Factors affecting academic burnout and job performance, a study of married working women in vietnam

Using the data collection of 343 respondents, the author found that academic burnout was influenced negatively by core self-evaluation and positively by work-family and family-work confl

UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY

International School of Business

-

Vo Thuy Thanh Tam

FACTORS AFFECTING ACADEMIC BURNOUT AND JOB PERFORMANCE: A STUDY OF MARRIED

WORKING WOMEN IN VIETNAM

I would like to express my very great appreciation to my adviser - Dr Pham Ngoc Thuy with all my respect and gratitude I have been fortunate in receiving lots of her valuable guidelines, recommendations and feedbacks during this research

I am sincerely thankful to Professor Nguyen Dinh Tho, Associate Professor Tran Ha Minh Quan, Associate Professor Nguyen Thi Mai Trang and Dr Nguyen TN Que for their valuable time as proposal examination committee Their comments and meaningful advice contributed significantly for me to complete this thesis

My special gratitude is extended to all instructors and staffs of School International Scholl of Business – University of Economics Ho Chi Minh City for their teaching and guidance during my Master course

Most especially to my family, my closet friends for giving me strengths, support and love to overcome all the difficulties throughout my period of study

Contents

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT i

LIST OF FIGURES iv

LIST OF TABLES v

ABBREVIATIONS vi

ABSTRACT vii

1 INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Research background 1

1.2 Research problems 2

1.3 Research objectives 4

1.4 Research methodology 5

1.5 The significance of the study 5

1.6 Research structure 6

2 LITERATURE REVIEW AND HYPOTHESES 7

2.1 Theoretical foundation 7

2.2 Definition of constructs 9

2.3 Hypotheses development 11

2.4 The proposed research model 15

2.5 Chapter summary 16

3 METHODOLOGY 17

3.1 Research process 17

3.2 Measurement scales 18

3.3 Questionnaire design 21

3.4 Sampling 22

3.5 Data analysis 23

3.6 Chapter summary 24

4 DATA ANALYSIS 25

4.1 Data collection process 25

4.2 Sample characteristics 26

4.3 Exploratory Factor Analysis 28

4.4 Reliability Test 34

4.5 Testing research model using SEM 35

4.5.1 Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) 35

4.5.2 Structural Model 40

4.6 Bootstrap method 43

4.7 Discussion 45

4.8 Chapter summary 47

5 CONCLUSION, IMPLICATION, AND LIMITATION 48

5.1 Main findings 48

5.2 Managerial implication 49

5.2.1 Implication for married working women 49

5.2.2 Implication for human resource management 50

5.2.3 Implication for training institutes 50

5.3 Limitations 51

REFERENCES 52

APPENDICES 61

Appendix A List of in-depth interviews’ participants 61

Appendix B Refined measurement scales 62

Appendix C Questionnaire (Vietnamese Version) 68

Appendix D Questionnaire (English Version) 71

Appendix E Total Variance Explained (first round) 74

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 2.1 Core self-evaluations, work-family conflict, and job burnout (Haines et al., 2013)

8

Figure 2.2 Core self-evaluations, life satisfaction, and burnout (Lian et al., 2014) 9

Figure 2.3 Research model 16

Figure 3.1 Research process 17

Figure 4.1 Diagram CFA (first round) 36

Figure 4.2 Diagram CFA (last round) 37

Figure 4.3 SEM 41

LIST OF TABLES

Table 2.1 Summary of hypotheses 16

Table 3.1 Scales and coding 19

Table 4.1 Sample characteristics 26

Table 4.2 KMO and Bartlett's Test (first round) 29

Table 4.3 Pattern Matrix (first round) 30

Table 4.4 KMO and Bartlett's Test (last round) 31

Table 4.5 Total Variance Explained (last round) 32

Table 4.6 Pattern Matrix (last round) 33

Table 4.7 Reliability Results 34

Table 4.8 Standardized Regression Weights 38

Table 4.9 Fit indices for the test model result in CFA 39

Table 4.10 Composite reliability and average variance extracted 39

Table 4.11 Discriminant Validity 40

Table 4.12 Regression Weights 42

Table 4.13 Standardized Regression Weights 43

Table 4.14 Regression Weights (bootstrap standard errors) 44

Table 4.15 Removed Items 44

ABBREVIATIONS

AMOS: Analysis of Moment Structures

CEO: Chief Executive Officer

CFA: Confirmatory Factor Analysis

EAC: Asian Economic Community

EFA: Exploratory Factor Analysis

NGOs: Non-Governmental Organizations

SEM: Structural Equation Modeling

SME: Small and Medium-sized enterprises

SPSS: Statistical Package for Social Sciences

as wives and mothers in family This creates psychological pressure and causes difficulties in married working women Thus, the paper aims to examine the factors affecting academic burnout and job performance of married working women Findings from the research will be very useful for the human resources department to make plans and policies to manage and develop female staffs in firms

The measures were based on a thorough review of the previous literature This study included two phases, preliminary and main research, which were implemented in Ho Chi Minh City Using the data collection of 343 respondents, the author found that academic burnout was influenced negatively by core self-evaluation and positively by work-family (and family-work) conflict whereas job performance was affected positively by core self-evaluation and negatively by work-family (and family-work) conflict Finally, the results suggested that married working women should have optimistic self-view to deal easier with conflicts between job and family Consequently, they could reduce academic burnout and improve job performance Besides, the human resource department should establish more supportive policies to help female employees reduce stress from work and family conflicts so that they could perform job effectively Furthermore, the results could be applied for training institutes in attracting new students by supporting married working female students to achieve better study outcomes Some limitations of this research were shown at the end

Keywords: core self-evaluation, academic burnout, work-family conflict, family-work

conflict, job performance

1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Research background

Enhancing job performance is an important issue in survival and development of companies (Lai & Chen, 2012) Recruiting and retaining exceptional human talent can provide value of “human capital advantage” (Wang, Chiang & Tung, 2012) Otherwise, failure in these roles can lead extremely serious consequences for both company and economics Karatepe (2013) indicated that employees with full of stress could cause negative effect on their job performance Finding solutions to reduce employees’ burnout and improve employees’ performance is never an easy answer and could cost much time and money from not only organizations but also society

On the other hand, globalization reached its peak at the beginning of the twentieth century, which had heated up the market, especially the growing ones of the Third World In order to take more advantages in a highly competitive market, the demand to develop knowledge, skills and a global mindset for each individual in firms is supposed to increase significantly (Dobre, 2012)

In literatures, many studies have been carried out to investigate the factors affecting job performance (Springer, 2011; Ahmad & Omar, 2012; Ram, 2013; Fu & Deshpande, 2014) and job burnout (Bakker, Demerouti & Verbeke, 2004; Beheshtifar & Omidvar, 2013; Li et al., 2015) Academic burnout, which is considered as another type of job burnout applying in learning, has received much more concern of management sector in recent decades (Galbraith

& Merrill, 2012; Harris, Gallagher & Rossi, 2013; Haines et al., 2014; Anuradha & Jha, 2014; Lian et al., 2014; Hojat et al., 2015) Among these factors, core self-evaluation has become a hot issue in psychological researches due to its relevance to job burnout and job performance not only in a medical sector but also in economics (e.g Li, Guan, Chang & Zhang, 2014; Javed, Abrar, Haq & Shabir, 2014)

According to Haines et al., (2013), individual who has high core self-evaluation has less conflicts between work and family related activities These conflicts cause unbalance in individual’s life and decrease their quality of life (Md-Sidin, Sambasivan & Ismail, 2010;Lian et al., 2014) Thus, they are recognized the main reasons for individuals stress in modern

life within their impact on academic burnout and job performance (Ahmad & Omar, 2012; Karatepe, 2013)

1.2 Research problems

In the age of globalization, the needs to retain and manage talented employees, who have deep practical knowledge & high degree, is extremely essential in order to increase the competitive advantages of the firm (Kapoor, 2011)

Vietnam is known as a developing country and it is forecasted to face lots of opportunities as well as risks when taking part in Asian Economic Community in the end of

2015 (Vietnamnet, 2014) According to this news, there are majority of Vietnamese entrepreneurs that are not concerned adequately about information of AEC integrating process Hence, they have no preparation to contribute specific strategies and this could create

a potential chance for foreign companies to dominate Vietnamese market in the next few years Moreover, human resource is now conceded as an anxious problem for Vietnamese firms When Vietnam completely joins in Asian Economic Community, qualified Vietnamese workers have widely opportunities to work in multinational groups or Vietnamese large firms have more sources to recruit qualified managers (Vietnamnet, 2015) However, this also makes many shortcomings to both Vietnamese workers who are not qualified enough and small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) The employees have to face the challenge that whether they ought to improve themselves by achieving more skills and higher degrees or they will be discharged; whereas human resource department of Vietnamese firms need to find solutions of developing and retaining their current potential talents to avoid brain drain

As a result of this, examining factors affecting academic burnout and job performance are important for research

Although men used to be known as the majority of labor, in current, the demographic composition has been changed dramatically According to Vietnamese Government statistic

in 2014, women have more than 45 million people, accounting for over 50% of the national population and over 47% of social workers (Bhxhlamdong, 2014) More and more women have been working in the areas that has previously been the strength of men like electricity -

electronics, information technology, and mechanical engineer Moreover, women are increasingly holding important roles in government organizations, NGOs and firms

Research in 2015 by the International Labor Organization, Vietnam was ranked 76 out

of 108 countries in the rate of female participation in management with 23% (Ilo, 2015) According to that research, there were 29.5% women employers in the small and medium enterprises This had positive implications for the development of the country due to the fact that women accounted for half of the supportive international education resources, which means they also accounted for a significant proportion of the talents The study also showed

a positive relationship between the leadership of women with business efficiency The reason could be explained that women often control household budgets, making financial decisions and their purchasing power is increasing, they are important customers and consumers for products and services Therefore, making decisions in the enterprise should have the participation of both women and men In final, research results indicated that the support for women in career development was encouraged because increasing the proportion of women

in the highest positions of leadership would promote productivity and competency for business in particular, and for the economy - society in general

In the political field from the early 21st century have the appearance of famous female politicians such as Hillary Clinton (USA), Yingluck Shinawatra (Thailand), Angela Merkel (German) or successful female CEOs such as Indra Nooyi (PepsiCo), Sheryl Sandberg (Facebook), and Susan Wojcicki Diane (Youtube) On October 12, 2014, Vietnam already organized the day to praise the women entrepreneurs in the country (Antv, 2014) The typical examples like Ms Mai Kieu Lien (CEO of Vinamilk), Ms Thai Huong (CEO of TH True Milk), and Ms Pham Thi Viet Nga (CEO of DHG Pharma) have encouraged Vietnamese women to constantly develop and study for their better lives and the respect of society

However, it is not the same as other continents, Asia still underestimates the importance of women in work and life South Korea, China and Vietnam though publicize gender equality in society but under the influence of the ancient habits, women are still tied

to their role as wives and mothers, who have to undertake households from cooking, washing and other stuffs to take care of their husband and children Even though young women

nowadays are encouraged to develop career but after working, they still have to do chores at home Those who are married are expected not only have responsibility for their elementary family but also for their own parents and parents-in-law While human energy is limited, married women who have suffered the 8-hour job pressure, then continue to take care of their family, and in some cases they have to enhance knowledge and skills by joining training courses, it could not be surprised that they are burnout Finding and understanding burnout problem of married women will be very useful for the human resources department to make plans and policies to manage and develop married female staffs who gradually keep higher and more significant positions in companies recent years

In the literature, many world-wide scholars have researched the influence of core evaluation on job performance (Karatepe, 2011; Ahmad & Omar, 2012; Tang, Tang & Li, 2013), the influence of core self-evaluation on academic burnout (Kao, 2009; Lian et al., 2014), or the relationship between work-family (and family-work) conflict and job burnout

self-as well self-as job performance (Wang, Chang, Fu & Wang, 2012; Karatepe, 2013), but very few

same studies were examined the influence of core self-evaluation on academic burnout and job performance mediating by work-family (and family-work) conflict and studied toward women in Vietnam, especially married working women Although women in general may have the same pressure from work, family and studying, married working women seems to suffer much more stressful due to their responsibility of work, the role of wife and mother, and studying simultaneously (Noor, 2004; Koyuncu, Burke & Wolpin, 2012; Lian et al., 2014) Moreover, it is not denied that they are actually important in labor force who have contributed significantly on firms’ stability and success Thus, this study examines the role of core self-evaluation to academic burnout and job performance, mediating by work-family (and family-work) conflict among married working women in Vietnam

1.3 Research objectives

The overall objectives of this research are to examine the effect of core self-evaluation to academic burnout and job performance through the influence of work-family and family work

conflict of married working women in Vietnam Specifically, a model was developed to explain:

- The direct relationships of Vietnamese married working women’s core self-evaluation between their academic burnout and their job performance

- The individual effect of Vietnamese married working women’s core self-evaluation on academic burnout and job performance through work-family and family-work conflict

as the two mediators

1.4 Research methodology

The research was conducted on married working women in Ho Chi Minh City The author choose Ho Chi Minh City because it is the largest city which has lots of diverse kinds

of companies and education programs in Vietnam

The questionnaire was translated into Vietnamese and applied widely after refining by face-to-face in depth interviewing with 6 married female students from evening and weekend classes and the supervisor

This study used convenience sample with face-to-face interview method The sample size was expected around 350, thus, 650 questionnaires were delivered to participants

Data was analyzed by SPSS 20 and AMOS 20 The author used EFA to test the measurement model and CFA for reliability and validity SEM was used to test the structural model

1.5 The significance of the study

In terms of practice, the research results will help married female employees become more aware of the importance of self-evaluation, enhancing their capabilities as well as create

a balance between work and family in order to increase the efficiency of learning as well as job performance

Besides, the project also helps the human resource management understand married female employees who have both to work and learning higher, thereby offering solutions to support and encourage them so as to not only help employees but also increasing the firm’s important asset - human resource

The training institutions could utilize the result of this research to understand married female customers, and basing on the customer insight, they could find more solutions to support them and build its own strategy to attract more female learners such as creating flexible timetables, e-learning form, submission via online system to reduce unnecessary activities to help women save time and health to boost their personal accomplishment

The study also could help families and society have an open mind for women responsibility, erasing the out-of-date thinking that women should focus only on the kitchen and housework Within perception of women needs, families and society can support the married female employees in sharing tasks such as homes care, children care, encouraging them to nonstop improving themselves

- Chapter 2: Literature review and hypotheses

This chapter introduces the fundamental theories and definition of each concepts, theoretical modeling, hypotheses and the conceptual model of this study

- Chapter 3: Research methodology

This chapter illustrates the research design, research methodology and the process of conducting in the study

- Chapter 4: Data analysis

This chapter summarizes the characteristics of collected sample and the result of this study after analyzing data

- Chapter 5: Conclusions, implications, and limitation

This chapter provides the findings, the contribution of this study in managerial theory and practice as well as the limitations of the study for future research direction

2 LITERATURE REVIEW AND HYPOTHESES

This section starts with theoretical foundation, definitions of each concepts which have been conducted in previous papers Based on those studies, hypotheses and conceptual model are proposed

2.1 Theoretical foundation

Conservation of Resource Theory

The research was developed based on the conservation of resource theory which was implemented by Hobfoll in 1989 (Heinz et al., 2013) Hobfoll (cited in Karam, 2011) indicates that the resources which include objects (e.g possessing an apartment, a car), conditions (e.g being employed, being part of a group), personal resources (e.g having necessary knowledge, skills and abilities), and energy resources (e.g level or engagement) are limited, thus employees try to gain, preserve and assure them When the conflicts happen, individuals encounter both threat of resource loss and actual loss of resources

Pheko (2013) supposes that conservation of resource theory is used as an appropriate foundation to comprehend the two interfaces (i.e work and family) The model could also explain stress issue from intra-role and inter-role conflict, offering a stable conceptual framework Lots of researchers have applied it to strongly determine the relationship between these two domains and illustrate how these conflicts affect the firm performance

Model of Core self-evaluations, work-family conflict, and burnout

Base on conservation of resource theory, Haines et al (2013) apply to human resources management to investigate the effect of work-family (and family-work) conflicts to burnout

and draw the model of Core self-evaluations, work-family conflict, and burnout as below:

Figure 1 Core self-evaluations, work-family conflict, and job burnout (Haines et al., 2013)

Figure 2.1 Core self-evaluations, work-family conflict, and job burnout (Haines et al., 2013)

In the model, core self-evaluations of individuals is considered a factor that influences their burnout Work-family and family-work conflict play an intervening role, stand between core self-evaluations and burnout to mediate the relationship of them Haines and his partners also study the moderating role of core self-evaluations on the relationship between work-family (and family-work) conflict, but this study does not concern this part of the model The result of this paper confirms the negative relationship between core self-evaluations and work-family (and family-work) conflict, as well as the positive relationship between work-family (and family-work) conflict and burnout However, the outcome of this paper is known

as general stress and strain status of people and it has not studied deeper in any specific fields yet (e.g academic burnout, job burnout, health burnout) Another noticeable limitation is that the respondents of this research focus on police officers and civilian staffs in Quebec (Canada), thus the accuracy of its findings when generalizing to employees in other workplaces is not assure

Model of Core self-evaluations, life satisfaction, and academic burnout

With the same idea of Haines et al., Lian and his colleagues (2014) also choose core self-evaluations to be a predictor factor of burnout, but they select to investigate the spectacular area – academic burnout among university students Base on previous findings that the main individual factors that affect academic burnout are self-efficacy, locus of control, and self-esteem, they defend that core self-evaluations can predict negative academic burnout Besides, many papers confirmed that all dimensions of job burnout have negative relationship with satisfaction (Dyrbye et al., 2013; Wang et al., 2014; Khamisa et al., 2015)

In addition, Judge et al (2003) indicated that core self-evaluations can completely predict the degree of satisfaction Hence, they proposed the second hypothesis that core self-evaluations influence academic burnout by mediating life satisfaction The result proves both of two hypotheses with significantly emphasize on the suitable predictor of core self-evaluation on burnout and affirm that students with a positive self-view can be more interested in their life

and feel more satisfaction This leads to reduce students’ awareness and pressure of learning

Figure 2 Core self-evaluations, life satisfaction, and burnout (Lian et al., 2014)

Figure 2.2 Core self-evaluations, life satisfaction, and burnout (Lian et al., 2014)

2.2 Definition of constructs

Core self-evaluations

As mentioned above, core self-evaluations have received much more interest from

scholars all over the world, thus there are many definition of it Judge et al defined this term

as “an individual's most fundamental evaluation of his own ability and value” (Zhou et al.,

2014) The interpretation of core self-evaluations is also understood that the internal

personality factors reflecting the belief of ones’ capability, control and competency (Li et al.,

2014) It is also perceived a broad latent construct, including four personality traits which are self-esteem - evaluation of self-worth, locus of control - evaluation of one’s control over one’s environment, self-efficacy - evaluation of one’s capability and competence to be success, and emotional stability - evaluation of one’s emotional adjustment (Judge et al., 2003) In general, core self-evaluations are concerned with the ability of individual to assess his own competences through the personality traits, mainly including self-esteem, locus of control, self-efficacy, and emotional stability

Work-family conflict

Work and family are the inseparable two sides of adults’ lives (Olorunfemi, 2009) but these two domains are discovered to conflict each other because of simultaneous demands of the role between his/her work and family (Mihelic & Tekavcic, 2014) Work-family conflict

is considered a vital factor cause work stress (Demerouti et al., 2001; Wallace, 2005; Radzali, Ahmad & Omar, 2013) This may be because the pressure that employees have when they could not balance their work-life leads them not to concentrate on work-related activities, thus work stress happens In general, work-family conflict occurs when individual could not play

a good role in family since he focuses much more on his job

Family-work conflict

On the other hand, family–work conflict appears when man spends too much time worrying his family than work (Boyar et al., 2008;Mihelic & Tekavcic, 2014) For example,

a woman have to request working days-off to look after her sick son because she has no

support from her family In this case, this female employee scarifies her job for her family

Academic burnout

The word “burnout” used to mention work-related stress in studying the factors affecting employees’ outcomes (e.g Rosenberg & Pace, 2006; Kim, Ji & Kao, 2011; Cooke, Doust & Steele, 2013) Nowadays, according to Lian et al (2014), academic burnout is known as a spread of job burnout in education environment because students also have to perform many activities which are the same as work, such as responsibility to complete assigned work in given time, cooperation among colleagues, presentation, updating new information Anuradha & Jha (2014) define that student academic burnout is the stress which

reached its peak level, affecting student’s academic performance They suppose that it appears when students have no interest in studying, annoyed with lecturers’ expectations, and are tired

of studying Being burnout not only affect students’ education and their results but also threaten other workers due to their underperformance (Kizilci, Erdogan & Sözen, 2012) Thus, it becomes an important problem and is examined by many modern scholars

Job performance

As job performance is a vital factor in both organization psychology and human resource management (Campell,1990, as cited in Gary, 2011), there are many definitions of job performance While Campell et al (1993, as cited in Parker, 2007) stated that job performance covered all behaviors that were controlled by employees themselves to achieve company goals, Silvester, Patterson & Ferguson (2003) concluded more specifically in sales areas that sales performance comprised daily efforts of salesman to attract customers, serve customer service and achieve sales target Thus, it could be said that depending on the context, job performance is comprehended differently However, in general it could be concluded that job performance aggregated daily work activities of employees in each department of the firm and they were assessed periodically based on the level that individuals achieved the firm objective by people who have upper level position compared to them

2.3 Hypotheses development

Relationships of core self-evaluations and work–family and family-work conflicts

Many recent documents have supposed that positive core self-evaluations leads to

lessen work-family (and family-work) conflict (Haines et al., 2013; Lian et al., 2014) This result may be due to the reason that an individual who has high core self-evaluations means

he is optimism and thus he could easily overcome troubles in his life and work to upturn his quality of life (Jiang et al., 2014) In other words, when someone perceives their competency

in controlling their life, they have a powerful motivation to complete both work and family related activities perfectly by many different ways

There are differences in philosophy between Western and Eastern women While Western women with freedom mindset could not accept to be tied in marriage life, Eastern

ones consider house chores are those things that they have responsibility and mandatory obligation to do Ritual and behavior culture in Vietnamese society have ingrained into the minds of young girls, continued to follow them when they grow up and get married As a result of this is that Vietnamese women consider the joy of taking care of their husband and children is priority in life

Although Vietnam society publicize gender equality and encourage women to immerse

in work life, pay attention to foster the ability to develop their own career However, the conflict between the traditional housewife duties and the attractiveness from knowledge and skills investment as well as stable career sometimes causes them stressful and exhausted As

it was stated in conservation of resource theory, due to limited human resource, if one focuses

on one object, the performance of other tasks will be reduced

Therefore, to working women who got married, optimistic self-view could be the solution to bring them more confident in balancing their life Positive thinking about their own capacity could help them calmly handle conflicts between their work and family life This leads to the first and second hypotheses:

H1: There is a negative relationship between core self-evaluation and work - family conflict H2: There is a negative relationship between core self-evaluation and family - work conflict

Relationships of work-family and family-work conflicts and academic burnout

Family and work are two inseparable aspects of the modern women life, but with limited resources, married working women can not manage well both the two work simultaneously Conflicts between family and work is always a topic attracted many researchers in the field of human resources

Work-family conflict occurs when women are dedicated to develop their career and unconcern about family matters Many husbands with conservative ideology suppose that household is simple, a good wife must undertake good housework such as cooking, laundry, child care, etc but they forget those things require lots of time and effort of the wife To married working women who put their priority on career, it is almost exhausting their resources After long time working hard at office with tons of documents, project timeline,

sometimes they have to work overtime, so when they come home, they feel too tired to complete family care obligations

On the other hand, family-work conflict happens when women overweight their private family life and not focus on their job Today they worry about the health of their husband and children, tomorrow they are sad because of their family They use working time

to search cheap goods or cooking recipes They not really focus on work, so they meet a variety of errors and failures

In both two cases, conflicts cause married working women stressful and depressed because they always hope to finish well both work and private life Work-family balance or how to solve the conflict between work and family roles of individual is “at the core of issues central to human resource development” (Grzywacz & Carlson, 2007) Lots of prior researchers affirmed the importance of understanding the influence of stress and conflicts on employees’ burnout They have the same perspective that failure to balance personal life with work will cause serious consequences, such as making employees feel depressed (Shree, 2012) The reason may be because once individual could not balance their work-life by defeating work-family (and family-work) conflict, they could not concentrate on effectively finishing both roles family and work, thus they always have to worry and nervous

In addition, women with career promotion ambitious tend to take part in skill training courses or higher education program after their working time However, with limited personal resources and energy resources, they hardly arrange enough time to concentrate on their study Especially, when married female students could not feel satisfied with their work and family, they could not focus adequately on their learning For example, when their children are sick

or their boss request them to work overtime, they may be absence in many classes, lack of knowledge, or could not spend time to do homework Their knowledge and skills from school are gradually been forgot while the demand of them exists This leads them easy to feel depressed and disappointed of themselves because their capacity could not be better as their expectation Hence, when they have to face with deadline of homework or examination, it is not quite difficult to recognize that they are afraid and exhausted in studying As a result of this, the hypotheses could be offered that:

H3: There is a positive relationship between work - family conflict and academic burnout H4: There is a positive relationship between family – work conflict and academic burnout

Relationships of work-family and family-work conflicts and job performance

As mentioned above, the level of work-life balance has represented employees’ attitude, behavior and outcomes Eby et al (as cited in Baral & Bhargava, 2010) said that incompatibility between work and family cause not only employees’ health but also organizational performances This viewpoint is continued to be demonstrated in recent researchers such as Lim, Song & Choi (2012), Goyal, Jain & Jain (2013) It is said that the harmony in life which implies the balance between workplace role and the role of family would bring benefits to employees and organization; otherwise, the missing of this consensus causes extremely worse troubles to employees and leads to poor job performance (Kim, 2014)

Vietnamese women were educated from very soon age that they have to take responsible for caring their future own family Although new cultural ideas which imported

in Vietnam attract women to have dynamic work life outside their home, women still suppose that family household is their mandatory obligation Therefore, they want to complete well both work and family life Married female employees who prefer working to family, they seem to have effective job outcomes However, for a long time, due to their carelessness of taking care of children or household, the tension among family members will cause extremely stressful status to them Due to this situation, their performance at work reduce significantly The inverse correlation between family-work conflict and job performance is shown more obviously Employees who tend to absence too much to solve their family problems or not concentrate on working, it is certain that they cause lots of mistakes in work and not be assessed high in job performance Thus, two bellowed hypotheses are suggested:

H5: There is a negative relationship between work - family conflict and job performance H6: There is a negative relationship between family – work conflict and job performance

Relationships of core self-evaluations, job performance and academic burnout

Followed the idea of Kammeyer-Mueller et al (2009), positive core self-evaluations

is expected to reduce stressors which declines the extreme psychological strain It means core

self-evaluations and burnout have a negative relationship Li et al (2014) demonstrates this

relationship again through the research of core self-evaluation and burnout among nurses The results show that “Nurses who had higher self-evaluation characteristics, reported less emotional exhaustion and cynicism, and higher professional efficacy” Besides that, Karatepe (2011) confirms that exhaustion is negatively related to job performance Hence, it could be said that core self-evaluations has positive relationship with job performance or adverse

direction with burnout Furthermore, core self-evaluations could directly influence academic burnout because based on previous papers, four traits of core self-evaluations (self-esteem,

self-efficacy, locus of control, and emotional stability) are proved to affect academic burnout (Yang & Farn, cited in Lian et al., 2014) Applied in married working women situation, if they have high core self-evaluation, they could quickly find solutions to reduce stress which come from their job or their study Therefore, the two last proposed hypotheses could be stated that:

H7: There is a positive relationship between core self-evaluation and job performance H8: There is a negative relationship between core self-evaluation and academic burnout

2.4 The proposed research model

From the arguments of seven hypotheses, the conceptual model of the paper is drawn

as below:

Figure 3 Proposed Research model

Figure 2.3 Proposed Research model

Table 1 Summary of hypotheses

Table 2.1 Summary of hypotheses

H1 There is a negative relationship between core self-evaluation and work - family conflict H2 There is a negative relationship between core self-evaluation and family - work conflict H3 There is a positive relationship between work - family conflict and academic burnout H4 There is a positive relationship between family – work conflict and academic burnout H5 There is a negative relationship between work - family conflict and job performance H6 There is a negative relationship between family – work conflict and job performance H7 There is a positive relationship between core self-evaluation and job performance H8 There is a negative relationship between core self-evaluation and academic burnout

3 METHODOLOGY

This chapter presents methodology of this study Firstly, the research process that is followed by measurement scales, which are used to develop questionnaire Next is the questionnaire design Finally, the sample and the tests used in data analysis are discussed

academic burnout and job performance Then, measurement scales were selected from prior researches A draft questionnaire was built based on these measurement and translated into Vietnamese The study included two phases, preliminary research and main research, and implemented in Ho Chi Minh City

The preliminary research was conducted by a qualitative study which is in-depth interviewing with 6 married working female students and the supervisor to modify and refine the scale items from translated scales The in-depth interview helped to choose and adjust which items were appropriate with married working female students in Vietnamese context Interviewees’ feedback helped to adjust statements clearer and more understandable

A quantitative main research was executed with a convenience sample of 343 married working female students by face-to-face interview with a structural questionnaire

The methods of data analysis included testing Cronbach’s alpha, Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) using SPSS version 20, Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA), and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) test using AMOS software version 20

3.2 Measurement scales

Core self-evaluation: The scale of core self-evaluation was developed by Judge et al

(2003), including 12 items which were ranged on the 5-point Likert from 1 (strongly disagree)

to 5 (strongly agree) Average scores of 12 items were summed to represent the core evaluation scale

self-Work-family (and family-work) conflict: Based on Netemeyer, Boles and

McMurrian (1996), there were 5 items using to assess work-family conflict and 5 items using

to measure family-work conflict These items were also rated on the 5-point Likert from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree) The score of work-family (and family-work) conflict was a sum of 4 relevant items

Academic burnout: Academic burnout of postgraduate married female students was

measured by the same scales of Schaufeli et al (2002), using Maslach Burnout Inventory Students Survey (including 15 items divided into 3 factors: Exhaustion, Cynicism, and

Efficacy) The items were scored on the 5-point Likert from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree)

Job performance: Job performance was measured by the same scales of Becker et al

(1996), including 6 items which were marked on the 5-point Likert from 1 (strongly disagree)

to 5 (strongly agree)

Table 2 Original Measurement Scales

Table 3.1 Original Measurement Scales

I am confident I get the success I deserve in life

Sometimes I feel depressed (r)

When I try, I generally succeed

Sometimes when I fail, I feel worthless (r)

I complete tasks successfully

Sometimes, I do not feel in control of my work (r)

Overall, I am satisfied with myself

I am filled with doubts about my competence (r)

I determine what will happen in my life

I do not feel in control of my success in my career (r)

I am capable of coping with most of my problems

There are times when things look pretty bleak and hopeless to me (r)

The demands of my work interfere with my home and family life

The amount of time my job takes up makes it difficult to fulfill family responsibilities Things I want to do at home do not get done because of the demands my job puts on me

My job produces strain that makes it difficult to fulfill family duties

Due to work-related duties, I have to make changes to my plans for family activities

Family-work conflict:

1

2

3

The demands of my family or spouse/partner interfere with work-related activities

I have to put off doing things at work because of demands on my time at home

Things I want to do at work don't get done because of the demands of my family or spouse/partner

I feel emotionally drained by my studies

I feel used up at the end of a day at university

I feel tired when I get up in the morning and I have to face another day at the university Studying or attending a class is really a strain for me

I feel burned out from my studies

Cynicism

I have become less interested in my studies since my enrollment at the university

I have become less enthusiastic about my studies

I have become more cynical about the potential usefulness of my studies

I doubt the significance of my studies

Professional Efficacy

I can effectively solve the problems that arise in my studies

I believe that I make an effective contribution to the classes that I attend

In my opinion, I am a good student

I feel stimulated when I achieve my study goals

I have learned many interesting things during the course of my studies

During class I feel confident that I am effective in getting things done

I completed work in a timely and effective manner

I performed high-quality work

I completed tasks in an unsatisfactionary manner

I feel happy with my quality of work

I did my job better than others

Overall, I satisfied with my job performance

3.3 Questionnaire design

The questionnaire included three sessions:

- Session 1: General information

The purpose of this session was to select interviewees in the research market

- Session 2: Main content

This session included main questions to collect necessary data for the the research

- Session 3: Other information

This session included questions to collect personal information of interviewees

Measurement scales adjustment

Although the measurement scales of this paper were applied in many researches, but due to the differences between Vietnam and other countries, the scales needed to be modified before launching in Vietnam context

The original measurement scale of Academic burnout included three dimensions: exhaustion, cynicism, and professional efficacy According to Schaufeli et al (2002),

“Burnout among students refers to feeling exhausted because of study demands, having a cynical and detached attitude toward one’s study, and feeling incompetent as a student” They also supposed that burnout was performed by high scores on exhaustion and cynicism and low scores on professional efficacy This meant all professional efficacy items were reversed scored which were known to reduce burnout of students However, in this married working female research, the author decided to focus on factors that indicated burnout to find solutions for them Therefore, after in-depth interviewing with 6 married working female students and the supervisor, professional efficiency items were eliminated in this paper and all questions were put into one main factor – academic burnout 5-point Likert from 1 (strongly disagree)

to 5 (strongly agree) was applied in the questionnaire

Besides that, six reverse-score items in core self-evaluation and one reverse-score item

in job performance were eliminated to avoid misunderstandable and inaccurate data

All the questions of the draft questionnaire were translated into Vietnamese to assure all items were obvious and easy to understand by most of interviewees The interviewees were

married working female students which were chosen from evening and weekend classes List

of six participants was reported in Appendix A All comments and suggestions were expressed in the Appendix B The Vietnamese official questionnaire surveys were shown in Appendix C and Appendix D for English version

In summary, scale of core self-evaluation consisted 5 items adopted from Judge et al (2003) Scales of work-family conflict and family-conflict included 10 items, which adopted from Netemeyer, Boles and McMurrian (1996) Scale of academic burnout included 7 items based on scale of Schaufeli et al (2002) Scale of job performance consisted 5 items, which adopted from Becker et al (1996) Totally, measurement scales included 27 items had been used to formulate the questionnaire survey

3.4 Sampling

Size: After modifying scales, the total items of this study were 27, while the necessary

to ensure the test and statistics was to have at least five observations per item (Hair et al., 2009) Thus the minimum sample of this study were n =27*5=135 observations With expectation to obtain a sample size of about 350, about 700 questionnaires were delivered to interviewees

Research objects: Married working women who are satisfied with four conditions: (1): Vietnamese women; (2): Get married; (3): Working; (4): Studying in higher training programs

Since the research objects focused on white-collar married female workers who needed

to study higher training programs to improve their knowledge and skills for the demands of business development, the research interviewees were chosen from work-study programs, pathway programs, postgraduate programs and soft-skills training short courses at five schools in Ho Chi Minh city: University of Economics Ho Chi Minh City, University of Social Sciences and Humanities, University of Technology, International Education Institute and The Centre of Economics Development

3.5 Data analysis

SPSS 20 and AMOS 20 were used to test the model

Cronbach’s alpha analysis was used to test correlation among items of a questionnaire

to measure internal consistency The scale was accepted when Cronbach’s alpha coefficient was 0.7 and above (Hair et al., 2009)

Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) was used to test the validity of scales and modify the research model by exploring how the variables relate and group based on inter-variable correlations The variables were only accepted when the factor loadings were greater than 0.5, the correlation coefficient was greater than 0.4 (Pallant, 2011), Bartlett’s test of sphericity was significant (p < 0.05), and the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) index was greater than 0.6 (Hair et al., 2009)

In this study, CFA was used to test reliability and validity for measurement model by measuring concepts and testing hypotheses through factor loadings, composite reliability and average variance extracted The reliability of measurement scale was assessed through composite reliability (CR) index which was expected to be above 0.7, the convergent validity was affirmed from average variance extracted (AVE) which should be greater than 0.5, and the discriminant validity would be accepted if the correlation coefficient between constructs were different from 1 (Hair et al., 2009)

Structural equation modeling (SEM) was a powerful statistic technique because it could test variety of hypothesized models that included latent and observed variables (Cheung, 2014) In other words, SEM was an extension of the general linear model and applied for the models that have complex path relationships (such as mediating variables, moderating variables, control variables) Otherwise for simple models, SEM was advised not

to be used because its flexibility and large of data collection requirement

SEM included the measurement model and the structural model The measurement model presented evaluation of convergent and discriminant validity whereas the structural model provide evaluation of predictive validity Both of the models can assess the whole research model which fit the sample data based on model fit indicates such as Goodness of Fit Index (GFI), Comparative Fit Index (CFI), the Normed Fit Index (NFI), mean square

error of approximation (RMSEA) (Hair et al., 2009) The results indicated the model fit if Chi-square coefficient (CMIN/df) was less than 3 with p-value greater than 0.05, Goodness

of Fixed Index (GFI) and Comparative Fit Index (CFI) were larger than 0.9, and Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) was smaller than 0.05 (Hair et al., 2009)

This proposed research model had two mediating variables (work-family conflict and family-work conflict), thus to optimize the data analysis, SEM was used to test the structural model by evaluating how well the model fit the sample data

3.6 Chapter summary

In summary of chapter 3, based on previous measurement scales, the draft questionnaire of this paper was created and then modified by in-depth interview with 06 Vietnamese research objectives This chapter also indicated the choices of sample size with the process to collect and analysis data The results of data analysis and discussion for findings would be presented in chapter 4

4 DATA ANALYSIS

In chapter 4, the results of this study are presented through the steps of interviewees’ demographics, exploratory factor analysis (EFA), Cronbach’s alpha test, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), structural equation modeling, and bootstrap method Finally, based on the results of data analysis, the explanation for findings are discussed

4.1 Data collection process

Survey had been conducted in 3 months (from July, 2015 to September, 2015) Survey location: The University of Economics Ho Chi Minh City, University of Social Sciences and Humanities, University of Technology, The International Education Institute (IEI), and The Centre of Economics Development

Objective: female students from work-study programs, pathway programs, postgraduate programs and soft-skills training short courses

Time to conduct survey: evenings of weekdays (from Monday to Friday), Saturday afternoon, and Sunday morning and afternoon

In detail, the author with the help of two students after applying the requirement to the schools department of training and classroom teachers, came to class at break-time, then introduced and presented briefly the research and asked for the support from female students The survey questionnaires were delivered to female students, and survey executives took responsibility to answer queries of the questionnaires Besides, since the research objective is woman who has to both go to school and go to work, so women who are not suitable would return the questionnaires The questionnaires were collected after the respondents completed

or at the end of the class

After 2 weeks of conducting the survey, the author recognized that participants in Sunday afternoon class felt more comfortable and enthusiastic in answering the questionnaire than others The reason may be that female students felt energetic and relaxed because they did not suffer pressure from work as well as the last study session of the week was prepared

to be end

In summary, during the research, total 650 questionnaires were distributed to female students in evening and weekend classed from five schools (University of Economics Ho Chi Minh City, University of Social Sciences and Humanities, University of Technology, International Education Institute and The Centre of Economics Development) 524 questionnaires were collected Hence the response rate was approximately 80 percent (=524/650) On the other hand, the author hoped to reduce the stress of interviewees’ marital status, this item was moved to session three instead of the first session to select interviewees Thus, total 181 questionnaires were eliminated because interviewees were single These invalid records would be retained for future related studies Finally, 343 questionnaires were used as valid data for this research In comparison with minimum sample size, this number of data was satisfactory

4.2 Sample characteristics

Total 343 observations were collected from five schools: University of Economics Ho Chi Minh City, University of Humanity and Social Sciences, University of Technology, International Education Institute, and Centre of Economics Development The data was analyzed by SPSS version 20 – Statistical Package Software The summary of data’s descriptive statistic was presented in Table 4.1

able 3 Sample characteristics

Table 4.1 Sample characteristics

Years to finish the

Married, have children 182 53.1

Regarding training program element and years to finish the program, a majority of interviewees studied master or PhD program (54.8%) while a quarter of them were learning short courses (25.4%) There was the same results with years to finish the program A large majority of observations needed from 1 to 4 years to complete their study (68.5%) whereas there was only 6.1% of them had to study 4 years and above This could be explained that because most labors today had already finished bachelor degree, hence, there was a tiny minority of interviewees following both working-study programs which required 4 years and

above to finish In order to develop themselves, employees tended to choose pathway program, second bachelor program, higher education program or short courses

Data also divided interviewees into three age group, including under 25 years old, 25

to 35 years old, and 35 years old and above However, the ratios of these three group were not highly discriminated (32.1%, 40.8%, 27.1% in turn) This implied that there was diverse age in research objectives

In regard to marital status, since the objectives of the study were married working women, 100% valid observations were married Besides, there were slightly lower percentage

of married women who have children (46.9%) than who have not a child yet (53.1%) The result might be due to the diversity in age group of interviewees

The collected database separated job of interviewees into 4 parts: Manager and team leader – who had responsibility to manage people, Officer – who did documents, official working, Teacher and lecturer, and Other The Table 4.1 showed that there was nearly equal between manager/team leader and officer job (45.5% and 46.1% respectively) A tiny minority of respondents were teacher or lecturer and other

Regarding the income per month, more than half interviewees came from income group under 10 million VND per month (55.7%), 37.3% working female disclosed that they earned from 10 to 20 million VND, and only 7% could receive above 20 million VND a month This indicated that although Vietnamese female had achieved higher pay, general base salary in Vietnam nowadays was less than 10 million VND

4.3 Exploratory Factor Analysis

EFA was used to test the relationships among internal variables It was applied to test the model with KMO and Barltlett’s combined with Promax rotation which were highly recommended for structural equation modeling (SEM) KMO from 0.6 to 1 is a good factor analysis, and Bartlett’s test of Sphericity should be significant (Sig < 0.05) for factor analysis

to be considered appropriate (Hair et al., 2009) Moreover, Total Variance Explained needs

to be over 50% and Eigen-value of each factor must above 1 to be accepted Moreover, the

items were only retained when the factor loadings were greater than 0.5 and the correlation coefficiency was greater than 0.4 (Pallant, 2011)

In the first time running EFA, it included 27 items measuring for five factors

Table 4 KMO and Bartlett's Test (first round)

Table 4.2 KMO and Bartlett's Test (first round)

However, the data was divided into 7 factors in Total Variance Explained table while the expected results were 5 factors The total extracted variance for seven factors was 55.375% which showed that these extracted factors could explain 55.375% variation of the data (refer to Appendix E)

In the next step, Pattern Matrix displayed the items and factor loading The value, which was greater than 0.5, would be accepted

Table 5 Pattern Matrix (first round)

Table 4.3 Pattern Matrix (first round)

Extraction Method: Principal Axis Factoring

Rotation Method: Promax with Kaiser Normalization

a Rotation converged in 7 iterations

As can be seen in Table 4.3, there were 4 items which had factor loading smaller than 0.5 Thus, the author decided to eliminate these 4 items, including AB21, AB16, JP24, and FW15 The results after running EFA in the second time were shown as below

Table 6 KMO and Bartlett's Test (last round)

Table 4.4 KMO and Bartlett's Test (last round)

of the research The total extracted variance for five factors was 55.576% which showed that these extracted factors could explain 55.576% variation of the data (refer to Table 4.5)

Table 7 Total Variance Explained (last round)

Table 4.5 Total Variance Explained (last round)

Total Variance Explained

Factor

Initial Eigenvalues Extraction Sums of Squared Loadings

Rotation Sums of Squared Loadings a Total

% of Variance

Cumulative

% Total

% of Variance

Extraction Method: Principal Axis Factoring

a When factors are correlated, sums of squared loadings cannot be added to obtain a total variance

The below Table 4.6 showed the results of Pattern Matrix table as running EFA in the second time