Although studies pay increasing attention to how organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) affects work–family conflict, most research ignores the boundary conditions and underlying mechanisms of this relationship. Drawing on goal interdependence theory and conservation of resources theory, this research sees two types of goal interdependence as important boundary conditions of how helping behavior affects work–family conflict. We use a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods to test our theoretical model. Specifically, using two-wave survey data collected from 386 employees and 90 supervisors in a manufacturing company, our quantitative study shows that the interaction of helping behavior with cooperative goal interdependence is positively associated with work–goal progress, whereas its interaction with competitive goal interdependence is negatively associated with work–goal progress. In turn, work–goal progress is negatively associated with work–family conflict. The results further reveal that the indirect effect of helping behavior on work–family conflict via work–goal progress is positive and significant only when the level of competitive (cooperative) goal interdependence is high (low). We use 196 employees from the same organization to conduct our qualitative study, the results of which further substantiate and extend the findings from our quantitative study. Finally, we discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our findings.

We investigate the multilevel interactive effects that CEO leadership behaviours and top-level managers’ support have on middle managers’ performance in China. Our sample consists of 608 middle managers and 140 of their direct supervisors (top managers) from 40 companies. After controlling for middle managers’ demographic variables, hierarchical linear modelling analysis shows that when non-caring, authoritative, or task-oriented CEOs lead the organization, supportive top managers more positively enhance middle manager performance. Contributions to multilevel leader influences and social exchange research are discussed.

This article examines the impact of foreign diasporas on host country firms. It contributes to diaspora research by focusing on the context of emerging market host countries and the specific case of Chinese diaspora in Russia. Drawing on the concepts of organizational capabilities and organizational legitimacy, we explain how the Chinese diaspora can be beneficial for the competitiveness of Russian firms, and how Russian firms can uniquely leverage these potential benefits through engagement with individual Chinese diasporans and diaspora institutions. Our article adds to the diaspora literature in several ways. First, unlike the majority of past research, which tends to focus on the benefits for the diaspora's home country, we highlight the potential impact on host country firms, specifically their capabilities and legitimacy at home and abroad. Second, our model can be viewed as a direct response to the many calls in the literature to study the microfoundations of firms’ capabilities. Third, we add to the legitimacy literature by proposing that engagement with a foreign diaspora can help host country firms establish and maintain their legitimacy both at home and on a global scale. Although our framework is informed by the Chinese diaspora in Russia, we discuss its generalizability to other contexts.

To overcome liabilities of foreignness and outsidership during internationalization, board interlock is an effective conduit of foreign knowledge inflows and organizational learning that firms require. We focus on the time dimension of such influence and hypothesize that the tenure of board interlocks with firms with experience in outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) in a country promotes the OFDI decision of the focal firm to that particular country. However, such an effect diminishes as the tenure of interlock ties increases. Moreover, as an alternative knowledge source, OFDI knowledge from the focal firm's neighboring region may weaken the baseline effect. Based on longitudinal data of listed firms in China, our empirical results support the hypotheses. This study enriches the literature on social network learning by identifying its temporal nature and the substitution between different knowledge sources. It also demonstrates the importance of rotating a firm's board members, so that knowledge acquisition and learning remain fresh.