Factors affecting job stress and job satisfaction an empirical study of banking industry in ho chi minh city

According to these basic things, this study aims to explore the effects of role conflict, workload, social support, and role ambiguity on job stress and job satisfaction.. The results fo

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UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY

International School of Business

HO CHI MINH CITY

Ho Chi Minh City – Year 2015

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UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY

International School of Business

HO CHI MINH CITY

ID: 22130070

SUPERVISOR: Dr Nguyen Thi Nguyet Que

Ho Chi Minh City – Year 2015

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Acknowledgement

I wish to express my sincere gratitude deeply to my advisor, Dr Nguyen Thi Nguyet Que To have completed this thesis, beside my effort, her devoted tutorial has the important implication She always helps me to solve trouble, support carefully in order to finish my thesis

in the best way I always respect and remember these things

I would like to send my thanks sincerely for Prof Nguyen Dinh Tho and Dr Nguyen Thi Mai Trang because of their value feedbacks from my proposal to draft thesis It is a deficiency if I will not remember other teachers teaching me two years ago in ISB They gave

me knowledge and understanding to have enough ability to perform my thesis and great foundation to improve my career

This research was contributed significantly by my friends and my colleagues in the pilot study and main survey of this study They also help me when I have difficult in conducting this thesis I would like to send my deep thank to them

I would like to thank my family I must express my gratitude to my farther and my mother for their significant moral support during the time when I have conducted this thesis

Last of all, my sincere thanks are also sent to the staff of ISB supporting me to have the convenience in last time

Ho Chi Minh City, December 14th, 2015

Truong Thi Chi Thanh

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Abstract

In the development of a country's economy, banking industry plays an important role; it is the circulatory system of the entire national economy Vietnam is a developing country in deep and broad integrating period Restructuring is the method to strength banking system, increase the ability to competitive highly and meet the integrating require combining with the development of country Therein, human resource management is complex work; the difficulty is interesting in carefully the harmony of job stress and job satisfaction Perceiving this issue, some previous researches in Vietnam mentioned about it However, they are limitations in the number

of determinants affecting job stress and job satisfaction While in other developing and developed countries, new variables were explored and studied meticulously According to these basic things, this study aims to explore the effects of role conflict, workload, social support, and role ambiguity on job stress and job satisfaction Moreover, it also investigates the relationship between job stress and job satisfaction in banking industry in Ho Chi Minh City A sample of

250 fulltime bankers in first line in Ho Chi Minh City was surveyed through questionnaire with five-point Likert scale to test hypotheses Multiple regression analysis was suitable to analyze the data The results found that in Vietnamese banks, workload and role ambiguity had positive effects on job stress; social support had the negative effect on job stress They were significant relationships Besides that, this study concluded role conflict, role ambiguity, job stress impacted job satisfaction negatively and significantly There was a significant positive relationship between social support and job satisfaction Role ambiguity contributed the most influencing on explaining the determinants of job stress and social support had the most impact on job satisfaction However, this study did not find the significant relationships between role conflict and job stress, between workload and job satisfaction The achieved findings recommend essential consultants to improve job satisfaction and reduce job stress in developing human resource management of Vietnamese banks However, this research also could not avoid from some limitations, they are groundwork for further research

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Key words: role conflict, workload, social support, role ambiguity, job stress, job

satisfaction

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Table of Contents

Acknowledgement iii

Abstract iv

Table of Contents vi

Abbreviations ix

List of Tables x

List of Figures xi

List of Appendices xii

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Research background 1

1.2 Problem statement 2

1.3 Research objectives and research questions 5

1.3.1 Research objectives 5

1.3.2 Research questions 5

1.4 Research scope 5

1.5 Research significance 5

1.6 Thesis structure 6

CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW 7

2.1 Theoretical background 7

2.1.1 Job satisfaction 7

2.1.2 Job stress 10

2.1.3 Determinants of job satisfaction and job stress 12

2.1.4 Model of Sultan, Tarid, and Rali (2014) 12

2.1.5 Model of Lam (2014) 13

2.2 Development of hypotheses and conceptual model 15

2.2.1 Role conflict and its effect on job stress/job satisfaction 15

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2.2.2 Workload and its effect on job stress/job satisfaction 16

2.2.3 Social support and its effect on job stress/job satisfaction 17

2.2.4 Role ambiguity and its effect on job stress/job satisfaction 18

2.2.5 Job stress and job satisfaction 20

2.3 Research model 20

2.4 Chapter summary 21

CHAPTER THREE: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 22

3.1 Research design 22

3.2 Development of questionnaire 23

3.2.1 Measurement scales 23

3.2.2 Draft questionnaire 26

3.3 Data collection method 27

3.3.1 Pilot study 27

3.3.2 Main survey 28

3.3.2.1 Sample size ……….28

3.3.2.2 Sampling method 29

3.4 Data analysis techniques 29

3.5 Chapter summary 31

CHAPTER FOUR: DATA ANALYSIS AND RESULTS 32

4.1 Descriptive analysis 32

4.1.1 Gender 34

4.1.2 Education 34

4.1.3 Age 34

4.1.4 Salary 35

4.2 Assessment and refinement of measurement scales 35

4.2.1 The reliability test 37

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4.2.2 EFA 37

4.3 Multiple regression 39

4.3.1 Model 1 - Multiple Regression Analysis with all independent variables and job stress 39

4.3.2 Model 2 - Multiple Regression Analysis with all independent variables and job satisfaction 42

4.4 Discussion of the results 45

4.5 Chapter summary 48

CHAPTER FIVE: CONCLUSIONS 49

5.1 Conclusions 49

5.2 Contribution of research 50

5.2.1 Theory contribution 50

5.2.2 Managerial implications 51

5.3 Limitations and further research 53

References 55

Appendices 67

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Abbreviations

ESCAP The United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific ACB Asia Commercial Joint Stock Bank

Vietcombank Joint Stock Commercial Bank for Foreign Trade of Vietnam

Sacombank Saigon Thuong Tin Commercial Joint Stock Bank

BIDV Joint Stock Commercial Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam Agribank Vietnam Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development

SPSS Statistical Package for Social Science

EFA Exploratory Factor Analysis

KMO Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin

ANOVA Analysis of Variance

KPI Key performance indicator

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List of Tables

Table 2.1 Herzberg’s theory 10

Table 3.1 Measurement scales 24

Table 3.2 Findings of qualitative research 28

Table 4.1 Distribution of respondents based on demographic characteristics 33

Table 4.2 Cronbach’s Alpha of factor 37

Table 4.3 KMO and Bartlett's Test 38

Table 4.4 Total Variance Explained 38

Table 4.5 Correlations 40

Table 4.6 Model Summaryb 40

Table 4.7 ANOVAb 40

Table 4.8 Coefficientsa 41

Table 4.9 Correlations 42

Table 4.10 Model Summaryb 42

Table 4.11 ANOVAb .43

Table 4.12 Coefficientsa 43

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List of Figures

Figure 2.1 Need Tower of Maslow 9

Figure 2.2 Conceptual model of the factors influencing workplace stress in UAE banking sector 13

Figure 2.3 Conceptual framework for a study of job stress on job satisfaction among virtual IT workers 14

Figure 2.4 Research model 21

Figure 3.1 Research design diagram 23

Figure 4.1 Multiples Regression Result 44

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List of Appendices

Appendix A: Findings of qualitative research 67

Appendix B: The English questionnaire 77

Appendix C: The Vietnamese questionnaire 80

Appendix D: Item – Total Statistics 83

Appendix E: Rotated Factor Matrix 85

Appendix F: Result test assumption for model 1 86

Appendix G: Result test assumption for model 2 88

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION

1.1 Research background

In 2015, ESCAP identified that Vietnam's economic prospects are facing with a number

of challenges while the difficulty in the banking sector still restrains domestic demand (Vietnam News Agency, 2015) With Circular No 36/2014 / TT-NHNN, the banks have to divest about the regulated level, it will spur the waves of acquisition and merger in the banking industry (Lê Đình Ân, 2014) To not only overcome these challenges but also develop more and more stably, one of the requirements identified for banks is improving business activities combining with managing human resource reasonably The investment in people is an important and wise strategy to gain many profits in a competitive market at the present Tô Ngọc Hùng (2010) expressed that in many countries, if the development of the banking system

is supported by the commensurate development of human resources, it will create the sustainability for the banking sector in particular and the economy in general

Nowadays, because of strengthen finance system, the merging and restructuring in Vietnamese banks lead to the fluctuations in labors From 2000 to 2012, the number of employees reduces significantly After that, labor demand increases in 2015, demand about senior personnel in Vietnamese financing – banking sector is about 94.000 people (Nguyễn Tuấn Anh & Nguyễn Văn Thọ, 2014) In Ho Chi Minh City, Trần Anh Tuấn (2014) predicted that human resources demand of financing - banking industry in 2020 would be about 11.000 employees Nevertheless, the problem of banking industry in Vietnam is that facing to human resource being either deficient or weak (Việt Âu, 2013) and brain draining risk (Mạnh Hòa, 2014) In order to solve above issues, it is very essential to hold on talent employees as a value source by interesting in employee job satisfaction Job satisfaction is an important key to decide the success of an organization Job satisfaction can be an important indicator of how employees feel about their jobs It is vital to enhance the happiness of worker by understanding the components involving in job satisfaction (Okpara, Squillace & Erondu, as citied in Mustapha,

2013) For the success of banking sector, it is very crucial to handle problems about human

resource successfully for the purpose whether the employees are happy When employees are happy and satisfied, they often commit to their work and have a good image for the bank (Bashir & Ramay, 2010) So that, to improve the quality of human resource in banks; employee’s job satisfaction needs to be interested in thoughtfully

Moreover, banking industry is the crucial components in the social and economic development of Vietnam, so job stress in this industry is inevitable in working process of a banking staff Job stress is critical thing relating to job satisfaction; especially in the business sectors requiring the long-term, stable, and high-quality human resource as banking Khattak and Iqbal (2013) showed that “the high stress level is practicing in the banking segment Banking employees acknowledged that their jobs have been affected by stress Advanced and boom up economy, pressure for maintaining the profitability and large and maximized responsibilities are chief roots causes of the stress” (p 29)

Therefore, researching the factors affecting job stress and job satisfaction is very important to be conducted for the banks in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

1.2 Problem statement

In the world, many studies concerned about the predictors affecting job stress and job satisfaction; the relationship between job stress and job satisfaction Rub (2003); Shirey (2004) proved that social support affects negatively job stress There is a positive relationship between social support and job satisfaction (Kozey, 2008; Mintz-Binder & Fitzpatrick, 2009; Kuo-Sue, 2015) According to Ahsan, Abdullah, Fie, and Alam (2009), there are significant relationships between role conflict, relationship with others, workload pressure, homework interface, role ambiguity, performance pressure and job stress; they also concluded that job stress has the negative influence on employee’s job satisfaction Jahanzeb (2010) had the same result about the relationship between job stress and job satisfaction Jahanzeb also showed that job stress is impacted positively by role ambiguity, role conflict, office politics, and meaningless nature of work According to Lam (2010), in United States of America, among virtual workers in information technology, the correlation between job stress and job satisfaction was defined He

also proved the different levels of job stress based upon the conflict at work, role ambiguity/conflict, job control, excessive workload, performance pressure, cognitive demands, non-work activities, social support, skill underutilization, and job satisfaction across the number of years of virtual work The most significant factors influencing in job satisfaction were the skill underutilization, excessive workload and/or variance workload, and role ambiguity Similarly; Ram, Khoso, Shah, Chandio, and Shaikih (2011) indicated that job stress relates highly and negatively to job satisfaction; “the predicted notions that role conflict and role ambiguity function as job stressors were confirmed in that the higher the experience of role conflict and/or role ambiguity, the higher the reported work stress” (p 115)

Khattak and Iqbal (2013) supported that there is a significant positive relationship between role conflict and job stress while role conflict negatively affects job satisfaction and lastly job stress mediates between role conflict and job satisfaction The result in study of Bemana, Moradi, Ghasemi, Taghavi, and Ghayoor (2013) also illustrated that there is a negative association between job stress and employee job satisfaction; workload pressure and performance pressure are factors affecting job stress In Malaysia, Mustapha (2013) showed that interpersonal relationship and workload have the impact on job satisfaction In Iran municipality personnel, there are relationships between role conflict, workload, performance pressure, job stress and job satisfaction (Bemana et al., 2013) According to Rizwan et al (2014), job stress has a significant positive relationship with role conflict, work overload and work family conflict but it does not have relationship with role ambiguity in Pakistan banking sector Role overload, role ambiguity, and role conflict associate with job stress positively (Vanishree, 2014)

As mentioned in research background, because Vietnamese banks are facing some challenges so the quality in the labor, employee job stress and job satisfaction need to be concerned carefully Interesting in this reality, previous studies researched about job satisfaction of staff in not only banking industry but also other different industries Nguyen (2011) surveyed 20 State-Owned Enterprises and 20 Non-State Owned Enterprises in Vietnam

and found out that organization characteristics have the effect on employee’s job satisfaction

P T Nguyen (2012) concluded that job satisfaction of employees in construction industry is impacted by demographic variables such as: age, experienced years Employees being older or working for a longer time have a higher level of job satisfaction In education industry, Duong (2014) found that in Vietnam National University – Ho Chi Minh City faculty members were moderately satisfied with their job; gender, educational attainment, and country of graduation were significant differences in job satisfaction In banking industry, prior studies incisively concerned on employee job satisfaction In the result in study of Phan (2011) indicated that employees working in banking industry are comparatively satisfied with their jobs and working environments, six major factors influencing in the employees' satisfaction are basic measures (salary, policies, incentive mechanisms, work pressure and leadership); beside that, others factors include training, promotion, work behavior and relationship as well as the banks’ working conditions In Vietnamese banking industry, job satisfaction is positively affected by human resources practices They are relationship with management, working environment and conditions, teamwork spirit (Mai, Nguyen & Nguyen, 2014) Truong (2014) illustrated that the relationships with superiors and colleagues, advancement opportunities, salaries policy, work-itself, fringe benefits, and work conditions are robust factors predicting for the employees’ job satisfaction The reality problem is that there is limitation in researching job stress in Vietnamese banks In the other hand, although the studies about job satisfaction are quite much, but the majority is focusing on variable used popular in the long time and the new detection has not appeared more yet The researches mentioning role conflict, workload, social support and role ambiguity in Vietnam are so limited; while in other developing countries and developed countries has presented above factors like: Malaysia, United States of America, Pakistan, Iran

; the studies testing the impact of these factors on job stress and job satisfaction are not rare As

a result, this study is conducted in Ho Chi Minh City in the effort to bridge upon gap

1.3 Research objectives and research questions

1.3.1 Research objectives This study aims to investigate not only the effect of role

conflict, workload, social support, and role ambiguity on job stress and job satisfaction but also the relationship between job stress and job satisfaction in banking industry in Ho Chi Minh

City, Vietnam

1.3.2 Research questions

1 a Is there a significant positive relationship between role conflict and job stress?

b Is there a significant positive relationship between workload and job stress?

c Is there a significant negative relationship between social support and job stress?

d Is there a significant positive relationship between role ambiguity and job stress?

2 a Is there a significant negative relationship between role conflict and job satisfaction?

b Is there a significant negative relationship between workload and job satisfaction?

c Is there a significant positive relationship between support social and job satisfaction?

d Is there a significant negative relationship between role ambiguity and job satisfaction?

3 Is there a significant negative relationship between job stress and job satisfaction?

1.4 Research scope

This study was conducted in Ho Chi Minh City – is the biggest economic center and has the most employees in Vietnam The timeframe of research lasted from August, 2015 to September, 2015 Because the force having the most influence on human resource of Vietnamese banks is first-line employees In addition, they account for the big portion of labor and can represent human resource in banks (Nguyễn Hiền, 2015) As a result, the research

object is the fulltime and first – line employees working for banks in Ho Chi Minh City

1.5 Research significance

In term of theory, this research supplies an empirical understanding the role of factors influencing in job stress and job satisfaction of employees in banking sector of Vietnam In term of practice, this study demonstrates management implications and guidelines to decrease

job stress and increase job satisfaction of banking employees in Vietnam Through that, they can improve productivity and profit in their organizations

1.6 Thesis structure

The study consists of five main contents

Introduction (chapter one) includes background (focus on the broad foundations);

problem statement (focus on the real situation of the problem researched with prior studies, the importance of the study) Besides that, research objectives and research questions; research scope and research significance are identified

Literature review (chapter two) recapitulates the content studied in the previous

researches about each factors, previous models Hypotheses are extracted from review of literature review Then, they create cornerstone to build the conceptual model

Research methodology (chapter three) encompasses research design and development

of questionnaire From that, this chapter also finds out the method for data collection (pilot study, main survey) and data analysis

Data analysis and results (chapter four) uses SPSS 16.0 to analysis data and test

hypotheses Then, the results from testing reliability, EFA, multiple regression analysis were illustrated to answer research questions From that, results are stated with the explanations and ideas of results

Conclusion (chapter five) summarizes the entire study, explores theoretical

contribution and practical implications from the results achieved Finally, it specifies the limitation of this research and recommend for further researches

CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW

Chapter 2 shows a review of the previous studies relating to job stress, job satisfaction, and the impact of the determinants (role conflict, workload, social support, and role ambiguity)

on them It also indicates hypotheses and the model for this research The research model was built from the review of literature

2.1 Theoretical background

2.1.1 Job satisfaction Job satisfaction is a crucial component in human’s life

According to Vallejo, Vallejo, and Parra (2001), job satisfaction is created by the exchange between the demands and the expectations of an organization, and of worker’s expectations and personal objectives The relationship between workers and organization is reciprocity The organization supplies the medium for employees to meet a series of needs and to realize their personal aspirations Workers provide for the organization the resources in order to reach organization’s objectives Singh and Sinha (2013) indicated that job satisfaction can be understood as the overall attitude or it can apply to the parts in job of an individual It can be identified as an attitude, generally acquired over a period as an employee gains more and more information about the workplace According to Mustapha (2013), it is crucial to study employee’s job satisfaction because this thing is considered as an important factor in enhancing organizations’ performance and competitiveness The organizations having high job satisfaction of employees will increase the productivity of an organization and the organizational overall performance

According to Kozey (2008), the composition of job satisfaction included how the employee feels toward co-workers, pay, benefits, supervision, job description, promotion, and contingent rewards He also found:

Consider an employee who is of great value to the organization, but is disgruntled As

an organization discovering the point of consternation, a better understanding of where the employee might be disgruntled can help it in figuring out what (if anything) can be

changed to accommodate an employee who brings great value to the company The loss

of talented employees is something that many organizations are actively seeking to

prevent Job satisfaction and all of the subcomponents of the measure serve as a way to

help organizations in the potential prevention of talent loss value to the company (p 18)

There are many theories about job satisfaction This study presented two theories used

commonly and supported for this study more details about the components of job satisfaction

as follow:

Kaur (2013) said that motivational factors have important role in improving employee

job satisfaction Although commonly understanding in the human motivation literature but

Needs hierarchy theory of Maslow was one of the theories to test the main determinants to job

satisfaction Maslow Hierarchy of Need is famous for fundamental for most of motivation

theories used job satisfaction to development This theory built up from satisfactions on

hierarchical ladders of human demand as motivation factors This theory asserted clearly and

obviously that importance of job-related satisfactions towards activation of employees’

motivation (Kian, Yusoff, & Rajah, 2014) According to Ozguner and Ozguner (2014),

Maslow’s needs hierarchy theory was used to examine the important contributors to job

satisfaction They are five kinds of need drawn through Need Tower (see Figure 2.1) The

operating principle of this tower is that until the demands of inferior classes as not been

satisfied; it is difficult to continue with upper class Therefore, to improve job satisfaction,

managers should try to meet the basic demands before progressing to address higher-order

needs Each kind of demand in Need Tower of Maslow corresponds to each factor and each

level in job satisfaction

Figure 2.1 Need Tower of Maslow (Ozguner & Ozguner, 2014, p 213)

Physiological needs: the basic necessities for survival including food, clothes, shelter, relaxes are met by equal wages or provide meal breaks If these demands are not met, the staff will feel dissatisfaction and worry With this kind of need, employee satisfied at the lowest level

Safety needs are the demands for favorable working conditions, workplace safety, job stability, protect the body during work According to Jandaghi, Mokhles, and Bahrami (2011); Fatimah, Noraishah, Nasir, and Khairuddin (2012); Jeong (2012); Jain and Jain (2013), job security is an essential determinant of job satisfaction Therefore, Maslow’s need for safety corresponds with job satisfaction by job security Maslow’s safety need is characterized by security of body, employment, resources, morality, the family, health, and property Therein, economic safety and workplace safety are demands on job security

Social needs are the needs to communicate with other people to create social relationships; to interact, affect, affiliate, share, and collaborate with other members of the organization The relationships with superiors, colleagues, and subordinates correspond to the satisfaction about social need in Maslow theory

Esteem needs are the needs for getting the appreciation, recognition of achievement from others through the rewards, status, opportunities for advancement Al-Amri (1994) showed that Esteem needs are difficult to be satisfied There two categories of this need: Internal esteem needs (self-confidence, independence, achievement, importance, competence,

satisfied from low

to high

and knowledge) and External esteem needs (the needs for status, recognition, and respect from others) In the study of Nwagwu (2015), self-esteem constructs identified most of the constructs

of job satisfaction

Self-actualization needs are the highest demands They are the desire to create, shown ability, themselves and their performances, aspirations, efforts to achieve its goals This kind of need proves for self-efficacy in job satisfaction Self – actualization is met when employees satisfied about self-efficacy They are confident in their ability and potential to perform different activities related to career planning and development

According to Stello (2011), An American psychologist - Frederic Herzberg created Motivation-Hygiene theory in 1959 This theory shows that the behaviors of people are impacted by two factors independently: Motivation and Hygiene The effects of two factors on the attitude of staffs create job dissatisfaction and job satisfaction Table 2.1 shows the details

No dissatisfaction (ko bất mãn) Dissatisfaction (Bất mãn)

Relationship Management method

No satisfaction (Chưa thỏa mãn) Negative

Motivation

Promotion The interest of work Satisfaction No satisfaction

Achievement Implication of job Positive No dissatisfaction

2.1.2 Job stress Job stress is a psycho - physiological state appearing when

employee is impacted and attacked intensely by anything in work According to Beehr and

Newman (1978), job stress is also a situation in which some characteristics of the work

situation are thought to cause poor psychological or physical health, or to create risk factors making poor health more likely According to Blosser (1999), job stress can be presented as the harmful physical and emotional responses that happen when the requirements of the job do not match the abilities, resources, or demands of worker

Arasli and Tumer (2008) showed that there are many effects of job stress on individual

as well as on the organization They can lead to lose adaptability and productivity of work, negative comments, and intention to give up Malik and Waheed (2010) stated that in the environment of workplace, job stress is the outlook of individual dysfunction attributable and the psychological affecting the tight, unfavorable, or unapproachable workplace position Malik and Waheed also demonstrated that job stress occurs when the individual does not have the skills and abilities to perform his/her job effectively, when he/she is not given the proper training or some necessary resources have not been given to perform the job or when he/she is confronted with conflicting job demands It is also identified as the experience of negative emotional states such as frustration, worry, anxiety and depression attributed to work related factors, all the stressors working in an individual’s life, job stress is one of the leading causes of stress Demands of the workplace may approve harmful to the employee both mentally and physically (Mustapha, 2013) Job stress is also called occupational stress and generally refers to the stress that caused by work or factors related to work (Yongkang, Weixi, Yalin, Yipeng & Liu, 2014) Their study also illustrated that “workplace has become a source of extreme stress

as a result of technological changes, mass retrenchment, information overload, and demand for greater productivity, fierce competition and uncertain future” (p 81) Thereupon, employees in the workplace spend most of their time striving to meet their job obligations and keep pace with this competitive world As a result, if managers do not seek out the solution to reduce the

“stressors”, they will have adverse effects on their domestic, social, and personal life In order

to help employee to gain career objectives in organization, human resources managers should interest in recruiting the right people – the right job, training them adequately and empowering

to make their decision in order to restrict job stress

2.1.3 Determinants of job satisfaction and job stress The prior studies explored the

effects on job stress significantly Rub (2003); Shirey (2004) found out that social support affects negatively job stress Moreover, Ahsan et al (2009) showed that there are significant relationships between role conflict, relationship with others, workload pressure, homework interface, role ambiguity, performance pressure and job stress To support the impact of role conflict and role ambiguity, Jahanzeb (2010) showed that job satisfaction is impacted negatively by role ambiguity, role conflict Role conflict and role ambiguity are functions as job stressors (Ram et al., 2011) Bermana et al (2013) stated that workload pressure and performance pressure influence in job stress According to Rizwan et al (2014), job stress has a significant positive relationship with role conflict, work overload and work- family conflict but

it does not have relationship with role ambiguity in Pakistan banking sector Vanishree (2014) showed strongly that role overload, role ambiguity and role conflict are factors influencing in

job stress positively

About the determinants influencing in job satisfaction, Kozey (2008); Mintz-Binder and Fitzpatrick (2009); Kuo-Sue (2015) had the same result that there is a positive relationship between social support and job satisfaction Ahsan et al (2009) also presented that the skill underutilization, excessive workload and/or variance workload, and role ambiguity are the most significant factors influencing in job satisfaction Mustapha (2013) expressed that interpersonal relationship and workload have impact on job satisfaction in Malaysia

However, there were many studies about role conflict, workload, social support, and role ambiguity affecting job stress/job satisfaction as above and they also had great implications for human resource management in the world but the topic seems to be rare in Vietnam So this study is implemented to research about these issues in Vietnam and the crucial industry affecting Vietnamese economics significantly is banking with its urgency and importance to improve human resource quality

2.1.4 Model of Sultan, Tarid, and Rali (2014) In previous researches, theoretical model of Sultan et al (2014) is the most obvious model concerning deeply about the

relationship between predictors (work overload, job ambiguity, lack of control, inter personal conflict) and job stress (see Figure 2.2) Besides that, they also mentioned the impact of gender, job category, and age on job stress in banking sector In the end, they found that job stress has significant relationship with lack of control, interpersonal conflicts, job category, and age but job stress is explored not to have significant relationship with work overload, job ambiguity, and gender classes.

Figure 2.2 Conceptual model of the factors influencing workplace stress in UAE banking sector

(Sultan et al., 2014, p 21)

2.1.5 Model of Lam (2010) While model of Sultan et al (2014) just studied about

the effects on job stress, Lam (2010) studied the influences of predictors on both job stress and job satisfaction among virtual IT workers (Figure 2.3) As a result, the study confirmed the different levels of job stress based upon the conflict at work, role ambiguity/conflict, job control, excessive workload, performance pressure, cognitive demands, non-work activities, social support, and skill underutilization The factor having the most significant cause in job stress was cognitive demands variable The findings also revealed that the factors predicting on job satisfaction were the skill underutilization, excessive workload and/or variance workload, and role ambiguity

Figure 2.3 Conceptual framework for a study of job stress on job satisfaction among virtual IT

virtual work

stress, job satisfaction, between job stress and job satisfaction were developed and research model was built in next part

2.2 Development of hypotheses and conceptual model

2.2.1 Role conflict and its effect on job stress/job satisfaction Role conflict

occurs when conflicting roles are required to be implemented by a member in an organization Faced with mutually exclusive expectations, the member experiencing role conflict cannot make a proper judgment to satisfy (Mo & Seog, 1999) Role conflict refers to the existence of conflicting demands within a single role or multiple roles (Elloy & Smith, 2003) Role conflict often occurs when conflicting demands are placed upon the individuals by their supervisors, peers, or subordinates, so this type of stress is more dominant in jobs that have vague descriptions and require abstract thinking and decision-making (Menon & Akhilish, as cited in Zhaos & Rashid, 2010) Role conflict is also generated when the demands are incompatible with the employee’s goal, ability, value, and belief (Bemana et al., 2013) Role theory showed that when behaviors expected of an individual are incompatible, he/she experiences stress, depress, become dissatisfied, and perform less effectively (Khattak & Iqbal, 2013) Rizwan et

al (2014) found that when employees are expected to perform two or more roles that are not feasible or complicated, it is easy to create role expectations This thing causes role conflict, which ultimately results in job stress

The previous studies gave two results about the relationship between role conflict and job stress In first result, Bemana et al (2013) studied the factors affecting job stress and job satisfaction in public municipality personnel from Shiraz, Iran and concluded that the relationship between role conflict and job stress is not significant with p = 0.72 However, in second result, the hypothesis “there is positive significant relationship between role conflict and job stress” was supported in studying about the relationship between role conflict and job stress

in private banking sector at Pakistan (Khattak & Iqbal, 2013) Moreover, the outcomes of Vanishree (2014) argued that in small and medium scale industries, there is a significant

positive relationship between role conflict and job stress Therefore, with the context of this study, the first hypothesis is assumed that:

H1a There is a significant positive relationship between role conflict and job stress

The recent researches found out that role conflict negatively effects on job satisfaction To be also a developing country in the Asian territory, when studying with branch managers of private sector commercial banks in Pakistan, Malik and Waheed (2010) also found that there was significant negative relationship between role conflict and job satisfaction (Beta = -0.410, p<0.01) To strengthen this thing, Khattak and Iqbal (2013) proved that role conflict is negatively associated with job satisfaction in private banking sector The way to increase job satisfaction of banking employees is removing role conflict Therefore, with Vietnam’s banking context being similar to above researched situation, it can be hypothesized that:

H1b There is a significant negative relationship between role conflict and job satisfaction

2.2.2 Workload and its effect on job stress/job satisfaction At a simplified level,

workload can be defined as the cost of accomplishing a task for a human operator These costs

can be fatigue, stress, and errors to name a few (Hart, as cited in Gawron, 2008) Workers see that their workload and timings to increase and their leisure time to decrease day-by-day (Altaf

& Awan, 2011) Workload is also the amount of work performed by an entity in a period or the average amount of work handled by an entity at a particular time (Vodila, 2013) Mustapha (2013) included that the success of an organization as demonstrated is impacted by daily workload

The majority of previous studies recognized that workload and job stress have the positive relationship Only Sultan et al (2014) indicated that workload is not found to have positive relationship with job stress in UAEbanking sector However, the result of Bemana et

al (2013) revealed that there is a positive significant association between workload and job stress Besides that, Vanishree (2014) also analyzed that work overload has positive impact on

job stress in small and medium scale industries It means that if the staffs have more workload, they will face to job stress more In the contrast, if the workload of employees reduces; the job stress will be less Following these arguments, hypothesis 2a is set up that:

H2a There is a significant positive relationship between workload and job stress

When studying the relationship between workload and job satisfaction in different industries, the previous studies also had two different results Altaf and Awan (2011) surveyed employees in different organizations at Islamabad and rejected that job overload has a negative impact on job satisfaction Sultan et al (2014) presented that there is not a moderately strong correlation between workers’ workload and job satisfaction in UAE banking sector Nevertheless, Lam (2010) studied that workload is one of the most significant influences on predicting job satisfaction of virtual workers in information technology Mustapha (2013) showed that there is a negative significant relationship between workload and job satisfaction at Public Universities in Kelantan, Malaysia with Beta = - 0.536, p = 0.000 This study confirmed

a moderately strong correlation between workload and job satisfaction of faculty So, based on the strong conclusion of prior researches, this study proposes:

H2b There is a significant negative relationship between workload and job satisfaction

2.2.3 Social support and its effect on job stress/job satisfaction Social support is

quite complex concept In the scope of job, social support is the product of interpersonal work relationships that has the potential to promote the well-being or coping abilities of the recipient (Cohen, as cited in Rub, 2003) It also has been defined as the actions of others that are helpful (Deelstra et al., 2003) According to Shirey (2004), social support can be tangible or intangible protection to shield people from the adverse effects of life stress Kozey (2008) also noted “the type of support offered by such sources was both tangible and non tangible” (p 34) He also mentioned that the social support is offered by organizational relationships from supervisors, peers, and subordinates Because participants in this study are almost first-line employees, so social support refers to social support from coworker and social support from supervisor, does

not refer to social support from subordinates

The significant negative correlation between social support and job stress was found out

in the previous studies Cohen et al (as cited in Rub, 2003) showed that social support from peers and superiors has directly and negatively effect on job stress among difference occupations For American hospital nurses, Rub (2003) also revealed that perceived social support from co-workers and supervisors negatively influence in level of reported job stress Similarly, Shirey (2004) noted that social support grows to reduce job stress in workplace Therefore, it is suitable to survey first – line employees for this study and the hypothesis is suggested:

H3a There is a significant negative relationship between social support and job stress

Social support is an important variable in the research about job satisfaction in work-life

of employees The data analysis in exploratory research of Mintz-Binder and Fitzpatrick (2009) showed that among associate degree program directors in California, social support significantly and positively affects job satisfaction Lam (2010) also showed that employees who had more good social supports were more likely to be satisfied with their jobs Therefore,

it is suggested that:

H3b There is a significant positive relationship between social support and job satisfaction

2.2.4 Role ambiguity and its effect on job stress/job satisfaction Role ambiguity is

the perception that one lacks necessary information to perform a job or task It leads the perceiver to feel helpless It is an employee`s uncertainty about the expectations of different members in his or her role set (Judeh, 2011) Judeh also found that when job descriptions and authority relationships are clear and obvious, they can contribute to solve ambiguity problems

If people know all details of their position in the organization, they will find it comfortable to take responsibility for their actions and to interact with others Role ambiguity increases when

roles for a particular position are uncertain, unclear, and poorly defined Performers deviate on role anticipations due to role expectations being unclear For instance, job description is a list that a person might use for general tasks or functions and responsibilities of a position It may

often include whom the position reports, specifications such as the qualifications or skills

needed by the person in the job If these are not properly discussed or mentioned so role

ambiguity will arise Role ambiguity appears when the employees do not have a “clear

dimension and definition of the role which are expected from them (expectations), and

requirements/procedures/methods which are necessary for the completion of tasks related to

their jobs” (Glissmeyer et al., as cited in Khattak & Iqbal, 2013, p 30)

Although few prior studies argued that the relationship between role ambiguity and job

stress is not significant (Bemana et al., 2013; Khattak & Iqbal, 2013; Rizwan et al., 2014).

However, the others concluded with opposite findings strongly The result in the study of

Ahsan et al (2009) showed that the association between role ambiguity and job stress is

significant and positive with Beta = 0.180 (p = 0.001) among University Staffs in Malaysia To

support for this thing, the result in research of Jahanzeb (2010) showed that role ambiguity is

one of job stress’s sources and the association between role ambiguity and job stress is

significant in Pakistan Moreover, Vanishree (2014) found out that organizations could change

or remove the stressors by redesigning jobs to reduce some factors including role ambiguity

Therefore, hypothesis is proposed that:

H4a There is a significant positive relationship between role ambiguity and job stress

Most of previous studies concluded that the relationship between role ambiguity and job

satisfaction is significant and negative Lam (2010) showed that role ambiguity is one of the

most significant antecedents effecting on job satisfaction among virtual workers in information

technology, United States of America Jahanzeb (2010) concluded that role ambiguity

influences significantly and negatively in job satisfaction It meant that organization can

increase employee’s job satisfaction by reducing role ambiguity Khattak and Iqbal (2013) also

had the same result, he illustrated that there is a significant negative relationship between role

ambiguity and job satisfaction Role ambiguity is found out as one of the roles of job stressor

that leads to reduce job satisfaction among employees of Pakistan banking sector with Beta = - 0.391

H4b There is a significant negative relationship between role ambiguity and job satisfaction

2.2.5 Job stress and job satisfaction According to Ahsan et al (2009), they also

concluded that job stress has negative influence on employee job satisfaction Jahanzeb (2010)

had the same result about the relationship between job stress and job satisfaction Similarly,

Ram et al (2011) also illustrated that job stress relates highly and negatively to job

satisfaction The result in study of Bemana et al (2013) also illustrated that there is a negative

association between job stress and employee job satisfaction In the overall, Khattak and Iqbal

(2013) supported that there is a significant positive relationship between role conflict and job

stress while role conflict negatively affects job satisfaction and lastly job stress mediates

between role conflict and job satisfaction From above literature review considered with the

context of Vietnamese banks in this study, this study hypothesizes that there is a significant

negative relationship between job stress and job satisfaction in Vietnamese banks So the

hypothesis is captured as following:

H5 There is a significant negative relationship between job stress and job satisfaction

2.3 Research model

From the review of prior researches about job stress and job satisfaction as mentioned

above, this part is designed to present the research model which shows the relationship

between each determinant and job stress, job satisfaction in banking industry of Vietnam as

Figure 2.4 It consists of nine hypothesizes from H1a to H5 corresponding with assumptions

about the impacts of role conflict, workload, social support, role ambiguity on job stress, on

job satisfaction; contemporaneously the relationship between job stress and job satisfaction

Figure 2.4 Research model

2.4 Chapter summary

In summary, this chapter briefed definitions and perceptions in literature for the theoretical concepts of job stress and job satisfaction It also verified that there is not any past study implemented to investigate the impact on job stress and job satisfaction from role conflict, workload, social support, and role ambiguity in Vietnam The conceptual frameworks

of this article was developed with four independent factors; the relationships between them and job stress; the relationships between them, job stress and job satisfaction Based on this model, next chapter was developed with research methodology

H4b (-) H4a (+)

H1a (+)

H2b (-) H1b (-)

H5 (-)

CHAPTER THREE: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

The purpose of this chapter is to introduce research methodology It includes three main parts Firstly, research design outlines eight steps in research progress Secondly, development

of questionnaire describes measurements scale and formed draft questionnaire from it Finally, this chapter ends with data collection method This part indicates the way to collect data for the study: pilot survey was used qualitative research to probe how participants understand draft questionnaire with their opinion and complete final questionnaire; main survey part presents how to define this study’s sample, shows sampling method and uses quantitative research to collect the data for analysis with method illustrated in the final part of this chapter

3.1 Research design

After identifying research background and problem statement, research objectives and literature review of this study were conducted as well as determined suitable conceptual model for banking in Vietnam Based on the scale, draft questionnaire was developed from measurement scale used in previous studies Next parts are pilot survey and main survey Pilot study was implemented to modify draft questionnaire being fitted with Vietnamese banking employees before conducting main survey Data collected from main survey was analyzed with data analysis method, and then reported the findings Figure 3.1 illustrates the process of research

Figure 3.1 Research design diagram

3.2 Development of questionnaire

3.2.1 Measurement scales The measurement scales measuring six concepts were

existed in previous academic journals In this research, the measurement scales of role conflict, role ambiguity were adapted from the study of Vanishree (2014) in Indian small and medium scale industries The items of workload were used from measurement scale of Sheraz, Wajid, Sajid, Qureshi, and Rizwan (2014) in the study about the causes of job stress in banking sector

of Bahawalpur, Pakistan Social support variable is used 14 items being adapted from the research of Rub (2003) The job stress scale was applied from the study of Lait and Wallace (2002) which researched job stress of Canadian human service workers Job satisfaction scale

is adapted from measurement scale of Malhotra and Mukherjee (2004) in the research about the

relative influence of organizational commitment and job satisfaction on service quality of customer-contact employees in call centers of a major UK retail bank

The measurement scale was used with interval scale with five - point of Likert scale: Strongly disagree (1), disagree (2), neutral (3), agree (4) and strongly agree (5) in order to constitute main content of the questionnaire

In measurement scale of social support, there are four negative statements They are

“There are well-defined groups of friends on this work unit, and I have not had much success at becoming part of any of these groups”, “I don’t feel I have much in common with others who work on this unit”, “I avoid the people on my unit as much as possible”, “I avoid the supervisor

on my unit as much as possible” These items were reverse coded

Table 3.1

Measurement scales

Role conflict 1 I do not have adequate resources and materials to

perform my duties

2 There is a mismatch between my abilities and

requirements of my job

3 I have to do things that should be done differently

4 I receive incompatible requests from two or more

Table 3.1

Measurement scales (Cont.)

Social support 9 I feel comfortable with my co-workers, and can

talk to them easily about personal matters

10 I am a good friend with some of the people I

work with

11 I enjoy working with the people on this unit

12 There are well-defined groups of friends on this

work unit, and I have not had much success at becoming part of any of these groups

13 I don’t feel I have much in common with others

who work on this unit

14 I am able to turn to my co-workers when I need

help on the job

15 I would like to do more, socially, with the people

on my unit

16 I avoid the people on my unit as much as

possible

17 I feel comfortable with my supervisor, and can

talk to him/her easily about

18 I enjoy working with the supervisor on this unit

19 I am able to turn to my supervisor when I need

help on the job

20 I would like to do more, socially, with the

Role ambiguity 23 Goals and objectives are not clear for my job

24 I am not sure of how much authority I have

25 I am not sure of what is expected of me

26 I am not clear of my responsibilities

27 I am not properly guided

28 I am uncertain about how my job is linked to

other jobs

Vanishree (2014)

Table 3.1

Measurement scales (Cont.)

Job stress 29 I am discouraged about my work

30 I feel that things are out of my control at work

31 I feel overwhelmed by my work

32 I feel like giving up on my job

33 I feel unable to get out from under my work

34 I feel frustrated with my work

Lait and Wallace (2002)

Job satisfaction 35 Overall, I feel I am satisfied with my job

36 I am generally satisfied with the kind of work I do

The questionnaire includes two main parts with 40 questions:

Part 1 consists of the statements showing the items in measurement scales of six variables with Likert scale This part also provides main data for testing research model

Part 2 describes the general information of participants Data in this part supplies the demographic information for the author to explore interviewees They are gender, age, education, salary

3.3 Data collection method

3.3.1 Pilot study Because measurement scale of this study is originally in English and

adapted from different countries and different industries, so that before main survey was conducted, pilot study has carried out by qualitative research in order to make sure that Vietnamese banking employees can understand the content in draft questionnaire clearly Moreover, it also helps the measurement scale of this study increase the degree of accuracy and trust

Qualitative research was implemented in the first week of August, 2015 Five banks having more than 9,000 employees were chosen They are ACB, Vietcombank, Sacombank, BIDV, Agribank Two first -line and fulltime employees in each bank were chosen to take part

in in-depth interview with the draft questionnaire in Vietnamese According to Boyce and Neale (2006), in-depth interview involves conducting intensively individual interviewees to explore their perspectives on a particular idea This technique is useful when you want to know more details about people’s thoughts and behaviors or discover any new issues in depth Interviewers often provide the context or data and suggest the completion After receiving and reading the questionnaires, interviewees were asked that how they understood the measurement scales and what the meaning of measurement scales were according to them According to Calitz (2009), in this progress, the researcher uses a short open-ended questionnaire Open-ended questions cannot be answered by yes or no These questions begin with "who," "what," "why," "where," and "when." They helps the researchers detect possible flaws in measurement procedures; explore unclear or ambiguous items in a questionnaire The non-verbal behaviors of participants in the pilot study may supply important information about embarrassment or discomfort express because of the content or words in the questionnaire The participants presented their opinions clearly Then, all comments from the interviewees were collected Base on the result of the interviews, the contents mentioned by more than four participants were chosen to modify the measurement scale So that, three items of the scale which are not comfortable in the thoughts of Vietnamese participants or make confuse or

difficult to understand were modified as Table 3.2 Appendix D showed the specific details of findings

Table 3.2

Findings of qualitative research

3.3.2 Main survey

3.3.2.1 Sample size Sample size was found to be adequate for this study

According to Tabachnick and Fidell (2007), the multiple regression analysis requires sample size being higher than 50 + (8xm), m is the number of independent variables In this research, there are four independent variables so that the minimum number of participants is 82 (= 50 +

8x4)

According to Hair, Black, Babin, and Anderson (2010), when sample sizes are higher than 400 respondents, they lead to overly sensitive statistical tests and demanding the researcher to examine all significant results to ensure that they have practical significance In