Turn: Empirics show that Confucianism has a positive impact on procedural fairness

The impact of national/societal culture on perceptions of selection fairness has been studied in relation to, for example, European and North American value systems (e.g. Nikolaou and Judge, 2007). Our sample was obtained in Mainland China where Confucianism is a kernel of traditional culture that has a profound impact on daily life (Hwang, 2001). As a philosophy of humanity, it encompasses nine moral values, two of which, benevolence (ren) and righteousness (yi), overarch the others (Confucius, 2006). Confucian benevolence is rooted in familism (Yang, 1993) which then generalizes to others beyond the family. Importantly, Confucian benevolence is not amoral and unlimited, but righteous and tempered. When people exemplify righteous benevolence they reach an ideal, morally balanced state referred to in Confucianism as “the golden mean” (Zhu, 1987). As we now detail, in line with applicant attribution-reaction theory (AART) (Ployhart and Harold, 2004), these beliefs influence applicants’ evaluative perceptions of procedural justice via the attributions and expectations they make concerning the way they are treated. The moral principles of Confucianism are mainly embodied by proper conduct norms (“li”). If “righteous ren” is the internal spirit of all virtues, propriety “li,” can be considered as its external manifestation (Confucius, 2006). The major component of “li” is a system of ethical relationships and social behavioral norms – “wulun” – which focus on harmony and benevolence in which the ideal self should be relational; moreover, individual needs and expectations are secondary (Hwang, 2000). Further, for each dyadic relationship, including sovereign and subordinate, father and son, husband and wife, elder brother and younger, friend and friend, there are detailed social roles and prescribed responsibilities for each party (Yang, 1993) intended to encourage and maintain harmonious Guanxi, which refers to “a mixture of family and non-family, personal and impersonal, expressive and instrumental characteristics” (Chen et al., 2013, p. 171). Specifically, Chinese people, first, tend to respect, obey and show loyalty to authorities, while retaining their own authority status within various social relationships. The first four of the five dyadic ethical relationships referred to above are hierarchical (Mencius, 2006) and typically entail an authority structure that governs most social interactions such that individuals should respect and obey authorities; meanwhile, authorities should care for, guide and support them. Second, benevolence in Confucianism guides individuals to generalize their love beyond their families, advocating loyalty (zhong) and forgiveness (shu). One should be severe with oneself but be lenient and try to help others, take others in good faith, avoid conflict, be considerate and cooperative and requite evil with good (Confucius, 2006; Zhu, 1987). Moreover, traditional Chinese tend to follow the face principle. As an aspect of social reputation (Hwang, 1987), face is closely related to individuals’ familial or social status, knowledge, moral character and social connections. Face can be saved over time. If one party gives enough face to another party, the receiver will accept face gladly, and become less “transactional” in their relationship with respect to calculating gains and losses in social or economic exchanges. In sum, in the Confucian value system, authority orientation, tolerance, altruism and the face principle characterize interpersonal relationships. These in turn result in workplace interactions in which employees endeavor to establish harmonious Guanxi with supervisors, colleagues, customers and potential employers. Guanxi networks dominate the work lives of employees, contributing to feelings of safety, but at the price of hierarchical inequality, which they have learned to accept as a normal part of their lives. Importantly for our purposes, compared to applicants in less traditional cultures, Chinese persons are likely to care more about the level of harmonious Guanxi with potential employers and be less sensitive to unfair treatment. First, traditional Chinese applicants view recruiting organizations and their representatives as authorities who are higher in social standing than themselves. As such, they tend to believe that the decisions and requirements of potential employers should be respected and obeyed even if they are irrational. Moreover, China-based applicants tend to view recruiting organizations and their representatives as those with whom they should be tolerant and cooperative, making it more likely that they will be accepting of poor behavior and questionable employer requirements. At the same time, applicants who care more about “face” tend to be especially sensitive to the degree to which they are treated warmly, relative to the specifics of the selection procedure itself. Thus, in making attributions concerning a given level of treatment during the selection process (AART; Ployhart and Harold, 2004), we expect traditional Chinese applicants to be less sensitive to unfairness and to therefore assign higher fairness evaluations to the selection procedure, relative to less traditional candidates. Our view is supported by Wang et al. (2012) who found aspects of Confucianism associated positively with retrospectively collected perceptions of procedural fairness in relation to the unstructured interviews that had been used for selection purposes. Accordingly: H1. Applicants’ Confucian values, and its three dimensions of (a) authority orientation; (b) tolerance and altruism; and (c) “saving face” will associate positively with their perceived procedural fairness of the selection procedure.