What governs directors’ monitoring behavior in China? The influence of director social identification, learning goal orientation, and avoidance orientation

Alessandra Capezio, Lin Cui*, Helen Wei Hu, John Shields

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    7 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    Drawing together literature on corporate governance, organizational behavior, and educational psychology, and using survey data from a sample of 300 Chinese company directors, this study examines the mediating role of director learning goal orientation in linking two widely-acknowledged director social identifications (identification with the organization and identification with executive-agents) and a key director task behavior, namely the monitoring of executive-agents. We also investigate the moderating role of director avoidance orientation in influencing this mediation since a predisposition to avoid loss of “face” is widely posited as having particular relevance in the Chinese context. Results show, first, that directors with stronger organizational identification monitor executive-agents more diligently than those with stronger executive-agent identification. Second, we find that while learning goal orientation mediates the positive effects of both organizational identification and executive-agent identification on monitoring, the mediated indirect effect of organizational identification on monitoring is stronger than the mediated indirect effect of executive-agent identification on monitoring. Third, results show that the indirect effects are stronger when director avoidance orientation is low. These findings underscore the importance of director social identification and learning goal orientation in inducing director monitoring in the Chinese context, as well as the worth of selecting directors who exhibit a low disposition to avoidance.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)899-924
    Number of pages26
    JournalAsia Pacific Journal of Management
    Volume31
    Issue number4
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 7 Nov 2014

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