Compared with the completely rational system in western organizations, a pan-familism human relationship prevails in Chinese organizations. Leaders in Chinese organizations resemble the patriarch of a family. Besides providing necessary resources for work, they attach great importance to personal relationships with subordinates. These private interactions form the unique management style in Chinese organizations. Previous research discusses private interactions from the perspective of leaders and proposes leaders will take sides with and give special consideration to subordinates who have personal relationships with them. But how subordinates regard private relationships in the workplace and the influence of private relationships on subordinates and organizations remain to be elucidated. This research collects data from full-time employees in a chain food enterprise in the greater China region. The valid samples of 61 branches are collected, including responses for 61 supervisors and 310 subordinates. The results show: (1) The private relationships between leaders and subordinates enhances subordinates’ psychological ownership of the branch and improves subordinates’ performance, OCBO, and OCBI; (2) The process differs according to the roles played by subordinates in the organization, and crucial subordinates in the organization will have a strong effect. In the conclusion, the findings and limitations of the research are discussed.
