A Japan–US cross-cultural study of relationships among team autonomy, organizational social capital, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment

The objectives of the present study are to explore how team autonomy, organizational social capital, and worker attitudes of job satisfaction and organizational commitment are related to one another, and the similarities and differences in the relationships between Japan and the US. For this purpose, a survey of incumbent workers was conducted in Japan and the US on the basis of Web-based sampling. In Japan, questionnaires were distributed in mid-January 2009, and 536 incumbent Japanese workers responded. In the US, questionnaires were distributed in mid-April 2009, and 532 incumbent American workers responded. As a result of multi-group analysis by structural equation modeling, the following differences in the theoretical models were revealed between Japan and the US: (1) team autonomy was not related to structural social capital (i.e., density of network) outside of teams for Japanese workers but positively related for American workers; (2) the mediating effects of structural social capital on the relationships between team autonomy and both job satisfaction and organizational commitment were different between Japan and the US; and (3) the negative relationship between structural social capital and job satisfaction was significantly stronger for Japanese than American workers. The mediating effects of relational/cognitive social capital (i.e., trust) on the relationships between team autonomy and both job satisfaction and organizational commitment were not different between them. We discuss academic and practical implications suggested by these results.

► We examine the influences of team autonomy on worker attitudes.
► We explore the mediating effects of organizational social capital.
► We compare the mediational model between Japan and the US.
► The mediating effects of structural social capital are different between them.
► The mediating effects of relational/cognitive social capital are not different.