Nghiên cứu ảnh hưởng của sáng tạo của nhân viên đến kết quả hoạt động kinh doanh của doanh nghiệp ở đồng bằng sông cửu long TT TIENG ANH

Therefore, this study was conducted to assess the influence of employees' creativity on the business performance of large enterprises in the Mekong Delta through the thesis Research on t

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

CAN THO UNIVERSITY

SUMMARY OF THESIS MAJOR OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

Code of major: 62.34.01.02

NGUYEN THANH TU

RESEARCH ON THE INFLUENCE OF EMPLOYEE’S

CREATIVITY ON BUSINESS PERFORMANCE

OF ENTERPRISES IN MEKONG DELTA

Can Tho, 01/2022

THE THESIS WAS COMPLETED

IN CAN THO UNIVERSITY

Supervisor: Assoc Prof Dr Nguyen Huu Đang – Can Tho University Co- Supervisor: Dr Tran Thanh Liem - Can Tho College

The thesis will be defended at the college-level dissertation council

Meeting at ………

At ……… , ……… 2021

Reviewer 1 :……….…

Reviewer 2:……….…

Reviewer 3: ………

This thesis can be found at the library:

Learning Resource Center, Can Tho University

National Library of Vietnam

PUBLICATIONS

1 Nguyen Thanh Tu and Nguyen Huu Đang (2018) Recognizing the

creativity of employees in large enterprises in the Mekong Delta Asia-Pacific

Economic Review, No 153, March 2018, page 36-38

2 Nguyen Thanh Tu and Nguyen Huu Đang (2018) Factors affecting

employee creativity in large enterprises in the Mekong Delta Asia-Pacific

Economic Review, No end of May 2018, page 13-15

3 Nguyen Thanh Tu and Nguyen Huu Đang (2018) The influence of

creativity on business results of large enterprises in the Mekong Delta Banking Technology Magazine, No 152, November 2018, page 105-110

4 Nguyen Thanh Tu and Nguyen Huu Đang and Tran Thanh Liem

(2019) Measuring business results using a subjective scale: The case of large

enterprises in the Mekong Delta Asia Banking and Economic Review, No 160,

July 2019, page 60

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CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 RESEARCH PROBLEMS

The global competitive environment has posed challenges that force managers to constantly seek innovation in all their activities (Andriopoulos, 2001) Lin and Liu (2012) have summarized innovation as an important factor providing a sustainable competitive advantage that organizations can use to cope with the constantly changing business environment Amabile (1996) believes that all innovation comes from employees' creative ideas, so managers realize that it is necessary to encourage and promote creativity so that employees can make valuable contributions for the business There has been much evidence that employees' creativity contributes to innovation, efficiency and organizational survival (Bui Thi Thanh, 2014) Creativity is important to organizations because the contributions of creativity not only help organizations become more efficient, respond better to opportunities, make organizations more resilient to change, grow and develop to compete in the global market (Bui Thi Thanh, 2014) Therefore, promoting the creativity of employees is one of the decisive factors for the success of the organization (Walton, 2003)

So what are the essential elements of individual creativity? What factors influence creativity? How does creativity affect business results? These are big and very important questions that need to be answered satisfactorily for business managers Identifying these essential factors will help managers improve their human resource organization, encourage and promote creativity, and improve the competitiveness of their businesses

Enterprises across the country in general, as well as large enterprises in the Mekong Delta in particular, are having to change to match the increasing competition due to the transition of the economy to a base economy The market mechanism is becoming more and more complete, as well as the trend of international integration deepening In the context that the 4.0 revolution is taking place strongly, requiring the ability to adapt and catch up with new technology trends, many large enterprises and corporations have chosen to cooperate with start-ups to take advantage of new technologies, to utilize brain resources and promote growth (VNR, 2019) The Mekong Delta is currently in the stage of accelerating industrialization, modernization and international integration, so the issue of improving the quality of human resources needs to

be prioritized in the direction of improving the quality of investment for training, diversifying types of training and promoting international cooperation

in human resource training, etc With the traditional characteristics of industriousness, tolerance, hard work, self-reliance, dynamism , creativity of the Mekong Delta people, a latent creative capacity that managers in this region

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need to know how to stimulate, grasp what factors to arouse and promote creativity and passion for creativity (Pham Van Bua, 2010), contributing to business and economic development in this region

Large enterprises (according to Decree 39/2018/ND-CP dated November

3, 2018 detailing a number of articles of the Law on supporting small and medium-sized enterprises, replacing Decree No 56/2009/ND-CP dated June 30,

2009 on supporting the development of small and medium-sized enterprises) has strengths in capital, human resources, access to advanced science and technology, large enterprises are ready to receive challenges, and seize the opportunities of the times, must break down barriers, improve the quality of human resources and technology, create an environment that promotes creativity to perfect and enhance their competitiveness Besides, large enterprises are the foundation for start-up businesses, which is a large consumer for these businesses Startups can only scale through model-building support from large enterprises Moreover, large enterprises and large corporations can also become partners of start-ups, acting as the framework of the national economy, as breakthroughs to help goods and services of a country successfully penetrating the world market (Communist Party of Vietnam, 2019) Large enterprises have a high demand for input resources such as capital, labor, infrastructure, etc., so they have a huge spillover effect on other sectors of the economy Large enterprises are the support for small and medium enterprises, where they consume intermediate products and services provided by small and medium enterprises to form large products (VNR, 2017)

Although employee creativity in enterprises plays a very important role for businesses, it helps to increase business efficiency (Lumpkin and Dess, 1996; Hult, Hurley and Knight, 2004; Kunz and Schaaf, 2011;) ) but studies have only been conducted in developed countries (Calantone, Cavusgil and Zhao, 2002; Lee, Lee, Young, and Jo, 2011), very few studies have been conducted in Vietnam (Bui Thi Thanh, 2014) The current status of domestic research on factors that positively affect creativity and the influence of creativity on business performance of enterprises is still open (Bui Thi Thanh, 2014) A few previous studies only focused on building models of factors affecting creativity,

or many foreign studies only stopped at building regression models on the influence of creativity on business performance of the enterprise, or the influence of creativity on innovation in the enterprise Previous studies have not built a unified theoretical model including factors affecting creativity, and creativity affecting business performance This is a gap that is addressed in this study

Enterprises across the country in general and in the Mekong Delta in particular have not really had a satisfactory solution to encourage and promote

a specific research model on creativity and its influence on business performance of enterprises

Therefore, this study was conducted to assess the influence of employees' creativity on the business performance of large enterprises in the Mekong Delta

through the thesis Research on the influence of employees' creativity on

business performance of enterprises in the Mekong Delta

1.2 OBJECTIVES

1.2.1 Overall objective

The overall goal of the thesis is to study the theoretical and practical basis

of employee creativity and the influence of employee creativity on business results of large enterprises in the Mekong Delta; thereby proposing management implications to promote employee creativity and improve business results for enterprises

1.2.2 Specific objectives

Specific objectives 1: Identifying factors affecting employee creativity in

large enterprises in the Mekong Delta

Specific objectives 2: Measuring the impact of employee creativity on

business performance of large enterprises in the Mekong Delta

Specific objectives 3: Propose some managerial implications to promote

employee creativity, and improve business performance in large enterprises in the Mekong Delta

1.3 RESEARCH QUESTION

- What factors affect the creativity of employees in large enterprises in the Mekong Delta?

1.4 RESEARCH SCOPE AND METHODOLOGY

1.4.1 Research subjects

The research object of the thesis is the factors affecting the creativity of employees, and the influence of employees' creativity on the business performance of large enterprises in the Mekong Delta

1.4.2 Respondents

The survey subjects of the thesis are employees working in departments in large enterprises in the Mekong Delta, they are frontline employees, often in direct contact with customers, partners, suppliers , should be knowledgeable about the development situation as well as the working environment of the enterprise

1.4.3 Research space

The study was conducted at large enterprises in the Mekong Delta

1.4.4 Research time

Time of secondary data: Secondary data is collected by the author from

the financial statements of large enterprises in the Mekong Delta over the years

2017, 2018 and 2019

Time to conduct primary data survey: The study uses primary data from

survey results, direct surveys of respondents who are departmental staff working in departments in a number of large enterprises in the Mekong Delta The survey period was from May 2019 to May 2020

1.4.5 Research Methods

The thesis uses data analysis methods including descriptive statistics, Cronback's Alpha test, exploratory factor analysis (EFA), confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), and Structural Structural Modeling (SEM)

1.5 MEANINGS AND FINDINGS OF RESEARCH

Scientific significance

In general, domestic and foreign studies are still conducted sporadically, only studying the factors affecting innovation, or the impact of innovation on business performance of enterprises, or studying the effects of innovation on business performance; or influence of creativity on enterprise innovation This study has built a general model of the factors that promote creativity and the impact of creativity on business performance of enterprises Research has

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applied and developed measurement scales on factors that promote creativity, developed a business performance measurement scale using Vankatraman's (1987) perceived rating scale to measure the results for businesses

The research model on factors affecting employee's creativity has the appropriateness of the model reaching 88.20%, showing that the model of factors is more comprehensive than the research models in and abroad before, such as the research model on factors affecting creativity of employees in the bank by Bui Thi Thanh (2014), the correlation in the model is only 57.80%; Research model of Solmaz and Subramaniam (2013) on employee's creative behavior in Malaysian enterprises only reached a correlation of 60.80%; Research model of Hsu and Hsiu-Ju (2013) on factors affecting employee creativity in garment enterprises in Taiwan is correlated at 57.60%

Research results on the influence of employees' creativity on business performance results have a correlation coefficient in the model of 76.80%, showing the variability of the business performance factor are explained 76.80% from employees' creativity The research results of the model have a high correlation compared to some previous studies on the model of factors affecting business performance of enterprises such as the research model of Alvaro et al (2011) ) has a 75.70% correlation; the research model of Masood

et al (2013) on the influence of employee creativity on business performance

of Pakistan’s banks has a correlation coefficient in the model of only 64%

Practical significance

The research results serve as a foundation to help large enterprises in the Mekong Delta create an environment that promotes creativity for their employees, selects personnel in recruitment, and assigns personnel to different departments requires the high of creativity, and helping to improve the business performance of the business On the other hand, the research results are also the basis for further researchers when studying the business performance of enterprises in the absence of access to business data

1.6 STRUCTURE OF THESIS

The thesis is organized into 5 chapters

Chapter 1: Introduction This chapter presents the research problem,

objectives, questions, research object and scope as well as the layout of the

thesis

Chapter 2: Theoretical basis and research model Chapter 2 describes

the theoretical basis as a basis for carrying out the research thesis through a literature review on the research on factors affecting creativity, the influence of creativity on business performance From there, there is an approach to

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measuring creativity scales, measuring factors affecting creativity, and measuring business performance

Chapter 3: Research Design Chapter 3 outlines the measurement scales,

concepts in the theoretical model, research design and proposed model for the thesis Research design includes contents about research framework, sample size, data collection process, data analysis techniques, research methods,

research model Preliminary research is also discussed in this chapter 3

Chapter 4: Research results Chapter 4 analyzes the factors affecting

employee creativity in large enterprises in the Mekong Delta, Cronback's Alpha test, exploratory factor analysis (EFA), confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), evaluate the suitability of the theoretical model by Structural Equation

Modeling (SEM), discuss research results, analyze multi-group structure

Chapter 5: Conclusions and implications for governance Chapter 5

summarizes the significant findings of the study and proposes some managerial implications for large enterprises in the Mekong Delta to create an environment that promotes creativity and improves business performance Finally, the thesis

highlights limitations and suggestions for future research directions

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CHAPTER 2: THEORETICAL BASIS AND RESEARCH MODEL 2.1 THEORETICAL BASIS

2.1.1 Concepts

Creativity: Creativity is coming up with ideas, tangible or intangible

products, processes, jobs, etc that are new and useful, or improve existing ones

in order to better solve problems in working

Employee’s creativity: The creativity of employees in the organization is

a form of behavior that is influenced by many factors from the inside of the employee, such as motivation, knowledge, skills, way of thinking, working to external environmental factors such as support from the organization, encouragement of the organization

Intrinsic Motivation: Intrinsic motivation of employees in the

organization is the work motivation, the desire and willingness of employees to increase efforts towards the achievement of organizational goals

Working environment: The working environment includes elements of

corporate culture and leadership style It is the encouragement and support of the organization; the reception and evaluation of employees' creative ideas respectfully and fairly; organize to encourage employees to work in groups; and colleagues easily share knowledge at work

Self-efficacy: Self-control at work is being confident in generating new

ideas, being confident in their ability to solve problems creatively, being able to develop ideas better than others, being confident in your work finding new ways to solve problems who are trained in creative problem solving skills

Creativive self-efficacy: Creative selt-efficacy manifests itself when

employees accumulate a wealth of related creative knowledge and skills (Amabile, 1988) Amabile (1988) also believes that employees who have a lot

of experience in creative activities, or an environment with creative characteristics, will have more and more autonomy in creativity

Creative cognitive style: A person with a creative thinking style is

someone who has a lot of creative ideas, who likes work that makes them think

in a creative way, who is very creative, and who loves to do the job in new ways

Firm performance: Business performance is measured by financial

indicators such as sales growth, profit growth, market share growth and cost savings

Big firm: Decree No 39/2018/ND-CP dated March 11, 2018 detailing a

number of articles of the Law on supporting small and medium-sized enterprises, stipulating each field, based on the number of employees

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participating in social insurance annual average, and revenue or capital source (where revenue is prioritized) to classify business size For large enterprises, the assessment is based on two main criteria, which are:

- For agriculture, forestry, fishery, industry, and construction enterprises, which have an average annual number of employees participating in social insurance of 200 or more, and total annual revenue over 100 billion

- For commercial and service enterprises, which are enterprises with an average annual number of employees participating in social insurance of 100 or more, and enterprises with a total annual turnover of over 100 billion VND

2.1.2 Background theories of creativity

2.1.2.1 Approach trends

There are two main approaches to creativity applied by researchers

Gough’ s Traditional approach theory

Gough (1979) developed a scale to identify creativity through creative personality traits ACL/CPS30 (adjective check list/characteristic personal scale) ACL/CPS30 was inherited and developed by many later studies to identify creative individual characteristics

New theory approach

a) Amabile's composition theory of creativity

Amabile has built a theoretical basis on human creativity in organizations and the relationship between creativity and the environment and innovation Accordingly, creativity is influenced by both personal and environmental factors Amabile's famous model is the component model of creativity which includes (i) relevant skills and knowledge; (ii) related creative process; and (ii) Motivation

Source: Amabile (1996)

Figure 2: Amabile's model of innovative components (1996)

Expertise or Domain- relevant skill

Creativity skill

or Creativity relevant process

Task motivation

Creativity

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b) Creativity theory of Woodman

Woodman developed the theory of employee creativity in organizations Woodman analyzed creativity into different levels, thereby analyzing the interaction between the levels as well as the environmental factors affecting each level

The objective of this study is to build a model of factors that promote employee creativity, and the influence of employee creativity on business performance of the enterprise, so the author relies on Amabile's approach theoretical framework serves as the theoretical framework for this study

2.2 LITERATURE REVIEW

2.2.1 Factors that promote creativity

The topic of creativity has gained a lot of attention in recent decades Studies by many authors around the world have analyzed many aspects related

to employee creativity as present in Table 2.1

Table 2.1: Summary of literature review

motivation

Hackman and Oldham (1980); Oldham and Cummings (1996); Tierney, Farmer, và George (1999); Zhou and George (2001); Madjar et al (2002); Shalley et al (2004); Eder (2007); Eder and Sawyer (2008); Carmen

et al (2008); Bui Thi Thanh (2014); Ha Nam Khanh Giao and Nguyen Hoang Vinh (2015)

(2014); Sarac, Efil and Mehmet (2014); Ha Nam Khanh Giao and Nguyen Hoang Vinh (2015)

self-efficacy

Amabile (1997); Eder (2007); Eder and Sawyer (2008); Houghton and Diliello (2009); Bui Thi Thanh (2014); Sarac, Efil and Mehmet (2014); Ha Nam Khanh Giao and Nguyen Hoang Vinh (2015)

et al (2008); Bui Thi Thanh (2014); Ha Nam Khanh Giao and Nguyen Hoang Vinh (2015)

environment

Hackman and Oldham (1980); Woodman et al (1993); Oldham and Cummings (1996); Tierney, Farmer, and George (1999); Zhou and George (2001); Madjar et al (2002); Shalley et al (2004); Houghton and Diliello (2009); Bui Thi Thanh (2014)

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Sawyer and Griffin (1993); Zhou and Shalley (2003); Egan (2005); Eder (2007); Eder and Sawyer (2008); Murat et al (2012); Nguyen Thi Duc, Nguyen and Le Phuoc Luong (2017)

Source: Summary from the author's document review 2019

2.2.2 Measuring business performance of enterprises

Studies often refer to indicators measuring business performance of enterprises through subjective indicators and objective indicators The studies applying two measurement methods are presented in Table 2.2

Table 2.2: Studies measuring business performance

indicators

Hax and Majluf (1984); Atkinson, Waterhouse, and Wells (1997); Tangen (2005); Nguyen and Ng (2007); Agustinus and Rachmadi (2008); Wu and Lin (2010); Khatab and Masood (2011); Ong and Heng (2011); Nguyen Quoc Nghi and Mai Van Nam (2011); Saeedi and Gull (2013); Keh Đoan Ngoc Phuc (2014); Le Thi Thu Ha (2018)

indicators

Ramanujam (1989); Barney (1991); Kaplan and Norton (1992); Richard (2000); Liavigovas et al (2010); Blazek (2008); Masood, Malik, Hasnain, Faiz and Abbas (2013); Atalay, Anafarta, and Sarvan (2013); Thiaku et al (2016); Le Thi Thu

Ha (2018)

Source: Summary from the author's document review 2019

2.2.3 Influence of creativity on business results of enterprises

Many studies such as George and Zhou (2001); Tierney, Farmer and Graen (1999); McLaughlin and Harris (1997); Jong and Hartog (2007); Hellman and Thiele (2009); Tushman and Orielly (1997); Martins and Terblunche (2003) also concluded that employee creativity is one of the most important management principles, one of the important contributing factors to the success

of the organization

2.3 ASSESSMENT OF LITERATURE REVIEW

2.3.1 Genergal assessment

The previous studies only to build models of factors affecting creativity,

or models of the influence of creativity on business performance of enterprises,

or creative influences on innovation There has not been a study to build a general model to test the factors affecting creativity to help businesses create an

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environment that promotes creativity for their employees, and the influence between creativity on business results of the firms in order to enhance competitiveness by promoting the creativity of employees

2.3.2 Gaps of previous studies

Theoretical gap: Many domestic and foreign studies only focus on

modeling factors affecting innovation, and consider creativity as an intermediary factor Previous studies have not built a general model of the factors affecting creativity and the influence of creativity on business

performance of enterprises This is a theoretical gap that this study fills

Practicality gap: Although employee creativity in enterprises plays a very

important role for businesses, helping to improve business performance, the research is only conducted in developed countries (Calantone et al., 2002; Kunz

et al., 2011), very few studies have been conducted in Vietnam Moreover, the current status of domestic research on factors that positively affect creativity and the influence of creativity on business performance of enterprises is still open (Bui Thi Thanh, 2014) This study, on the one hand, inherits from previous research results, has been adjusted to suit specific research subjects, the author also overcomes the gaps of previous studies by building a model of factors promoting creativity and its impact on business performance of large enterprises

in the Mekong Delta

2.4 THEORIES AND RESEARCH MODEL

From the overview of Amabile's theoretical model of creativity (1996), along with inheriting and overcoming the gaps of previous studies, the author builds a research model presented as Figure 2.2

Source: Author construction, 2019

Figure 2.1: The research model