Workplace Partnership:The Logical Basis for Mutual Gain between Employees and Organizations in the Digi-tal Economy Era
The rapid development of the digital economy and the vigorous rise of platform organizations have driven the emergence of a new employment trend combining"freelancing+flexible work"and the rise of a"human-centered economy."More and more employees have shifted from the traditional obedient"office work-ers"and"laborers"under the conventional employment model to partners represented by"owners"and"creators"in platform.This transformation of employee identities,coupled with the promotion of flexible employment,provides organizations with a high degree of flexibility to respond to increasingly complex environments and demands.However,within this transformation,the traditional top-down control of employees by organizations has not changed,leading to issues of inequality and susceptibility to market benefits in the cooperation between employees and organizations.This re-sults in risks for employees such as difficulties in determining labor relations and lack of long-term benefits security.In the digital age where human-centered values are gradually rising,the instrumen-tal thinking of organizations exerting control over employees will hinder the unleashing of employees'potential.Instead,organiza-tions should establish a partner relationship with employees,setting common goals and cooperating to address challenges.However,re-search on workplace partnership in China is still in its early stages,and there is an urgent need to establish organizational relationship mechanisms centered on cooperation and mutual benefits.It is necessary to systematically review the theoretical progress of work-place partnership.This study first delineated the development context of the concept of employee-organization relationships,clarifying the positioning and importance of workplace partnership in the current era.Second,we expounded on the theoretical connotations of workplace partner-ship,distilling the theoretical essence and providing a conceptual definition.Third,we organized the theoretical foundation of work-place partnership,pinpointing the premise framework,influences,and boundary effects.The study reveals the following findings:(1)The relationship between employees and organizations in modern history has mainly evolved from opposition to win-win.The under-lying logic of this change is the transformation of employee nature,that is,with the development of productivity,the increasing hier-archy of employee needs and the awakening of self-worth prompt employees and organizations to reexamine their past relationships,reshape,and form relationship concepts that are in line with the characteristics of the times and the requirements of production de-velopment.Although the current relationship concept effectively alleviates the contradictions between employees and organizations,the basic logic of organizations unilaterally controlling employ-ees"from the top down"has not changed.Workplace partnership,based on mutual benefit between employees and organizations,advocate the construction of equal cooperation relationships that create shared value and share risks from an institutional level.This not only aligns with the pursuit of win-win relationships between employees and organizations by modern cutting-edge management concepts but also caters to the emerging trend of freelancers in the era of the digital economy and the gradual breakdown of traditional employment relationships,with cross-era significance in advanc-ing changes in employment logic.(2)Regarding conceptual con-notations,academia is currently exploring the concept definitions of workplace partnership from different perspectives,generally categorized into three levels:concept,method,and practice level.Based on this,a definition is proposed for workplace partnership,which is a management philosophy aimed at achieving collaborative wins,value creation,shared outcomes,and joint risk-sharing be-tween organizations and employees.(3)Concerning the theoretical foundation,existing theories primarily explain the formation and influences of workplace partnership.The formation of workplace partnership can be explained from perspectives such as the Sys-tem-Society-Dominance(SSD)framework theory,mutual benefit theory,and multiple institutional logic theory,while influences involve perspectives like social exchange theory,social identity theory,and resource conservation theory.(4)Regarding the premise framework,the prerequisites for constructing workplace partnership focus on four core elements:mutual gain basis,institutional guar-antee,legitimacy,and employees'discourse power.(5)Regarding influence effects and boundaries,academia holds three viewpoints on the effects of workplace partnership:mutual benefitperspective,pessimismperspective,and constrained relationshipperspective.The discussion on whether workplace partnership can have positive impacts primarily revolves around boundary factors such as stake-holder elements,environmental factors,and construction factors.The contributions of this study are as follows:Firstly,by tracing the evolutionary trend of the concept of employee-organization re-lations from"opposition"to"win-win",it clarifies the positioning and importance of workplace partnership in the digital age.Second-ly,to deepen the understanding of workplace partnership,it refines the theoretical core based on summarizing previous literature and provides a unique interpretation of the definition of workplace part-nership,serving as a reference for the academic community to form a theoretical consensus on this concept.Finally,a systematic sum-mary is given on the theoretical foundation,premise framework,influences,and boundaries of workplace partnership,deepening the comprehensive understanding of workplace partnership.Subsequent research can further promote the theoretical evolution and mech-anism exploration of workplace partnership,and conduct in-depth discussions on workplace partnership in the context of the digital economy,China's distinctive partnership theories,and the partner-ship system in the new era:(1)In terms of theoretical evolution,attention can be paid to what changes will occur in organizational systems under the influence of workplace partnership,as well as the changes in individual psychological processes and behaviors brought about by the embedding of relevant concepts in the cog-nition of employees and management;(2)In terms of mechanism exploration,future research can explore the impact and mechanisms of workplace partnership,and focus on investigating the boundary conditions under which workplace partnership can have positive effects;(3)Focus on workplace partnership in the digital economy era,including the formation mechanism of partnerships in new employment models such as crowdsourcing and mass innovation,as well as extracting general experiences on the promotion of work-place partnership in the era of the digital economy;(4)Develop a distinctive Chinese partnership theories,construct a workplace partner relationship theory that adapts to China's traditional culture and is based on the context of China's distinctive socialist system;(5)Explore the institutional safeguards for partnerships in the new era,including institutional systems that comply with the demands of la-bor rights in the digital age and targeted supervisory safeguards.
Workplace PartnershipMutual Gain TheoryIndustri-al RelationsValue Co-creation
万方数据
维普
