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This paper aims to explore the extent to which unionized employees are dissatisfied in Chinese Enterprise Trade Unions (CETUs) when they perceive high levels of the triple-role conflicts, as well as whether rights expectations will moderate these relationships. The authors define CETUs' triple-role conflicts as the extent to which CETUs and their cadres prioritize fulfilling the roles of preserving social stability (“peace”) and/or maintaining the production order (“production”) over protecting worker's rights and interests (“workers” rights).

Pilot study developed the scales via both qualitative and quantitative studies, which include item generation using the transcript of individual interviews with 36 informants, and exploratory factor analyses with 106 respondents. The study used a sample of 327 employees from more than 20 firms in North and Southwest China.

Results indicate high reliability and validity of the scales and provide largely consistent supports for our hypotheses: three dimensions of triple-role conflicts are negatively related to employees' satisfaction in CETUs, and rights expectations moderate these relationships.

This study developed three scales to respectively measure CETUs' triple-role conflicts, rights expectation and satisfaction in CETUs. More importantly, the findings shed light on the moderating mechanism of rights expectation in the relationships between triple-role conflicts and satisfaction in CETUs.

An entrepreneurial mode is the latest stage in the evolution of the scientific role. Earlier phases included the differentiation of the modern experimental scientific role from natural philosophy in the mid 17th century. Indeed, the creation of the scientific role preceded the invention of the term “scientist” by Cambridge philosopher of science, William Whewell, in 1834 to describe Mary Somerville, a unique researcher. A transition from amateur to professional scientist followed in the mid 19th century, exemplified by another female scientist, Maria Mitchell, who carried out her astronomic investigations at home until she was appointed to an academic post in middle age (Bergland, 2008). A transition from basic researcher to entrepreneurial scientist is currently underway as part of a broader reconstruction of innovation systems from double helix (government–university or government–industry) to a university–industry–government triple helix (Etzkowitz, 2008). Each transformation in the scientific role reflected a change in the role of knowledge in the political economy. Thus, experimental science provided the instrumentation that allowed ocean commerce to be carried on in a secure fashion; professional science discoveries that were scaled up to provide the basis for the chemical and dye industries. Entrepreneurial academic scientists in collaboration with venture capitalists, building upon a substrate of government-funded research, created the biotechnology industry.