Generalized social exchange and its relevance to new era workplace relationships

Yoshikawa, K.; Wu, C.-H.; Lee, H.J.

Abstract

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.

Citation

Yoshikawa, K., Wu, C.-H., & Lee, H. (2018). Generalized social exchange and its relevance to new era workplace relationships. Industrial and Organizational Psychology: Perspectives on Science and Practice, 11(3), 486-492. https://doi.org/10.1017/iop.2018.100

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jun 22, 2018
• Online Publication Date: Sep 20, 2018
• Publication Date: Sep 20, 2018
• Deposit Date: Jul 13, 2018
• Publicly Available Date: Jul 16, 2018
• Journal: Industrial and Organizational Psychology
• Print ISSN: 1754-9426
• Electronic ISSN: 1754-9434
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 11
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 486-492
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/iop.2018.100
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1321151