The Influence of Employees’ Power Distance Orientation on Their Well-being — Moderating Effects Based on Generational Differences

From the perspective of organizational behavior, the work reward obtained by workers is not limited to labor reward, but also should include psychological reward such as happiness at work. Through questionnaire survey, relevant data were obtained to explore the influence of power distance orientation on employees’ happiness at the individual level. The results show that there are significant intergenerational differences in employees’ power distance orientation, employees’ subjective happiness has a moderate positive impact on power distance orientation, and intergenerational differences have a negative moderating effect on the relationship between employees’ power distance orientation and employees’ happiness to some extent.

Emotional well-being reflects employees' emotional experience at work (Shi Kan, 2020). Zheng (2015), based on the perspective of integration, proposed that employee happiness is the cognition and perception of employees' satisfaction at work and life levels, mainly including employees' life happiness, employees' work happiness and employees' psychological happiness. Based on the existing research, this study will adopt Zheng et al.'s operational definition of employee happiness to conduct relevant research. At present, the relevant research on power distance has involved the national level, the organization level, the team level and the individual level. Hofstede pointed out in his theory of cultural dimension that Power Distance refers to the acceptance degree of people with low status in a society to the unequal distribution of Power in the society or organization. With the deepening of research, different scholars have defined and expanded the concept of power distance on different levels. Taking into account the studies and definitions of power distance by various scholars, this study defines power distance as the acceptance degree of individual employees to the unequal distribution of power in the organization. Based on the perspective of organizational behavior, this study explores the influence of employee power distance orientation on employee happiness and the moderating effect of intergenerational differences. At the theoretical level, it can make up for the deficiency of empirical research on power distance orientation and outcome output at the individual level. From the perspective of individual power distance orientation and generational difference, it can provide countermeasures and suggestions for the organization managers to improve the happiness of employees, provide suggestions and countermeasures for the organization to effectively improve the happiness of employees, and improve the attention of the society to the happiness of employees.

Hypothesis Proposal and Model Construction
(1) Employee power distance and generational difference Because each intergenerational group is in different historical and social periods, it has experienced specific social, political, economic and cultural events. Scholars have found that the difference of power distance orientation in different age groups is related to individual living environment (Luan, 2017). Therefore, there may be different power distance orientation between different generational groups. For example, the generation that experienced the Cultural Revolution and the generation that experienced the reform and opening up at a specific age may have different perceptions of power distance. Therefore, the following hypotheses are proposed in this study: H0: There are significant generational differences in employees' power distance orientation.
(2) Employee power distance and subjective well-being The lower the power distance orientation, the lower the degree of acceptance of unequal distribution of power in the organization. From the perspective of the relationship between authority and subordinates, individuals with high power distance orientation are more willing to establish a role binding relationship with superiors and are more willing to accept direct arrangement from superiors, while individuals with low power distance orientation are more willing to establish close personal contact with superiors. High power distance orientation of the individual, can accept more unequal distribution of power in the organization, more willing to accept based on seniority and produce superior to subordinate command, command, more able to accept themselves and the level of leadership or power difference, when the organization atmosphere with high power distance, individual employees are better able to accept and adapt to. Thus, it is speculated that they have higher happiness to a certain extent. Therefore, the following hypotheses are proposed in this study: H1: Employee power distance orientation has a positive impact on employee subjective well-being.
(3) The moderating effect of intergenerational differences Different age level perceived happiness will be in addition to the power distance orientation of the influence of many factors, such as: People born in the 1960s most could now be in a stable, abetted stage, its happiness may be relatively high, most is in the business start-up phase, People born in the 1990s, their life has more instability, its happiness may be relatively low. Different generational differences may also be moderating factors affecting employee happiness. Therefore, the following hypotheses are proposed in this study: H2: Generational difference has a moderating effect on the relationship between employee power distance orientation and employee happiness.
(4) Model construction This paper aims to study the influence of employees' power distance orientation on their happiness and whether intergenerational differences have a certain moderating effect. The research model is constructed as follows:   (2) Difference analysis It can be seen from the comparison test in Table 3  to have more demands, more willing to set up the relations of equality, and the authorities. This can also explain, to some extent, that with the decrease of age, the power distance orientation of employees born in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s also gradually decreases.

(3) Correlation analysis
As can be seen from Table 4, the Pearson correlation coefficient between individual power distance score and happiness score is 0.547, indicating that there is a moderate positive correlation between individual power distance and happiness of employees. This indicates that to some extent, the higher the power distance orientation is, the higher the perceived happiness is. Employees with high power distance orientation are more willing to accept the dominance and command of superiors to subordinates based on their position, and are more able to accept the difference in rank or power between themselves and their leaders, thus they have higher happiness to a certain extent. To some extent, the moderate positive correlation between individual power distance orientation and happiness proves the influence of consistency degree between individual power distance orientation and power distance in the environment on employees. Just as some scholars believe that when the power distance between superior and subordinate is inconsistent, it can lead to emotional exhaustion of employees more than when they are consistent (Liu Haiyang, 2016). At the same time, the power distance and state power has the inevitable relation between distance, and the leadership of the power distance is a reflection of organization power distance, according to a number of research scholars at home and abroad, our country is to organize class power obviously, the environmental atmosphere with high power distance, China's most power distance is high within the organization. Under the influence of such environmental orientation, individuals with higher power distance orientation can be more consistent with the power distance of their environment, which also promotes the improvement of employees' happiness to a certain extent.  This study investigated the moderating effect of age on individual power distance and happiness by using SPSS to conduct regression analysis on the interaction term between age and individual power distance score and employee happiness. The analysis results are as follows: In the first model (excluding interaction terms), the standard coefficient of individual power distance score is 0.479, and the standard coefficient of age is -0.192, and the probability P value is approximately 0, indicating significant results. In the second model (including interaction item), the standard coefficient of individual power distance score is 0.469, the standard coefficient of age is -0.181, and the standard coefficient of interaction item is -0.086. It is believed that age plays a negative moderating role in the relationship between individual power distance score and happiness to some extent. With the decrease of age, the positive relationship between power distance orientation and happiness weakens. Different age level perceived happiness will be in addition to power distance orientation of the influence of many factors, most people born in the 1960s could now be in a stable, abetted stage, it could also be the cause of the happiness is relatively high, one of the 1970s and 1980s, compared to the 1990s after work and family also tend to be more stable. To some extent, their sense of happiness is higher than that of the 1990s generation. However, most of the 1990s generation are at the beginning of their career and their life is more unstable, which also makes them have a lower sense of happiness. From this perspective, it can be analyzed that employee happiness has a certain situational dependence.

Management Enlightenment
This study found that the power distance orientation of employees does have significant differences among different generations. The older the age group is, the higher the power distance orientation is, while the younger the age group is, the lower the power distance orientation is. The orientation of employees' power distance has a moderate positive impact on their subjective happiness, and the perceived happiness of employees is somewhat dependent on the environment. The more the employee's personal power distance orientation matches the atmosphere of the power distance in the environment, the higher the perceived happiness of employees will be. Therefore, the managers of the This study also found that age has a certain weakening effect on the relationship between employees' power distance orientation and employees' happiness, indicating that age also has a certain influence on employees' current perceived happiness. Therefore, in order to improve the happiness of employees of different generations, managers should explore various needs of different age groups in the organization and carry out differentiated management to better meet the needs of different individuals.
For example, with the increase of age and accumulation of social experience, the psychological state of employees will change. The older generation of employees may value the stability of work more, while the new generation of employees may value the growth opportunities in the organization more. The author suggests that the organization set up a professional functional department to explore how to improve the well-being of the organization's employees and formulate specific strategies to improve the well-being of the employees in line with the organization itself.