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Generalized Social Exchange and Its Relevance to New Era Workplace Relationships

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 September 2018

Katsuhiko Yoshikawa ,
Chia-Huei Wu  and
Hyun-Jung Lee
Katsuhiko Yoshikawa*
Affiliation:
Antai College of Economics and Management, Shanghai Jiao Tong University
Chia-Huei Wu
Affiliation:
Durham University Business School, Durham University
Hyun-Jung Lee
Affiliation:
Department of Management, London School of Economics and Political Science
*
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Katsuhiko Yoshikawa, Antai College of Economics and Management, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, 1954 Hua Shan Road, Shanghai, People's Republic of China. E-mail: katsu_y@sjtu.edu.cn
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Extract

To critically evaluate the relevance of social exchange theory (SET) to the contemporary workplace, Chernyak-Hai and Rabenu (2018) point out a number of factors that reshape work relationships and suggest how to apply and extend social exchange theory to understand the new era work relationships. However, in their discussion, they focus mainly on reciprocal exchange (RE) in dyadic relationships. The discussion completely overlooks another important form of social exchange, namely, generalized exchange (GE), which is increasingly relevant to contemporary organizations exactly because of the changes indicated by Chernyak-Hai and Rabenu. In this commentary, we briefly review prior investigations into GE across various social science disciplines and then point out its increasing relevance to organizations. Finally, we will discuss implications for future research in the industrial and organizational (I-O) psychology literature.

Type
Commentaries
Information
Industrial and Organizational Psychology , Volume 11 , Issue 3 , September 2018 , pp. 486 - 492
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology 2018 

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