Chinese Job Well-Being: Its Concept and Scale Developing

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to construct a scale of job well-being based on Chinese culture. The following steps were involved for this construction. First, we reviewed the literature on context free well-being and job well-being from western perspectives (e.g., hedonism, eudemonism) as well as Chinese culture. Then we completed a qualitative study (interviews, focus group discussions) and proposed a preliminary job well-being model. A preliminary scale was developed based on the job well-being model and existing scales in related fields. Further, we conducted another quantitative study to verify and modify the qualitative findings. We finally established a 7-dimension scale for Chinese job well-being. It has satisfactory reliability and validity, suggesting its potential applicable to Chinese culture. Despite being similar to the western model in some dimensions (e.g., intrinsic satisfaction, job competence), this job well-being model has some dimensions reflecting the uniqueness of Chinese culture (e.g., harmony, recognition from others). Moreover, high positive affect and autonomy, which are important for well-being in the west, are not obvious in this model. The different findings from China suggest the significance of conducting indigenous job well-being studies.