(Luận văn thạc sĩ) eeffects of challenge and hindrance stressors on employee innovative behavior empirical evidence from vietnam

Results indicate that stressors that employees tend to appraise as challenge has positive effects on both creativity – oriented work behavior and implementation – oriented work behavior,

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI

VIETNAM JAPAN UNIVERSITY

DO HAI YEN

EFFECTS OF CHALLENGE AND

HINDRANCE STRESSORS ON EMPLOYEE INNOVATIVE BEHAVIOR: EMPIRICAL

EVIDENCE FROM VIETNAM

MASTER'S THESIS

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VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI

VIETNAM JAPAN UNIVERSITY

DO HAI YEN

EFFECTS OF CHALLENGE AND

HINDRANCE STRESSORS ON EMPLOYEE INNOVATIVE BEHAVIOR: EMPIRICAL

EVIDENCE FROM VIETNAM

MAJOR: MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

CODE: 8340101.01

RESEARCH SUPERVISORS:

ASSOC PROF KODO YOKOZAWA

DR TRAN THI BICH HANH

Hanoi, 2021

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TABLE OF CONTENT

LIST OF TABLES i

LIST OF FIGURES ii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS iii

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Background of research 1

1.2.Research objective 3

1.3 Research questions 3

1.4.Research scope 3

1.5.Structure of the study 4

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 5

2.1 Employee innovative behavior 5

2.2 Challenge stressors and hindrance stressors 8

2.3 The related frameworks of previous research 10

2.4 Affective commitment 12

2.5 Job autonomy 13

2.6 Research gap 14

CHAPTER 3: HYPOTHESIS DEVELOPMENT AND RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 17

3.1 Hypothesis development 17

3.1.1 The relationship between challenge stressors and creativity - oriented work behavior 17

3.1.2 The relationship between hindrance stressors and creativity – oriented work behavior 17

3.1.3 The relationship between challenge stressors and implementation - oriented work behavior 18

3.1.4 The relationship between hindrance stressors and implementation – oriented work behavior 18

3.1.5 Moderating role of affective commitment 19

3.1.6 Moderating role of job autonomy 20

3.2 Conceptual model 21

3.3 Research methodology 22

3.3.1 Research design 22

3.3.2 Sampling 23

3.3.3 Data collection process 24

3.3.4 Scale measurement 25

3.3.5 Data analysis 28

CHAPTER 4: DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS 31

4.1 Data description 31

4.2 Measurement test 32

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4.2.1 Reliability test 32

4.2.2 Validity test with Exploratory Factor Analysis 33

4.2.3 Correlation analysis 40

4.3 Hypothesis testing 41

CHAPTER 5: DICUSSION AND IMPLICATION 46

5.1 Discussion 46

5.2 Implication 48

5.2.1 Theoretical implications 48

5.2.2 Practical implication 49

CONCLUSION 52

REFERENCES 54

APPENDIX 1: QUESTIONAIRES SURVEY 62

APPENDIX 2: DATA DESCRIPTION OF 267 SAMPLES 73

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ACKNOWLEGEMENT

To complete this master thesis as marking one of my stone in the journey of studying master of business administration as well as developing myself, I want to give my deep gratitude to Assoc Prof Kodo Yokozawa and Dr Tran Thi Bich Hanh, who spent their time on guiding me to complete this thesis in spite of their busyness Without their direction, I could not find the right way to finish the research Furthermore, they always gave me a lot of encouragement when I was conducting the thesis Thank you so much for not being hesitated to give instruction and motivating me as always

Besides, there are no words to express my thanks to some PhD students including Mr Nguyen Anh Hao, Ms Phung Thi Xuan Huong, Ms Pham Thi Thoa, who are supervised

by Assoc Prof Kodo Yokozawa in Yokohama National University They were always supportive when I met some difficulties Especially, detail comments and valuable suggestions were given to me as always by Mr Nguyen Anh Hao Then, I could avoid mistakes as much as possible and have new ideas during this time to complete my thesis

On this occasion, I also want to give my deep thanks to Ms Nguyen Thi Huong as a coordinator in Master of Business and Administration program of Vietnam Japan University She was always willing to give me useful recommendations and support related documents to help me finish this thesis

Lastly, from the bottom of my heart, I am so grateful that my parents, friends and colleagues spent their time on giving assistance and encouraging me during the time of doing the research They also helped me complete my survey enthusiastically so that I could complete the thesis

Thanks to all of them, my journey in Vietnam Japan University has many colors with worthwhile events that I have to keep in memory

Sincerely,

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ABSTRACT

The number of stressors has been increased nowadays, which have impact on many aspects in one organization, such as work performance including innovative behavior among employees This study attempts to examine the effects of job stressors on employees’ innovative behavior and the moderating roles of affective commitment and job autonomy Data are obtained from 267 employees in some organizations in Vietnam Descriptive, variance, correlation and regression analysis are conducted by SPSS 26.0 Results indicate that stressors that employees tend to appraise as challenge has positive effects on both creativity – oriented work behavior and implementation – oriented work behavior, which are as two main oriented – behaviors contributing to innovative behavior Meanwhile, hindrance stressors accompanying with affective commitment would decrease creativity – oriented work behavior, which are different from the previous research that affective commitment would increase creativity Those results would be explained in the discussion part before giving implications for researchers and practitioners, so that they have suitable interfere on stressors to increase positive or decrease negative on innovative behavior

Key words: job stressors, challenge stressors, hindrance stressors, innovative behavior, affective commitment, job autonomy, COVID – 19

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LIST OF TABLES

Table 2.1: The recent studies about the relationship between stressors and work

performance 11

Table 3.1: Measurement items 25

Table 4.1: The general information of respondents 31

Table 4.2: Reliability test 33

Table 4.3: Validity test for independent variables 33

Table 4.4: Rotated component matric for challenge and hindrance stressors 34

Table 4.5: Validity test for dependent variables 35

Table 4.6: Rotated component matrix for creativity – oriented work behavior and implementation – oriented work behavior 35

Table 4.7: Validity test for moderators 37

Table 4.8: Rotated component matrix for affective commitment and job autonomy 38

Table 4.9: The content for each item of affective commitment scale 39

Table 4.10: Correlation coefficient analysis 40

Table 4.11: Variance Inflation Factor value 41

Table 4.12: The results of testing hypothesis 42

Appendix 2: Data description of 267 samples 73

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LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 2.1: Four stages and two oriented – work behaviors of innovative behavior 7

Figure 3.1: Conceptual model 21

Figure 3.2: Research design by author 23

Figure 4.1: Conceptual model after running EFA 40

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COWB Creativity – oriented work behavior

IOWB Implementation – oriented work behavior

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CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of research

Innovative behavior is the foundation of any high - performance organization in the workplace (Carmeli & Spreitzer, 2009) This is especially apparent in a knowledge - based economy where intangible assets come to the forefront (Carmeli & Tishler, 2004) and play an ever more significant role in enhancing organizational competitiveness and

“doing more with less” Innovative behavior was described as the intentional creation, introduction, and application of new ideas to meet new challenges in complex environments (Janssen, 2000) It is the crucial factor for an organization to exist and flourish so far in the long term Because innovative behavior is very important, it received many interest from authors to identify the correlation relationships on performance Through years, researchers keep finding and developing them in as much detail and diversified as possible Even, innovation has been developed as the index in the world, which is Global Innovation Index (GII) Cornell University, INSEAD, and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), a specialized agency of the United Nations, are among the three publishers who collaborate to create this index every year Institutions, human capital and research, infrastructure, credit, investment, linkages; knowledge production, absorption, and diffusion; and creative output are among the criteria used by the GII to assess innovation (Dutta and Lanvin, 2020) Based

on that, we can look at and evaluate which the current innovation position of one country

is ranking According to the report “Global Innovation Index 2020”, GII of Vietnam ranked the first among the 29 lower middle income group economies, and ranks the 9th

among the 17 economies in SouthEast Asia, East Asia, and Oceania In the world, Vietnam ranks 42nd among the 131 economies featured in the GII 2020 The number is quite impressive, however, Vietnam can still improve those ranks, which is based on the sustainable success of each organization Therefore, employee innovative behavior plays an important role in one organization in Vietnam to increase innovation as well as competitiveness in the fierce environment nowadays

Therefore, identifying the contextual conditions affecting innovative behavior has received much interest from researchers Literally, stressor is one of those conditions,

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which is mentioned in many psychological and organizational literature (Ren & Zhang, 2015) Meanwhile, practically factors leading to stress among individuals as discussed above are broadening in COVID – 19 contexts Hence, stressors can be considered as the predictors for many types of work performance According to the transactional theory of stress (Lazarus and Folkman, 1984), the stressful situations happen when individuals consider job demands as either challenging or hindering their well – being Those situations are caused by some types of stressors such as time pressure (Baer & Oldham, 2006), job insecurity (Probst et al., 2007), job demand (Janssen, 2000), social evaluative threats (Byron and Khazanchi, 2010) Each of these had different effects on the innovative behavior However, those findings showed the inconclusive results, which was mentioned as the negative or positive or curvilinear or even non-significant relationship between stressors and innovative behavior (Canvanaugh et al., 2000; Janssen, 2000; Baer & Oldham, 2006; Melchior et al., 2007; Probst et al., 2007; Byron

& Khazanchi, 2010; Ren & Zhang, 2015) One possible explanation for the different results is based on the nature of stressors Each type of stressors will have effects on the innovative behavior in the particular directions Then, Cavanaugh et al (2000) divided the stressors into two types: challenge stressors and hindrance stressors Challenge stressors are considered as having the potential to gain personal improvement and mastery, such as time pressure, high workload When compared to challenge stressors, such as role ambiguity, red tape, and organizational politics, which act as roadblocks to achieving positive outcomes, hindrance stressors have negative consequences In this paper, two terms will be used to reidentify the relationship between stressors and employee innovative behavior

Meanwhile, moderating variables need consideration to ensure the employee innovative behavior in organization Identifying which factors to decrease the negative effects or increase the positive effects of this relationship is necessary to keep and promote innovative behavior among employees In this research, affective commitment and job autonomy will be considered as the moderating variables Affective commitment makes the employees have a strong sense of belonging to the organization (Cohen, 2007), which might check whether it can be motivation for employees to develop innovative behavior under the stressors Job autonomy belongs to one of organizational behaviors

It lets employees determine their own approaches, the pace, and the schedule in order to

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achieve the goals (Hackman & Oldham, 1975), which can be considered to reduce stressors to some extent, then avoid affecting negatively on innovative behaviors

1.2 Research objective

In conclusion, innovative behavior is very essential for any organization to have long - term success Hence, the contexts influencing innovative behavior have received much attention This research identifies the stressor as one of that antecedents However, in the previous research, the results showed the inconclusive results, which may be due to the different nature of stressors Therefore, this thesis will identify the influence of challenge stressors and hindrance stressors on the innovative behavior among employees Furthermore, moderating effect of affective autonomy and job autonomy will be identified during the process of reviewing the relationship between stressors and innovative behavior

1.3 Research questions

More specifically, two researched questions in the study are “What types of stressors affect innovative behavior?” and “Do affective commitment and job autonomy moderate the effects of stressors on innovative behavior?”

Based on the results, the theoretical implications will be provided for researchers to enrich the previous related theories or find the different directions of approaching from the existing findings The findings of this study will also provide more empirical evidence for managers and staff to detect and take advantage of the positive effects of stressors on their innovative behavior, which leads to high performance in organizations Besides, the negative effects will be explored and explained to help employees avoid those types of stressors producing negative effects

1.4 Research scope

The researches on stressors and employee innovative behavior in organizations in Vietnam have been limited Even more, Vietnam still has many works to improve the Global Innovation Index to enhance competitive advantages among countries or regions Especially, in the context of many stressors nowadays, there are many unexpected effects on employee innovative behavior Therefore, research in Vietnam is necessary

to identify so that the managers in organizations apply the implications into their

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organizations to decrease the negative effects or increase the positive effects if any The samples were conducted in Vietnam in the period from February, 2021 to March, 2021

1.5 Structure of the study

There are seven main parts to construct this research Firstly, the necessary of conducting this research is discussed as above Then, literature review part is to summary the information and research stream of innovative behavior and stressors, as well as reviewing the previous research and providing the concepts used in this research

A conceptual model will be demonstrated based on this, including hypothesis development and explanation in the hypothesis development section To test whether that hypothesis is supported or rejected, research methodology, data collection, and analysis will be provided Next, the findings and discussion will be shown to compare with the existed research and explain why those results happen Finally, theoretical and practical implications will be provided to contribute to academic aspects as well as businesslike aspects Besides, limitation and future research will be discovered after going to conclusion

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CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

The author reviewed many previous researches about stressors, innovative behavior, affective commitment, and job autonomy Each variable was summarized by the time and other researchers, so that the author can have an overview of research stream After that, selection of key variables would be based on the consistency of using those terms and the way of definitions among researchers through high qualified published papers

If it exists any differences, the author would find the reasons that could explain for the existing distinction Besides, more evidences from many theories to link the way of definition research was one of approaches for the author to use the chosen variables in this research

2.1 Employee innovative behavior

Two terms of creativity and innovation have been used correspondently However, they are distinct from each other in the previous research Mumford and Gustafson (1988) define creativity as the practice of coming up with new and beneficial ideas It just stopped at the idea generation step, whether it was applied into practical situations or not was not mentioned There are some ideas that are very interesting, attractive but not applicable In contrast, there are some ideas having high applicable properties into practice Therefore, later the term of innovation was created, which had a wider meaning than creativity Following Kanter (1988) and Van de Ven (1986), innovation is illustrated as a multistage process, at which each stage includes different activities in charge by different individuals when applying ideas into practical situations The intentional production, introduction, and implementation of new ideas to address new difficulties in a complex environment was then termed as innovative behavior as a result

of innovation (Janssen, 2000) It is necessary for employees to have high performance

in one organization, which leads to increase competitiveness Especially, it has been also linked to sustainable development The results of one research of Janssen in 2000 said that there was the existence between sustainable development and innovation, especially related to individuals’ response to innovation It was illustrated that innovative behavior has been important to organization in the long – term success Therefore, it was paid attention by many researchers to identify clearly the correlation relationship of innovative behavior

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Innovative behavior was described as a set of behavioral activities combining four stages: problem recognition, idea generation, idea promotion, and idea realization (Scott

& Bruce, 1994; Janssen, 2000) De Jong & Den Hartog (2010) used other terms to illustrate those four stages, which include exploration, generation, championing, and executing of the ideas to evaluate the innovative behavior Each stage would have the different characteristics in charge by different members as long as to achieve the innovation target Before generating new ideas, employees engaged in discovering opportunities, realizing the performance gaps or finding the solutions of the problem (de Jong & Den Hartog, 2007) It meant that there would be some issues underlying expectations and needing to be filled The next stage would be the idea promotion or championing to potential allies At this time, employees needed to find supporters, partners, sponsors to build an alliance to support those new ideas (Kanter, 1988) Those people would give the power or consultant to have the suitable directions when implementing the ideas Innovative behavior would be completed by the idea realization, which produced a prototype or model of innovation for employees or individuals to ultimately apply in the group or organization’s goals (Kanter, 1988) Each stage was divided separately with different activities and different individual behaviors; therefore, individuals could participate in one or any merger of stages at any one time (Scott & Bruce, 1994)

As discussed, both creativity and implementation were the essential components to contribute to the employee innovative behavior (Axtell et al., 2000) The components had the representative for each two stages Therefore, this paper will take into two components in defining innovative behavior among employees as two oriented behaviors Following Dorenbosch et al (2005), they divided this set of four stages into two oriented behavior, which was based on the degree of flexibility of one job The first two stages cover the concept of creativity – oriented behavior, at which individuals will start with recognizing problems within their work before the production of new ideas to cover them The last two stages contain the notion of implementation – oriented behavior, including calling sponsorship for new ideas and attempting to establish an association to support them before realizing the actual ideas to apply in practical contextual within the work – role

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Figure 2.1: Four stages and two oriented – work behaviors of innovative behavior

(Scott & Bruce, 1994; Janssen, 2000; Dorenbosch et al., 2005)

Being awareness of the important level of innovative behavior, many authors have been finding which factors affect innovative behavior such as leadership, work group, individual attributes (Scott & Bruce, 1994); workplace environment, coworker support, job stress (Bani-Melhem et al 2017); knowledge sharing, organizational climate (Yu et

al 2013); time pressure (Baer & Oldham, 2006) Those findings in many previous research showed that several factors could increase the employee innovative behavior, and some other factors could decrease the employee innovative behavior

Stressors, which were previously thought to be indispensable factors in the workplace, have now been identified as environments that influence job outcomes such as innovative behavior (Ren & Zhang, 2015; Cavanaugh et al., 2000; Byron & Khazanchi, 2010) Job stressors are as the source of stress (Beehr & Newman, 1978), which occurs when demand are placed on the person which exceed his or her ability to adjust (Lazarus, 1976) Many researchers have found that stress is correlated with a wide arrange of negative effects for decades Work stress can cause weariness, trouble sleeping, poor concentration, and distress (Melchior et al., 2007) Many researchers and practitioners have been interested in the positive impact of stress on results in recent years, such as personal change or growth (Tedeschi et al., 2018) Therefore, the reason for reversed effect of stress on outcomes is essentially important for researchers and practitioners to interfere effectively on the job, such as decrease the negative effects and increase the positive effects

Problem

recognition generation Idea

Creativity – oriented work

behavior

Implementation – oriented work

behavior

Idea promotion

Idea realization

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2.2 Challenge stressors and hindrance stressors

In accordance with Job Demand – Resources Theory (Bakker & Demerouti, 2014), job demands mention two facets of the job that takes constant physical, psychological effort, paralleling with certain physiological or psychological costs Job demands can also be categorized as psychological stressors, such as the need to work quickly and efficiently, having a large amount of work to complete in a short amount of time, or a high workload (Fox et al., 1993) Although job demands are not always bad, they might turn into hindrance claims if they involve a lot of effort that the employee hasn't recovered from (Bakker & Demerouti, 2014) That means, stressors as the consequence of job demands, can be good or bad to the individual in performance at work If they are the good stressors, it will create the positive attitudes among employees, and vice versa, if they are the bad stressors, they will create the negative attitudes

When job demands are perceived as gratifying work experiences that are well worth the inconvenience, McCauley et al (1994) labeled these job demands as challenges for example job overload, time pressures, and high levels of responsibility, which produce positive feelings Cavanaugh et al (2000) defined it as challenge - related self – reported stress associated with challenging job demands, which are under employee’s control, leading to be manageable Similarly, Lazarus & Folkman (1984) labeled the stressful situations with potential promoting mastery, personal growth, or future gains as

“challenges” Then, this sort of stress is called a challenge stressor by Ren and Zhang (2015) because it includes demanding demands that people see as possibilities for growth, learning, and achievement

Stress associated with job demands or work circumstances that involve excessive or undesirable constraints interfering with or hindering an individual's ability to achieve valued goals is referred to as hindrance – related self – reported stress, as opposed to challenge – related self – reported stress (Cavanaugh et al, 2000) It means that there were stressful situations with potentially threatening or hindrance This type of stress was caused by hindrance stressors, which were viewed by individuals as obstacles to personal improvement and goal achievement, such as organizational politics, red tape, role ambiguity, and concerns about job security (Ren & Zhang, 2015) Those barriers

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are unmanageable or out of control of the employee's hands Therefore, the name of hindrance brings more negative implications for employees in the organization

Both challenge stressors and hindrance stressors are considered as factors to cause strains, which include anxiety, exhaustion, depression, and burnout (Jex, 1998) Then, Lepine et al (2005) gave the same expression of stressors, which are the provocation to induce the stress process; and strains are the consequences in this proceeding However,

in some situations counting on the essence of stress, the results in work performance vary The initial appraisal process of both types of stressors provoke specific emotional responses, that in turn influence the employees’ behavior (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984; Spector, 1998; Duhacheck & Iacobucci, 2005) Challenge stressors will create positive emotions (acting as confidence and enthusiasm) and strong belief, leading individuals

to have an active solving - problem style (Wallace et al., 2009 In contrast, hindrance stressors typically have the opposite effect due to the negative emotions like distraction, withdrawal, which leads to the passive emotional coping style (Wallace et al., 2009) In

an active solving - problem style, employees are more likely to adapt with new changes and increase potential effort to overcome challenges to achieve the valued gains Alternatively, passive emotional coping style induces employees to decrease effort because they perceive that those problems are beyond their control

In the study of Cavanaugh et al (2000), they used challenging job demands and hindrance job demands as the feeling of eustress and distress, respectively According

to Selye (1982), eustress had been considered feeling of fulfillments and achievement through challenges, while distress was defined as adverse to eustress It illustrated that not all stress is bad; it can also produce positive outcomes and force positive changes Therefore, stressors as two such directions could lead employees into two ways to cope with stress: adjusting oneself to intensified demands or modifying work circumstance (Edwards & Cooper, 1990) Based on that, it can be understandable that stressors will activate workers to adapt oneself by enhancing skills, knowledge, ability to meet the high job demands; or rework his or her context by changing their tasks, methods, work objectives, or job design The former activity can be considered as manageable as enhancing skills, abilities; and the latter activity considered as unmanageable with some employees as changing the work environment, job design or work objectives Those

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activities as the effective ways influence innovation to deal with heavy workload, as well as job demands (Bunce & West, 1994)

2.3 The related frameworks of previous research

There were many researches about the association between stress and work outcomes Lepine et al (2004) published a study that found a link between challenge and hindrance stress and learning performance, with the moderating effects of motivation to learn and exhaustion The result showed that challenge stress had positive impact on learning performance, while hindrance stress had the reversed effect The same result was shown

as in the relationship between challenge stressors, hindrance stressors and role-based performance (Wallace et al., 2009) It is not different from the Cavanaugh et al.’s findings in 2000, which showed that challenge self – reported work stress is positively related to job satisfaction, while hindrance self – reported work stress is negatively related to job satisfaction Lukasik et al (2019), on the other hand, found no link between stress and working memory performance The association between time pressure and creativity also yielded a non-significant result (Baer & Oldham, 2006) Besides, other research showed that the threat of losing one’ job as job insecurity (considered as one type of stressor) has the negative impact on creative problem – solving abilities (Probst et al., 2007) The curvilinear effect of this relationship between stressors and creativity was also found in the research of Byron & Khazanchi (2010) Those results demonstrate the inconsistent conclusion regarding the relation between stressors and work outcomes like learning performance, role-based performance, job satisfaction, creativity, working memory performance A plausible explanation for this depends on the level of stress that participants responded or the nature of stress that participants experienced Stress increased arousals, which leads performance increase

to one point, then there will an overarousal, strain, then decrease performance (Yerkes

& Dodson, 1908) Another explanation for the inconsistent results in such research is the nature of stressors, like challenge stressors and hindrance stressors Each type of stressors leads to the different effects on work outcomes

The relationships between stressors and work performance in recent literature are summarized in table 2.1

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Table 2.1: The recent studies about the relationship between stressors and work

s/+ Job

satisfaction

Survey 1886 s/- Job search

Hindrance stressors s/- Job satisfaction

Job demand s/+ Disorder Survey 972

experiment

248 s/+ Productive

work behavior

Wallace et al

(2009

Challenge stressors

s/+ Role - based

performance

Survey + supervisor's evaluation

215

Hindrance stressors

Survey 503

*Note: s/+ (positive significance), s/- (negative significance), ns (non-significance)

Table 2.1 shows an inconsistent result in effect of stressors on innovative behavior in many previous studies As such, the effect could be positive, negative, curvilinear, or non-significant The contradiction can be explained by the fact that past studies had different research contexts, or there could be other major elements that temper the association between stressors and innovation This study will re-examine whether challenge and hindrance stresses influence employee innovative behavior in the Vietnamese environment, a question that has yet to be answered in the literature

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Affective commitment and job autonomy are also proposed as crucial moderators to enhance the positive effect or decrease the negative effect of stressors to ensure innovative behavior among employees Affective commitment is the sense of belonging

to one organization (Cohen, 2007), which is related to psychological attachment that any employee experiences to make decision of working in long term or short term at one organization (Mowday et al., 2013) Hence, whether it can reduce the negative influence of stressors on innovative behavior will be examined Job autonomy is belonging to the organizational behavior, which can let employees determine their methods, pace, and schedule (Hackman & Oldham, 1975) Therefore, it will be useful

if it can reduce the negative effects on the stressors – innovative behavior relationship

The author also determined the extent to which affective commitment and job autonomy could explain the different relationship between two forms of stressors and innovative behavior

2.4 Affective commitment

One sort of organizational commitment is affective commitment Meyer and Allen (1991) developed a model of commitment including three approaches: affective, continuance, and normative commitment Affective commitment was mentioned as the emotional attachment to the organization, which was best described by Porter and his colleagues who defined commitment as ‘the relative strength of an individual’s identification with and involvement in a particular organization’ (Mowday et al., 2013) Another sort of commitment is continuation, which occurs when there is a benefit to continuing participating but a cost to leaving (Kanter, 1968) However, in this way of definition, a cost associated with leaving would overlap with outcomes such as turnover intention The third type of commitment is normative commitment, which was described

as one’s responsibility to the organization The behavior in the organization would be exhibited only because they believe it is the right and moral things to do (Wiener, 1972) Other authors identified it as the personal norms to contribute to such behavior (Schwartz & Tessler, 1972) Then, Meyer and Allen (1990) labeled key words for each kind of commitment: affective commitment remains because employees want to, those with strong continuance commitment because they need to, and those with strong normative commitment because they ought to do

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However, Cohen (2007) reconceptualized organizational commitment as two - dimensional based on the nature of commitment: instrumental considerations and psychological attachment The first dimension focused on the benefits of staying at the organization like instrumental exchange, instead of including in leaving the organization

as Kanter (1968) defined It helped to avoid any potential overlap with outcomes like turnover intentions (Cohen, 2007) In this dimension, calculation was involved in employees’ thoughts They saw an equitable exchange between their contributions to the organization and the rewards they received, which can be considered as the tangible exchange relationship The second dimension was mentioned as normative or affective commitment, which required moral obligation to be involved in the organization In this dimension, emotional attachment occurred through internalizing the organization's goals, values and norms

In previous studies, there was limited research to use affective commitment as the moderator in the relationship between stressors and employee innovative behavior Affective commitment was usually considered as the independent variables or dependent variables in research, instead of as the moderator Besides, it was rarely mentioned separately with the rest type of commitment It is included in the organizational behavior, and the innovative behavior is also considered as in the organizational behavior too Therefore, whether affective commitment has a specific moderating effect on the relationship between stressors and innovative behavior is tested

in this current study

2.5 Job autonomy

Job autonomy is considered as one of important and prominent job design features (Karasek & Theorell, 2010) Hackman and Oldham (1975) interpreted job autonomy as

“the degree to which the job provides substantial freedom, independence, and discretion

to the individual in scheduling the work and in determining the procedures to be used in carrying it out” Then, this way of definition was used in many other research studies (Morgeson et al., 2005; Breaugh, 1985; Ng et al., 2008; Zhang et al., 2016; Volmer et al., 2012) It was illustrated as the extent to which employees could regulate their own approach, the velocity to finish jobs, and the schedule to achieve the target The individuals having the high job autonomy would be more flexible in defining their roles

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because they are adjustable to decide how to perform their work (Troyer et al., 2000) Then, self-determination and freedom from external controls or constraints were considered as the consequence of autonomy (Deci et al., 1989)

Job autonomy usually researched under the job demand - control model (Karasek & Theorell, 2010) Job control referred to how much discretion employees have in the working process and scheduling, which had the similar meaning with job autonomy Based on job demands - resources theory (Bakker & Demerouti, 2007), job autonomy was considered as one of the job resources and influenced work engagement Besides,

in self-determination theory, it was said that employees would be more creative in autonomy - supportive environments (Ryan & Deci, 2000)

Individuals with greater job autonomy will have more responsibility for their job (Parker

& Sprigg, 1999) In meta – analytic study conducted by Spector’s (1986), the result showed that autonomy could make employees higher satisfaction, organizational commitment, job performance, and motivation; meanwhile, decrease the negative effects of distress, role conflict, ambiguity, and turnover Besides, in the correlation with creativity studied, employees with high job autonomy are more creative when they are

in the good connection with their supervisors (Volmer et al., 2012) However, the negative association of job autonomy on performance has been found by Langfred and Moye (2004) Not all employees with high autonomy said that they had the positive attitudes (Ng and Feldman, 2014) Even, within a team, the relationship between job autonomy and performance has been non – significant (Man and Lam, 2003) Moreover, this association has been also depending on task uncertainty (Cordery et al., 2010), task interdependence (Langfred, 2005), work demands climate (Hirst et al., 2008)

Those relationship of job autonomy is not consistent in any effects as discussed Therefore, in the moderating role in the association of stressors on innovative behavior will be tested with the aim of checking whether it decreases the negative effects or increase the positive effects

2.6 Research gap

Literature review indicates that innovative behavior has been focused by a few of scholars for a few decades It is the essential factor in the organization to have the

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excellent performance and to compete with the strong rivals To establish innovative behavior among employees, the antecedents need identifying such as stressors, which always exist in any organization and have impact on employees to some extent However, the relationship between stressors and work performance including innovative behavior has not been consistent Some research found that it was the positive relationship, other research said that it was the negative or non-significant relationship The reason for the different results may depend on whether authors measured stressor variables by the nature of stressors or the level of feeling stress among participants Another explanation for the inconsistent findings is that different moderators can be lead

to the different effects on the relationship between stressors and innovative behavior

In current research, the nature of stressors will be measured by dividing them into two types: challenge stressors and hindrance stressors Besides, the innovative behavior will

be divided by the oriented - behaviors, instead of four stages as the previous research Those behaviors are creativity oriented - work behavior and implementation oriented - work behavior Meanwhile, affective commitment and job autonomy will have different moderating effects on this relationship, which will be able to explain to some extent the inconsistent results in the previous research

Therefore, this research will identify the relationship between hindrance stressor, challenge stressors and two oriented work of innovative behavior and what will happen with the moderators of affective commitment and job autonomy in this relationship The research questions are “What types of stressors affect innovative behavior?” and “Do affective commitment and job autonomy moderate the effects of stressors on innovative behavior?”

These answers of two research questions provides researchers the effects of challenge stressors and hindrance stressors on innovative behavior in Vietnamese context The results in Vietnamese context might be not consistent compared with the context in previous researches Thus, researchers can have different views of stressors on innovative behavior among employees Based on that, they can develop one distinct aspect of stressors and innovative behavior to contribute to the built theories, meanwhile practitioners can get some implications to have suitable interfere on stressors to promote innovative behavior among employees in their organizations In the case that the results

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are consistent with the many previous research, it enhances that those findings could be applied to a variety of organizations or industries or countries or regions

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CHAPTER 3: HYPOTHESIS DEVELOPMENT AND RESEARCH

Creativity achievement is a complex phenomenon which flowers under the right conditions (Mumford & Gustafson, 1988) It is very hard to say which options or actions are creative, because they also depend on the specific circumstances Hence, saying of absolutely creativity behavior is not suitable, which leads to the phrase of creativity - oriented behavior It can be understood that if creativity - oriented work behavior is put

in the fitting environment, the creativity achievement will be gained On the other hand, challenge stressors are the conditions which can appear in any environment under the opportunities for personal growth Creativity - oriented work behavior is a fundamental factor during that growth, which helps employees to realize and generate the new ideas

to improve their fit with their environment, organization and to modify themselves (Janssen, 2000) Therefore, challenge stressors can influence positively on creativity - oriented work behavior

H1: Challenge stressors are positively related to creativity - oriented work behavior 3.1.2 The relationship between hindrance stressors and creativity – oriented work behavior

In contrast to challenge stressors, hindrance stressors are perceived as threatening for employees to grow and develop, which was associated with rigid thinking (Cowen, 1952) It is one of the reasons leading to decreased creativity Besides, those stressors

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are considered to be out of control of employees because they are exactly from the organizational issues, such as red tape, political office, ambiguity roles, which are hardly changed by only one employee Thus, they produce negative effects on their performance because it generates the belief that even more effort will not get the better results This belief constraints the opened mindset to transform actions into positive results So, the passive emotional coping styles will be generated (Wallace et al., 2009), leading the barriers for creativity to appear This type of coping obviously affects the employee’s behavior in terms of generating novel ideas It leads to the hypothesis that hindrance stressors have negative effects on creativity - oriented work behavior

H2: Hindrance stressors are negatively related to creativity - oriented work behavior 3.1.3 The relationship between challenge stressors and implementation - oriented work behavior

Implementation of an idea requires factors to apply successfully into practical situations

It involves calling for participants to support and accompany with this idea before producing a prototype or model to ultimately apply in the organization (Kanter, 1988)

In this process, challenge stressors creating positive emotions are considered as the motivation for employees to put their efforts with the aiming of getting targets Therefore, employees will try their best to have as much as possible support from others because they know that only one is not enough resource to successfully achieve goals Besides, when producing a prototype or model, employees need to have detailed information from participants to shape and complete it Under the challenge stressors, they push themselves or be pushed to finish this round completely for other employees

to study and learn from those experiences Thus, challenge stressors gradually make employees complete their responsibilities in scheduled time during the process of idea implementation, which will positively affect their behaviors at work

H3: Challenge stressors are positively associated with implementation - oriented work behavior

3.1.4 The relationship between hindrance stressors and implementation – oriented work behavior

In the environment of hindrance stressors, creativity ideas will meet many obstacles to put them into practice Those obstacles including the role ambiguity, political policy, or

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red tape are like skepticism and resistance that those ideas have to face (Janssen et al., 2004) It is likely that hindrance stressors at that time force employees to overcome disincentive, which leads to more sustained efforts to direct ideas to come true Therefore, it can be stated that hindrance stressors motivate employees to overcome difficulties to make ideas into practical situations Following that, the employee's behavior during this time to some extent will be affected, but in a positive direction

H4: Hindrance stressors are positively associated with implementation - oriented work behavior

3.1.5 Moderating role of affective commitment

Affective commitment had a higher level of commitment than the instrumental commitment (Cohen, 2007), which only required the exchange on the paper contract like salary, rewards, bonus On the other hand, affective commitment needed more time

to have the deep commitment, which created the feelings of identification, belonging, and emotional involvement It was illustrated as the psychological contracts of belief paid - for promises (Rousseau, 1995) When employees had the strong organizational commitment, they would want to become a part of the organization and put extra effort

to achieve the common goals and values in the organization, which leaded to increase the competitiveness, and vice versa, the employees with the low level of commitment would feel insecure in the organization and have tend to quit job (Tang et al., 2019) Understanding the level of commitment, employers will have the suitable human resource strategy to keep talent employees in their organization To have a strong commitment, an effective one is the better choice when it is more secure to accompany

on the long journey Although it requires longer time to be built in each employee than the instrumental commitment, it created deep psychological attachment of the highly committed individuals, which is a strong sense of belonging to the organization (Cohen, 2007) The people who are willing to stay voluntarily in the organization from their bottom of heart will have more motivation and engagement than those who are forced

to stay in the organization to some extent by the physical contracts

The former individuals will easily accept stressors in their organization without complaint because they can accept them as one of their work Specially, when facing challenges or hindrance, they reinforce the belief that they can overcome any difficulties

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with the affective commitment By that way, they always put the extra effort to transform difficult situations into an experienced or easy one for the followers to learn and avoid unworthiness mistakes Therefore, creativity ideas will be generated to meet the above requirements The higher affective commitment employees have, the more difficulties they can overcome because of the strong sense of belonging; and hindrance stressors and challenge stressors are one type of difficulties in the workplace environment

H5: Affective commitment moderates the relationship between stressors and creativity

- oriented work behavior, such that affective commitment increases the effects of challenge stressors on creativity - oriented work behavior

H6: Affective commitment moderates the relationship between stressors and creativity

- oriented work behavior, such that affective commitment decreases the effects of hindrance stressors on creativity - oriented work behavior

3.1.6 Moderating role of job autonomy

In the job demands - resources theory (Bakker & Demerouti, 2014), job resources including autonomy, performance feedback, and opportunities for development can mitigate the impact of job demands on strain Thus, to some extent job autonomy can

be considered as one factor moderating the influence of job stressors (one type of job demands) on the performance Job autonomy was defined as the level of independence

in planning employees’ work, selecting the equipment they will use, and deciding on procedures to be followed (Volmer et al., 2012) It is similar to the definition of term of

“self - leadership”, which was defined as “a process through which individuals control their own behavior, influencing and leading themselves through the use of specific sets

of behavioral and cognitive strategies” (Neck & Houghton, 2006) Therefore, to some extent, job autonomy will facilitate the power of having self - leadership When employees have self - leadership, they have more motivation and confidence to break out of routine that is not necessary to achieve their goals Besides, it is much easier for employees to overcome the difficulties because they can make their own decisions without worrying about upper manager’s permission Therefore, the employees having high autonomy in their work can accelerate working progress in organizations During the progress of gaining excellent performance, they keep looking for the best solutions

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for the issues, which can help them be able to identify the potential stressors to avoid negative effects on their results

The final hypotheses can be stated as:

H7: Job autonomy moderates the relationship between challenge stressors and implementation - oriented work behavior, such that the increased job autonomy increases the positive effects of challenge stressors on implementation - oriented work behavior

H8: Job autonomy moderates the relationship between hindrance stressors and implementation - oriented work behavior, such that the increased job autonomy increases the positive effects of hindrance stressors on implementation - oriented work behavior

3.2 Conceptual model

Based on hypothesis development, a conceptual model (Figure 3.1) is illustrated as follows:

Figure 3.1: Conceptual model

Each variable framework is described as below:

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Challenge stressors are considered as the stressful demands perceived as under the

control of employees If they overcome, those demands will be considered as the opportunities for personal development and achievement

Hindrance stressors are considered as the stressful demands perceived as beyond the

control of employees Those demands are considered as obstacles to prevent the opportunities for personal growth and development

Creativity - oriented work behavior covers the first two stages of innovative behavior,

problem recognition and idea generation Orientation of creativity is an indispensable element during two stages to have innovative behavior

Implementation - oriented work behavior covers the last two stages of innovative

behavior, idea promotion and idea realization Those stages require more action to transform new ideas into practices, therefore, orientation of implementation is a fundamental factor during those stages to have innovative behavior

Affective commitment is considered as the psychological attachment, which involves

emotional commitment and a strong sense of belonging to the organization

Job autonomy is considered as power to some extent at which employees can regulate

their pace, sequence, and method to complete the tasks

3.3 Research methodology

3.3.1 Research design

Firstly, the author found attractive topics based on the fields interested in such as psychology, individual behavior The considered topics are narrowed into the current problems that the author and the people meet Thus, stressor is the topic that received many supports Besides, innovative behavior among employees in the relationship with stressors is the subject that the author found the limitation in researches in Vietnam From that, the motivation and objectives in this research are invested deeper to show in the introduction parts Then, reviewing all the previous research to find research gap as well as develop hypothesizes was conducted The next action was to develop questionnaires and determine the sample size to ensure the representative characteristic

of this research Next step focused on collecting data through survey before analyzing

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by SPSS 26.0 After having results, discussion and interpretation were implemented Finally, the important task was giving implication for researchers and practitioners, limitation and future researches

Figure 3.2: Research design by the author 3.3.2 Sampling

According to Hair (2011), the minimum number of sample size for exploratory factor analysis is determined by multiplying 5 with the number of questionaries items This research uses 53 questionaries items Therefore, the number of respondents that the

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author has to collect is at least 53*5 = 265 This index is so important to produce accurate results

Meanwhile, a common rule for the multiple regression analysis is calculated as: N = 50 + 8*m (m is the number of predictor variables) (Tabachnick et al., 2019) In this study, there are 2 independent variables, thus the number of respondents should be 50 + 8*2 =

66

This study will use both exploratory factor analysis and multiple regression analysis; therefore, the number of respondents should reach at least 265 Therefore, practically the author collected 267 samples to analyze, which meet the requirements to have research’s representative

3.3.3 Data collection process

The data collection was conducted through mailing and social media within a month, from February to March, 2021 This research carefully processed the selection of respondents and invited participants working in a wide range of organizations in Vietnam to ensure the data reliability and validity A single – informant bias might lead

to the severe obstacles, thus this study made high effort to avoid being bias data base by collecting right respondents who are working in several organizations in Vietnam

The first step is to sort out samples of respondents before sending the questionnaires All respondents are workers in organizations in Vietnam, who hold the staff position, manager position, Chief executive officer (CEO) position or owner Even in the high position as CEO or owner, they still meet the stressors as their employees when they have to report or take responsibility in front of president or director or chairman Based

on that, the results will have more generality to apply for all positions as well as employees in organizations Then, the study quickly asked for their permission to fill the research questionnaire If they agreed, the author would let them in the table list of participants In the case that they forgot to answer the questionnaires during two days after sending the questionnaires due to workload, one message would be sent to them with the aim of kindly reminding them to fill the questionnaires

Besides, the snowball sampling was used by utilizing three main networks to increase the population The first one was the individuals’ connection at the workplace and

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personal relationships Then, the second one was the utilization of those above relationships, which means to ask for their help to send the link survey to their coworkers

or employees Final source to get the data is the some suitable groups on the social media,

at which the link was put on, followed by the introduction words of this study

Meanwhile, some personal information was collected to understand the characteristics and properties of respondents, such as gender, age, position holding in the current organization, the longest attachment time in one organization

al (2005) The eight items of affective commitment were shaped by Allen and Meyer

in 1990 Lastly, the six items of job autonomy were proposed by Breaugh (1985) Each item evaluated on 5-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree) for the questionaries of stressors and innovative behavior; from 1 (never) to 5 (always) for the questionaries of affective commitment and job autonomy

Additionally, questionaries are designed in English and transcribed into Vietnamese because the respondent’s target is Vietnamese people The questionaries are separated into two main parts The first part includes 36 questions of challenge stressors, hindrance stressors, creativity – oriented work behavior and implementation – oriented work behavior The second part includes 14 questions of affective commitment and job autonomy

All the items in each part are mixed randomly, not arranged into separated variables, thus the respondents cannot come up with the purpose of research Therefore, the potential bias is limited as much as possible

Table 3.1: Measurement items

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Construct Items Labels Sources

Challenge

stressors

Lepine et al (2016)

Having to work at a rapid pace to complete all of my tasks CS_4

Having to use a broad set of skills and abilities CS_6 Having to balance several projects at once CS_7 Having to multitask your assigned projects CS_8 Having high levels of responsibility CS_9

A high level of accountability for your work CS_10

Conflicting requests from your supervisor HS_5 Inadequate resources to accomplish tasks HS_6

You actively think along concerning improvements in the

Dorenbosch

et al (2005)

You generate ideas to improve or renew services my

You generate ideas on how to optimize knowledge and skills

You generate new solutions to old problems COWB_4

You discuss matters with direct colleagues concerning your

You suggest new ways of communicating within your

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Construct Items Labels Sources

You generate ideas concerning the distribution of tasks and work activities within your department COWB_7 You actively engage in the thinking on which knowledge

and skills are required within your department COWB_8 You try to detect impediments to collaboration and

You actively engage in gathering information to identify

You get to transform new ideas in a way that they become

You mobilize support from colleagues for your ideas and

You would be very happy to spend the rest of your career

Allen and Meyer (1990)

You enjoy discussing your organization with people outside

You are allowed to decide how to go about getting your job

(1985) You are able to choose the way to go about your job JA_2

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Construct Items Labels Sources

You are free to choose the method(s) to use in carrying out

You have control over the scheduling of your work JA_4 You have some control over the sequencing of your work

You job is such that you can decide when to do particular

Your job allows you to modify the normal way you are evaluated so that you can emphasize some aspects of your

You are able to modify what your job objectives are (what

You have some control over what you are supposed to accomplish (what your supervisor sees as your job

Moreover, “Corrected Item – total correlation” index is used to analyze the correlation

of one item with other items in one scale In case, this index is lower than 0.3, which shows that the weak correlation of items in one scale Therefore, which items has this value of being lower than 0.3 will be removed to increase the reliability (Nunnally, 1975)

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• Exploratory factor analysis (EFA)

EFA is used to determine the number of variables that influence them and to determine which variables “go together” (DeCoster, 1998), which is to condense a set of k items into other set of F items (F<k) It will consider the relationship among items in all scale, not only internal one scale This action aims to explore which factors, or items are in one right variable, or component There are five indexes that researchers should consider

- Kaiser – Meyer – Olkin (KMO) index is the entrance condition to analyze the suitability of using EFA It has to be higher than 0.5 to analyze exploratory factor (Kaiser, 1974)

component “Sig Bartlett’s test” is less than 0.05 to prove that all items in one component have the correlation with each other (Tabachnick and Fidell, 2007)

- Eigenvalue is considered as the condition to identify the number of components Therefore, which component has eigenvalue of being more than 1 will be kept (Kaiser, 1960)

- Total Variance Explained is larger than 50% to illustrate that EFA model is suitable

- Factor loading illustrates the correlation between items in their components The higher the factor loading is, the bigger correlation between items and its components Factor loading at 0.3 is the minimum condition to keep, factor loading at 0.5 shows the good statical significance, factor loading is at 0.7 show the excellent statical significance (Tabachnick and Fidell, 2007) However, this value should be accompanied with the size of sample Factor loading at 0.5 is usually considered as the standardization for the number of samples from 120 to 350 If the sample size is above 350, factor loading at 0.3 should be taken

• Pearson correlation analysis

After analyzing the reliability and EFA, there can be some items removed or changed

to other variables At that time, “Pearson correlation analysis” noted as R is conducted

to explore the linear relationship between independent variables and dependent variables

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- If R gets close to 1 or -1, the linear correlation gets stronger Moving toward 1 is

a positive correlation, moving toward -1 is a negative correlation If R is equal to 1, absolute linear correlation happens

- If R gets close to 0, the linear correlation gets weaker If R is equal to 0, there is

no linear correlation

Besides, the sig value should be taken care of to show the meaning of this correlation

If sig value is less than 0.05, there is correlation among variables, and vice versa

• Regression analysis

Regression analysis is used to test the relationship between independent variables and dependent variables, even the moderating effects There are some indicators needing focusing on

- Adjusted R square reflect the affective level (as percentage) of independent variables on dependent variables If this index moves forward to 1, the model will have more meaningful and stronger If this index moves down to 0, the model will have less meaningful and weaker

- Durbin – Watson (DW) is used to test the auto-correlation of adjacent errors (also known as first – order correlation) with values ranging from 0 to 4 If DW is from 1 to

3, there is no first – order correlation, which demonstrate that the data base is good enough

- The sig value of F test is less than 0.05, which shows that linear regression model

is suitable with high representative

- Variance Inflation Factor (VIF) is used to check for multicollinearity If VIF is less than 2, there is no multicollinearity among independent variables

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CHAPTER 4: DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS

4.1 Data description

Table 4.1: The general information of respondents

Frequency Percent Gender