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Compared with Japanese and Taiwanese employees, People's Republic of China (PRC) employees were more strongly influenced by company policies but less strongly influenced by independent assessment. This article reports a study that compared the extent to which reactions to supervisory authority among employees in Japan, Taiwan, and the PRC were affected by various workplace circumstantial factors. The economic reform and open-door policies implemented in the PRC since the late 1970s have, however, generated observable changes in the PRC both in terms of the spectacular growth of the economy and in terms of the improved personal freedom among its population. Empirical studies comparing the attitudes of employees across these three East Asian nations, especially between the PRC and Taiwan, are scarce in the Western management literature. The lack of in-depth understanding of the differences in work attitudes and behaviors across Japan, Taiwan, and the PRC is regrettable also because of the extensive and growing economic interactions among the three economies and the managerial challenges associated with the interactions. Because the success of a firm relies on its managers' ability to elicit and channel the work efforts of the workforce, it is of critical importance to explore the conditions affecting employees' willingness to accept managerial influence.

Focuses on the effects of company policy and peer consensus on Taiwanese employees' reactions to supervisory directions. Distinctive types of business enterprises in Taiwan; Effects of workplace circumstance and extent of employee compliance studies; Characteristics of firms surveyed; Conditions for circumstantial factors; Reactions to supervisory direction.