From Upward Career-Development Signals to Employee Loyalty: The Mediating Roles of Promotion Opportunity Fairness and Organisational Support Under Resource Concentration in Chinese Private Firms
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.65150/EP-gjefm/V2E7/2026-04Keywords:
private enterprises, upward career-development signals, employee loyalty, fairness of promotion opportunities, perceived resource concentration, structural equation modellingAbstract
This study examines why employee loyalty declines among rank-and-file employees in Chinese private firms when promotion opportunities are unequally distributed and critical organisational resources are concentrated. Drawing on signalling theory, organisational justice theory and organisational support theory, it develops a PLS-SEM model of the effect of upward career-development signalling strength on employee loyalty and analyses 486 valid questionnaires using SmartPLS 4. The results show that upward career-development signals have a positive effect on loyalty (β = 0.118, p = 0.008) and significantly strengthen perceived fairness of promotion opportunities (β = 0.462) and perceived organisational support (β = 0.418). The two indirect effects are 0.148 and 0.119, together accounting for 69.4% of the total effect. Perceived resource concentration weakens the effect of signalling on opportunity fairness (β = -0.146), reducing the conditional indirect effect from 0.176 to 0.120. The model explains 49.2% of the variance in loyalty and demonstrates out-of-sample predictive capability. These findings suggest that loyalty in private firms is strengthened not by repeating promotion-related slogans, but by making development signals credible through transparent criteria, genuinely contestable opportunities, process feedback and a demonstrable record of honouring commitments, while using procedural safeguards to limit the discounting effect of resource concentration.
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Copyright (c) 2026 Dr. Gan Weixiang, Liu Qiaoran, Dr. Xiao Mengfei (Author)
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