects her occupational shopping in the early career. I construct the average distance between estimated productivities in the best-matched occupation and the other two occupations to measure the strength, where productivities are estimated from a multinomial logit regression of a worker’s choice of her best-matched occupation. A worker whose productivity distance is larger has a stronger comparative advantage. Such a worker spends fewer years in the labor market and tries out fewer occupations before finding her best-matched one. To quantify the importance of the strength in occupational shopping, I build a learning model, in which a worker learns her occupation-specific productivity by observing the output at the current occupation. Enlarging the productivity distance by one standard deviation in the model reduces more than 80% of occupational changes in the first ten years of careers. Moreover, for an average labor market entrant, the value of learning about her type is 28% of her expected lifetime earning.

Work in Progress

1. The Effects of Personalities on the Career Mobility of Young Workers

I use monthly job observations from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 to examine career mobility patterns and evaluate the effects of personalities on career mobility. The monthly hazard of career-ending is not monotonically declining in tenure, which increases to a maximum in 3–4 months and declines thereafter. Regarding the big five personalities, I find four of them, Conscientiousness, Emotional Stability, Extraversion, and Openness to Experience affect a young worker’s career mobility. On the one hand, conscientious and emotionally stable individuals have lower career mobility. On the other hand, extroverted and open-minded individuals tend to have higher career mobility.

2. Training of Mothers, Female Labor Participation and Fertility over the Life Cycle (with Liwen Chen and Leran Wang)