Self management, psychological empowerment, self efficacy and job performance a study on employees in the tourism and hospitality organizations in vietnam

In an effort to help local tourism & hospitality companies to have an overview about employees’ behavior in working performance, this study examined the relationships of these factors: s

UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY

International School of Business -

Vo Hoang Bac

SELF-MANAGEMENT, PSYCHOLOGICAL EMPOWERMENT, SELF-EFFICACY AND JOB PERFORMANCE A STUDY ON

EMPLOYEES IN THE TOURISM AND HOSPITALITY ORGANIZATIONS IN

VIETNAM

MASTER OF BUSINESS (Honours)

UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY

International School of Business -

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Firstly, I would like to express my gratefulness to my supervisor Dr Nguyen Thi Mai Trang for her professional guidance, intensive support, valuable suggestions, instructions and encouragement during the time of doing my research

I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Dr Tran Ha Minh Quan, Dr Nguyen Dinh Tho, Dr Nguyen TN Que, Dr Nguyen Dang Lam, and Dr Pham Phu Quoc for their valuable time as the members of the thesis examination committee Their comments and meaningful suggestions were contributed significantly for my completion of this research

My sincere thanks are given to all of my teachers at International Business School – University of Economics of Ho Chi Minh City for their teaching and guidance during

my master course

as Vietnam This opens many opportunities and challenges for tourism and hospitality organizations to take advantages of well-performed employee to be competitive in the market In

an effort to help local tourism & hospitality companies to have an overview about employees’ behavior in working performance, this study examined the relationships of these factors: self-management, psychological empowerment, self-efficacy, and job performance of 336 employees from 62 travel agencies and hotels in HCM city with an expectation of strengthening evidence in Vietnam Employing the CFA & SEM analyses, the research findings indicated that there were the positive relationships among self-management, psychological empowerment, self-efficacy; and these antecedents had a significant impact on job performance of Vietnamese employees The study also points out useful practical and managerial implications, which support Vietnamese organization managers not only to concentrate their positioning strategies on managers but also on subordinates; and encourage the organizations to use suitable human resource management (HRM) strategies to enhance both employee self-management & job performance in tourism and hospitality industry

Key words: Employee self-management, self-efficacy, psychological empowerment, job performance, Vietnam tourism & hospitality organizations, HCM city

CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

ABSTRACT

ABBREVIATION

Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Background to the research and research problem 1

1.2 Research objectives 5

1.3 Research methodology and research scope 5

1.4 Research significance 6

1.5 Research structure 6

Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 7

2.1 Job performance 7

2.2 Psychological empowerment 8

2.3 Self-efficacy 10

2.4 Self-management 11

2.5 Self-management, psychological empowerment, self-efficacy, and job performance 13

2.6 Conceptual model 17

Chapter 3: METHODOLOGY 19

3.1 Research design 19

3.1.1 Research process 19

3.1.2 Measurement scales 21

3.2 Quantitative study 25

3.2.1 Sample 25

3.2.2 Data analysis procedures 26

Chapter 4: DATA ANALYSIS 28

4.1 Respondents’ demographics 28

4.2.1 CFA for the first-order constructs 30

4.2.2 CFA for second-order constructs 33

4.2.3 CFA for the final measurement model 39

4.3 Structural equation modeling (SEM) 45

4.5 Discussion 47

Chapter 5: CONCLUSION, IMPLICATIONS, AND LIMITATION 51

5.1 Managerial implications 52

5.2 Limitations and future research 54

REFERENCES 55

APPENDICES 62

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 2.1 Conceptual model 17

Figure 3.1 Research process 20

Figure 4.1 CFA model of Self-Efficacy 30

Figure 4.2 CFA model of Job Performance 32

Figure 4.3 CFA model of Self-Management 34

Figure 4.4 CFA model of Psychological Empowerment 37

Figure 4.5 Final measurement model 44

Figure 4.6 Structural results (standardized estimates) 46

LIST OF TABLES Table 3.1 Source of data collection 25

Table 4.1 Respondents’ characteristics 29

Table 4.2 The first run of CFA (of Self-efficacy and Job performance) 31

Table 4.3 Summarized of CR, AVE and Cronbach’α (first order constructs) 32

Table 4.4 Summarized of CR, AVE and Cronbach’α (self-management) 35

Table 4.5 Correlations (of Self-Management) 36

Table 4.6 Summarized of CR, AVE and Cronbach’α (Psychological Empowerment) 38

Table 4.7 Correlation (of Psychological Empowerment) 39

Table 4.8 Summarized of CR, AVE and Cronbach’α (final model) 40

Table 4.9 CFA Summary of eliminated item 42

Table 4.10 Correlations (final measurement model) 42

Table 4.11 Unstandardized structural paths 45

Table 4.12 Regression Weights (bootstrap standard errors) 47

LIST OF APPENDICES

Appendix A List of in-depth interviews’ participants 62

Appendix B Qualitative in-depth interview 62

Appendix C Qualitative in-depth interview findings 66

Appendix D Questionnaire (English Version) 72

Appendix E Questionnaire (Vietnamese Version) 76

Appendix F Correlations among components of Self-management, Psychological……… 80

Appendix G Final measurement scales 82

CFA Confirmatory Factor Analysis

EFA Exploratory Factor Analysis

ILO International Labor Organization

SPSS Statistical Package for the Social Sciences

Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background to the research and research problem

In the trend of transitioning and developing Vietnam’s economy, the service sector, consisting of tourism and hospitality industry, has always played an important role According to The World Travel & Tourism Council (2014), the direct contribution of Travel & Tourism to GDP is “calculated to be consistent with the output, as expressed in National Accounting, of tourism-characteristic sectors such as hotels, airlines, airports, travel agents and leisure and recreation services that deal directly with tourists” (p 2) The total contribution of Travel & Tourism to GDP of Vietnam was VND311,117.0bn (9.6% of GDP) in 2013 and directly supported 1,899,000 jobs (3.7% of total employment) It is forecasted to grow by 6.3% per annum to VND299,846.0bn (4.7% of GDP) by 2024 and visitor exports are a key component of the direct contribution of Travel & Tourism (World Travel & Tourism Council, 2014) However,

a survey recently launched by one EU-funded tourism development program revealed that a mere 6% of the questioned international tourists choose to return to Vietnam due to poor tourism services, inconvenient transport and inadequate investment (Management Board of the EU-funded Environmentally and Socially Responsible Tourism Capacity Development Program, as cited in Tuoi Tre News, 2014) In the term of service evaluating criteria, this organization mentioned that the unprofessional workforce was one of the main reason causing services to be poor This survey fiercely challenges Vietnam’s tourism status quo and suffer its future objectives Therefore, the tourism and hospitality industry are strongly required to improve its operational efficiency of the workforce in providing services

Zeithaml et al (as cited in Tsaur et al., 2003) stated that delivering good quality of

service is considered an essential strategy for success and survival in contemporary’s competitive

businesses Additionally, the special feature of a service industry is “the contact and interaction

between service providers (employees) and service acceptors (customers)” (Tsaur et al., 2003, p

435) The main products provided by tourism and hospitality organizations are services and the employees who play role as service providers will provide those services to customers Thus, employee in tourism and hospitality industry becomes a part of service products and their

excellent performance help to form image of organizations (Bitner et al., as cited in Kusluvan,

2003) But then again International Labor Organization (2015) mentioned that Viet Nam’s labor productivity level is still near the bottom among ASEAN countries due to low-skill labor forces This organization also assumes that recent productivity growth rates are maintained, “Viet Nam will reach the Philippines only by 2038, Thailand by 2069 and take far more time to catch up with many other countries” (ILO, 2015, p 1) It is also said that Viet Nam's tourism workforce lacks experience, skills and professionalism for providing good quality services (Tran, as cited in Xuan Huong, 2013) That’s a big challenge in human resource management that Vietnamese tourism and hospitality organizations need to solve in the near future in order to have the high competitive position with others

Furthermore, significant changes in the workplace are the result of new advanced technology at the first quarter of new century It is changing the nature of work so that tourism and hospitality workers can possibly work virtual offices and communicate with businesses across the globe Consequently, there are more expressions for individualism, freedom, responsibility, and autonomy which are emerging to be considered to take advantages from

subordinates (Mahoney, as cited in Karoly, 1993; Bergen et al., 2002) The organization’s needs

of competitive efficiency are expressed by means of cost reduction; employee self-management, and continuous improvement of work efficiency (Thoresen & Mahoney, as cited in Manz &

Sims, 1980; Chaijukul, 2010) The issue, then, is how service employees manage themselves effectively Most successful tourism and hospitality organizations understand that their people want to work with companies not necessarily for companies Thus, the traditional control and management provided by hierarchical structure should come from within the individual It is critical for an organization’s subordinates, managers, and teams to build a working environment

of trust and become self-managing (Manz & Sims, 1980; Cohen et al., 1997)

Human resource development is the key determinant to create a competitive edge in the new economy (Silva, 1997) He also states that many of the rich economies in Asia already made the changes needed to produce creative and self-management individuals who will increasingly add value to the organization’s competitiveness However, conventional wisdom wonders whether organizations in transitioning countries like in Vietnam are able to gain numerous advantages from employee’s self-management to be more competitive These challenges cause local organizations to be “inclined to capacity of employees at all levels to lead themselves –through self-management” (Chaijukul, 2010, p 15) The concept of self-management was further developed in various articles and literature on managerial disciplines; thus, prompting more executives/managers to apply this concept to practice and develop their subordinates (Manz &

Sims, 1980; Cohen et al., 1997; Castaneda et al., 1999; Neck & Houghton, 2006) Allred et al (as cited in Castaneda et al., 1999) identifies self-management as key skills required for

successful careers at all level in businesses for the 21st century If the tourism and hospitality industry management styles are variously claimed as directive, arbitrary, no freedom, impulsive, unpredictable, amateur, and despotic, will worsen organization performance and vice versa

(Kusluvan, as cited in Kusluvan et al., 2003) Thus, he suggested that “service oriented people”

who are self-managed, independent, well-adjusted, and likeable, and have considerable social

skills and an individual willingness to follow rules will have great contribution to employee performance and efficiency of HR function (p.39) Additionally, Karoly also mentions (1993) a high level of self-management, interpersonal awareness, and the ability to work with and through others is essential However, Vietnam is considered a fairly high power distance culture (Hofstede, as cited in Swierczek & Thai, 2003) Its tourism and hospitality industry are characterized by hierarchical and autocratic styles of management with very clear relationship between subordinate and manager; and job performance evaluation criteria have to follow the strict bureaucratic and hierarchical management styles Under such working conditions, workers have to follow their managers’ demands and have very little room to exercise their own leadership and self-management competencies (Quang & Vuong, 2002) Therefore, tourism and hospitality organizations – both Asian and in Vietnam, have to face to the challenge of how to encourage employees’ autonomy (self-management) to maximize their potential, and therefore their contribution to the organization (performance outcomes)

Up to present time, the numerous studies have been undertaken about the perceptions of subordinates in terms of the self-management, psychological empowerment, self-efficacy, job

performance, and their relationships (Kusluvan, 2003; Seibert et al., 2004; Neck & Houghton,

2006; Chaijukul, 2010) However, these studies restricted themselves to identify these concepts separately In addition, very few scholars do the research about this issue in Vietnam - a high power distance culture in management To the best of the author’s knowledge, the study of Schwenkel and Leshkowich (2012) examine the public and private organizations’ self-management in neoliberalism in Vietnam; the study of Tran and Hanh (2012) investigate factors influencing diabetes self-management among adults with type 2 diabetes in Vietnam; the study

of Dang (2010) identify learner autonomy in English as Foreign Language studies (EFL) in

Vietnam These studies, however, focus on other contexts of self-management application Thus, this research aims for examining the mutual impact of self-management on psychological empowerment and self-efficacy, and subsequently exploring its effect on job performance in the tourism and hospitality industry in Vietnam working contexts

1.2 Research objectives

The overall objective of this study is to examine the role of self-management in psychological empowerment and self-efficacy, and subsequently in job performance of employees who are working in the tourism and hospitality industry in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam Specifically, it investigates:

- The relationship between self-management and psychological empowerment;

- The relationship between self-management and self-efficacy;

- The relationship between psychological empowerment and job performance;

- The relationship between self-efficacy and job performance;

- The relationship between self-management and job performance

1.3 Research methodology and research scope

In this research, two phases of study were undertaken: a qualitative study and a quantitative study The questionnaire was translated from English into Vietnamese Through qualitative study, in-depth interviews with six people were conducted in order to adjust the items closing to features of Vietnamese cultures and to make the improvement for the official questionnaire In the quantitative study, the author collected data by using a convenience sampling approach and employed self-administered survey For analyzing the collected data, SPSS 16 and Amos 22 were used to test the model For the reliability and validity, the researcher used CFA Then, SEM was used to test the hypothesized model

Due to the limitation of time, this research is therefore limited to Vietnamese employees who are working in tourism and hospitality industry in the Ho Chi Minh City; since it is one of the biggest cities in Vietnam and most of travel agencies and hotels centralize here Respondents

of this research include tour guides, tour operators, and hotel employees

1.4 Research significance

Based on the research results, some useful managerial implications were suggested to help Vietnamese organization managers not only concentrate their positioning strategies on managers but also on subordinates; and encourage the organizations to use suitable human resource management (HRM) strategies to enhance both employee self-management and job performance in tourism and hospitality industry

1.5 Research structure

This thesis is organized into five chapters The introduction chapter presents background

of the research, research problem, and research objectives Besides, the significance that this thesis contributes to management practice as well as scope of the research and methodology of data analysis are also mentioned in the first chapter The following chapter reviews and synthesizes the theories in the literature of research’s concepts, including job performance, psychological empowerment, self-efficacy, and self-management This chapter also describes the conceptual model and hypotheses The third chapter mentions about research methodology used

to empirically test the research model Chapter four presents the results of data analysis and analyzes them for their relevance to the research questions or hypotheses The last chapter is organized to conclude about research hypotheses, research problems It also suggests implications for theories, implications for policies and practices based on the findings; and points out some limitations for further research

Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW This chapter mainly introduces the theories, which are proposed by many scholars in academic field and are related to all the concepts and research model The author firstly clarifies the definitions of job performance, psychological empowerment, self-efficacy, and self-management; and then the relationships among those concepts conducted by previous studies are also discussed for proposing a conceptual model and hypotheses

2.1 Job performance

Job performance is a fundamentally important dependent construct and it has been defined as “the overall expected value from employee’s behaviors carried out over the course of

a set period of time” (Motowidlo et al., 1997, p 39) It should not only be explained as

employee’s abilities to perform job well (the things that are typically described in job descriptions), but should be focused on how they behave to contribute to the effectiveness of the outcomes Consequently, job performance has been further broken into task performance and

contextual performance (Motowidlo et al., 1997) It forms a process which firstly creates

property of employee behavior and then leads that behavior to its expected value of organization George (as cited in Huang & Hsuch, 2014) mentions the service organizations should focus on both work-related outcomes and the performance-related behavior when they evaluate service performance In addition, Newman and Maylor (as cited in Huang & Hsuch, 2004) develop job performance measurement scales which divided into behavioral performance (employee attendance, work or service quality) and service performance (customer satisfaction and return rate) The main feature of tourism and hospitality services is the exchanges of service providers (employees) and service acceptor (customer satisfaction) Those services will be based on the personnel’s capability, motivation, and willingness to satisfy customer needs in a consistent manner; and a significant set of organizational outcomes in a service context rely on employee

behaviors (Fulford & Enz, as cited in Patah et al., 2009) That is why, management of employee

attitudinal and behavioral performance is rather important to the success of any tourism and hospitality organization (Kusluvan, 2003)

Therefore, to guarantee the subordinates deliver high quality of services, tourism and hospitality organizations in Vietnam should set up suitable criteria to encourage employee’s behaviors to meet required outcomes This study is going to focus on behavioral performance

(Becker et al., 1996), since it helps researchers to understand specific types of subordinates’

behaviors which affect their engagement to contribute to expected effectiveness of the organizational outcomes, such as productivity, efficiency, and quality

2.2 Psychological empowerment

General empowerment concept is understood as social stages of a process that supports people get control over themselves (Page & Czuba, 1999) Further, it has been revealed that manager’s power and control sharing with subordinates would be very productive forms of organizational power and effectiveness (Kanter, 1979) Consequently, in many cases scholars have assumed that empowerment is the same as “delegating or sharing power with others” (Conger & Kanungo, 1988, p 471) Nevertheless, empowerment is a very general concept and a number of researchers have argued that it is not about management practices or structural sharing power, but it should be about individual psychological experience of empowerment (Conger & Kanugo, 1988; Thomas & Velthouse, 1990) Moreover, some researchers find that subordinates’ internal behaviors which firstly help employees to perceive themselves as being empowered would be the true benefits of empowerment (Wilkinson, 1998; Siegal & Gardner, 2000) According to expectancy theory, a motivation to increase subordinate’s effort to fulfill a given

task would lead to the expected performance and that expected performance would lead to desired outcomes

Therefore, this study focuses on empowerment as a psychological construct which has received comparatively less attention than the structural perspective on empowerment Basing on the works of Thomas and Velthouse (1990), Spreitzer (1995) defines psychological empowerment as “a set of motivational cognitions shaped by a work environment and reflecting

an individual’s active experience to his or her work role” (p 1444) The researcher validates the scales to measure four constructs of psychological empowerment which are impact, meaning, competence, and self-determination Specifically, in tourism and hospitality industry, meaning reflects the value of a work goal or purpose to employees Competence addresses an individual sense of confidence of his or her capability to capture the mood of being empowered Self-determination measures employee’s autonomy in the initiation and continuation of work behaviors and processes Impact reflects the degree to which an individual can influence strategic, administrative or operating outcomes at work

The results indicate that these components all contributed to a person's sense of perceived control, competence, and goal internalization, which were related to managerial effectiveness and innovative behaviors Several studies show the concerns over psychological empowerment

in tourism and hospitality industry (Patah el al., 2009; Chiang & Hsieh, 2012) These researchers

realize that customers using services are from various backgrounds (e.g cultures, ages, genders, education levels), so their expectations will be very different to service quality Even with standardized operation process and outcomes, it is difficult for travel and hospitality organizations to predict customer response at service operating process point Psychological empowerment captures the degree to which employees are able to control the customers’

experiences of service Additionally, in terms of controlling people, managers in tourism and hospitality organizations should give subordinates more powers to have faster decisions in order

to provide a better service The term of psychological empowerment is surely unfamiliar to many Vietnamese managers and is still at an early stage of consideration, but with efforts to improve employee’s performance, psychological empowerment is a very important concept to explore (Quang & Vuong, 2002) Thus, the four dimensional constructs of psychological empowerment

by Spreitzer (1995) are suitable in the service industry setting such as tourism & hospitality in Vietnam

2.3 Self-efficacy

Self-efficacy refers to an individual’s belief in his or her capacity to organize and execute behaviors necessary to produce specific performance attainments (Bandura, 1982) In other words, self-efficacy reflects confidence in his or her ability to succeed in a particular situation of task or cope with environmental demands Further, the determinants of these beliefs describe how people think, behave, and feel (Bandura, 1982) Explaining self-efficacy theory, several researchers (Bandura, 1982; Maddux, Sherer, & Rogers, 1982) indicate two types of expectancies which exert powerful influences on behavior: outcome expectancies, the belief that certain behaviors will lead to certain outcomes; and self-efficacy expectancy, the belief that one can successfully perform the behavior in question In developing of measurement scale of self-efficacy, Schwarzer and Jerusalem (1995) create the generalized self-efficacy ten-item scale to access a general sense of perceived self-efficacy which reflects an optimistic self-belief, and each item refers to successful coping and implies an internal-stable attribution of success In addition,

Karatepe et al (as cited in Kusluvan, 2003) find that the personality traits of competitiveness,

self-efficacy, and effort are significant predictors of frontline employee performance in the

hospitality industry Since the employees working in tourism and hospitality industry usually communicate directly to customers, so the sense of personal capability confidence will provide them opportunities to quickly satisfy customer requirements and concerns Thus, subordinate’s self-efficacy will be a valuable factor to be discussed in this study

2.4 Self-management

Self-management/ self-control or self-leadership is highly broad concept and has been defined as “the active control by employees over their work environment and themselves that

result in productive goal-oriented behaviors” (Cohen et al., 1997, p 278) It means the personal

application of behavior change strategies that produces a desired change in behavior; or the employees manage their own behavior and are responsible for the making decisions

The self-management process of each individual is a guide that firstly leads himself/herself for achieving personal goals, and then he/she will be more effective to influence

others According to Aldag et al (1983), individual self-management is viewed as ‘‘having the

capacity to proactively structure situations and, at least to some extent, to manage his/her own destiny’’ (p.154) In addition, it provides a key principle for individual to use suitable own behavioral and cognitive strategies as self-guiding and self-encouragement to achieve a task successfully (Manz & Sims, 1980; Manz & Neck, 2004) In other words, self-management can

be understood as “taking own accountability” or “retaining self-directed, talented people to create and maintain stimulating and enjoyable work environment” (Gapp, 2004, p 340)

According to Covey (as cited in Bergen et al., 2002), self-management should be practices as

“principle-centered, character-based” agenda which has seven habits: (1) choose the right means and ends in life, and take personal responsibility for your actions; (2) be goal oriented; (3) put first things first/ balancing; (4) think win/win; (5) strive hard to become a better listener; (6)

generate teamwork among individuals with unique abilities and potential Value differences; (7) have self-renewal (mental, spiritual, social/emotional, and physical)

From cost/benefit perspective, it is said that increasing employee self-management reduces costs to the organization, in terms of dollars and time, than having someone else serve as

a manager (Luthans & Kreitner, as cited in Bergen et al., 2002; Manz & Sims, 1980; Kirkman, et

al., 1996) Self-management seems to be “a basic prerequisite for effective management” and

lack of self-management may result failures of task performance and loosen employee ownership

of situation that he/she is involved in (Luthans & David, 1979, p 43) Thus, self-management can be viewed as a set of strategies and developing self-management offers “potential benefits to individual employees and organizations” (Manz & Sims, 1980, p 363)

Based on the concept of self-control originated by Thoresen & Mahoney (as cited in Manz & Sims, 1980) and Mills (cited in Manz & Sims, 1980), self-management has become the preferred term, and has been subsequently developed in various theories and researches over the past fifty years In self-managing circumstance, many of the actions traditionally performed by managers or team become the responsibility of subordinates, including performing the desirable behavior, taking personal instructions, controlling performance outcomes (Manz & Sims, 1980); individuals are liberally taken parts in selecting, hiring, socializing, developing, and rewarding in

their functional areas (Denison, Hart, & Kahn, 1996; Cohen et al., 1997; Goodman et al as cited

in Cohen et al., 1997) Manz & Sims (1980) propose and validate a self-management model

which holds six components Accordingly, the 22-item scale is use to measure dimensions of self-management which comprises self-observation, self-goal setting, self-reinforcement, self-criticism, self-expectation, and self-rehearsal Specifically, in tourism and hospitality industry, self-observation reflects the information of individual’s performance and activities, so that correction

action can be taken goal setting establishes the specific goals of given tasks reinforcement and self-criticism are the self-administration of rewards and criticism of each employee to increase desirable and reduce undesirable behaviors Self-expectation make employee’s actions cohere with a self-image and social identity that he or she projects ahead of him or her Self-rehearsal helps employee to be self-prepared in advance for a given task These dimensions are creatively developed in different management fields (e.g services, manufacturing) with both individuals and teams; and they serve as criteria to evaluate and help employees to develop behaviors for great autonomy, self-motivation, and self-leadership (Manz

Self-& Sims, 1980, 1989; Karoly, 1993; Cohen, 1997, Neck Self-& Houghton, 2006) Kusluwan (2003) suggests that self-management is a suitable term for employees who are working in the tourism and hospitality industry and it is also more crucial and important in modern managerial styles than traditional hieratical managerial styles to enhance employees’ self-management due to its dynamic working environment This is particularly important in a Vietnam culture whereby managers give little spaces to subordinates to experience their self-management competencies (Quang & Vuong, 2002) Therefore, this study attempts to investigate the effects of self-management of employees on their job performance in the tourism and hospitality industry in Vietnam

2.5 Self-management, psychological empowerment, self-efficacy, and job performance

Several studies have attempted to identify the relationship among self-management, psychological empowerment, self-efficacy, and job performance on individual, team, and

organization (Manz &Sims, 1980; Cohen et al., 1997; Karoly, 1993; Luthans & David, 1979;

Neck & Houghton, 2006; Chaijukul, 2010) Manz & Sims (1980) mention self-management by individual employees can be instrumental in developing his/own capabilities Luthans and David

(1979), and Bergen et al (2002) state that by taking an active role of self-regulating,

subordinates can set their own goals, monitor confident behaviors and self-rewarding for goal achievement

Based on the conceptual theories of self-management, Neck and Houghton (2006) have proposed the self-leadership performance mechanism model to explain managerial processes which show how positively self-leadership strategies (e.g self-management, natural reward strategy) affect performance outcomes (e.g psychological empowerment, trust, creativity, self-efficacy) at all organizational levels Moreover, behavior-oriented strategies which are self-management have more importance in predicting psychological empowerment of people

Subsequent researchers (Seibert et al., 2011) have identified managerial practices and

self-management as contextual antecedents which enable employee feelings of psychological empowerment In addition, psychological empowerment is historically a consequence of self-management (Spreitzer, 1995; Ryles, 1999) Reynolds (2002) conducts a study in tourism and hospitality industry and found that self-management of employees is one of the predictors of psychological empowerment

According to Sarkar et al (2006), self-efficacy strongly associates with self-management across both race/ethnicity and health literacy levels Self-efficacy is believed by Lorig et al

(2001) to have a major impact by self-management in terms of self-confidence and self-control

in individual’s ability over their own capabilities and actions Moreover, Bandura (1982) states that individual’s belief in his/her capacity to perform the behavior strengthens confidence or self efficacy Chaijukul (2010) has done a research to test how self-managerial process works in Thai private organizations, which like Vietnam, and he finds that self-management has direct effect on self-efficacy Therefore, based on the literatures, it is hypothesized:

H1 Employee self-management has a positive impact on psychological empowerment H2 Employee self-management has a positive impact on self-efficacy

Job performance also shows the direct and indirect contribution of an individual towards the organization goals and objectives which is a consequence of several factors (Covey, as cited

in Bergen et al., 2002) The positive effects of employee self-management are apparent in the

relationship between self-management and job performance Neck and Houghton (2006) indicate

that self-management strongly affects performance Furthermore, Kolz et al (1998) and Latham

et al (2008) have shown in studies that cognitive ability which includes self-management skills

has positive correlation with job performance Self-management can be viewed as an employee’s internal competency, – that is, an antecedent to employee’s performance – because it includes something important to help employees to perform his or her job well in the tourism and

hospitality industry (Kusluvan, as cited in Kusluvan et al., 2003)

Under the review of psychological empowerment concept, it is clarified as the collection

of cognitions that results in intrinsic motivation (Thomas & Velthouse, 1990), suggesting that psychological empowerment will have a profound impact on employee’s job satisfaction and in-role performance More specifically, each of individual dimensions of empowerment has been found positively related to high performance, because empowered individual feel self-

efficacious, they are likely to be innovative in their work and to expect success (Redmon et al.,

1993) Some studies also state that the performance of a work unit is positively related to psychological empowerment Employees who feel strongly empowerment have qualities, which make possible a strong sense of self-esteem, successful professional performance and progress in

their works (Spreitzer, 1995) Seibert et al (2004) identify a slight significance in the case of

psychological empowerment and individual performance; and psychological empowerment is

considered as the antecedents of job performance Feelings of being empowered are conclusively correlated to loyalty and perceived productivity (Fulford & Enz, 1995; Kirkman & Rosen, 1999) Psychological empowerment can be understood as motivational cognitions which reflect the employee’s active experience to promote individual performance

Additionally, Conger et al (1988) and Block (as cited in Conger et al., 1988) view

employees who can enhance the feelings of self-efficacy will strengthen hopes of performance outcomes Bandura (1982) shows increasing levels of perceived self-efficacy give a rise of

performance accomplishments Some researchers (Stajkovic et al., 1998; Locke et al., 1984)

indicate a significant correlation between self-efficacy and work-related performance Moreover,

Seibert et al (2004) find that psychological empowerment and self-efficacy play important role

between contextual antecedences (leadership, self-management, work design) and behavioral

consequences (job performance, employee’s commitment and turnover) The work of Prussia et

al (1998) shows a statistically significant relationship between self-leadership behaviors and

self-efficacy, by which self-efficacy mediates fully the relationship between self-leadership and work performance Based on conceptual model of Neck and Houghton, Chaijukul (2010) also finds that self-leadership, psychological empowerment, self-efficacy and job satisfaction influence on job performance, by which psychological empowerment and self-efficacy mediate fully the relationship between self-leadership and job performance Thus, this study will exclude mediating role of psychological empowerment and self-efficacy Consequently, tourism and hospitality organizations should recognize employee’s self-management competency, and therefore be likely to utilize it on psychological empowerment, self-efficacy and job performance Given this diversifying results, the current study proposes and tests these hypotheses:

H3 Psychological empowerment has a positive impact on job performance

H4 Self-efficacy has a positive impact on job performance

H5 Self-management has a positive impact on job performance

2.6 Conceptual model

Figure 1 depicts a conceptual model explaining the role of self-management in psychological empowerment and self-efficacy, and subsequently in job performance of employees who are working in tourism and hospitality industry Specifically, the model proposes that employee self-management has positive impacts on job performance through psychological empowerment and self-efficacy

Figure 2.1 Conceptual model

Self-efficacy

Job performance

These are all hypotheses that were proposed in the study:

H1 Employee self-management has a positive impact on psychological empowerment H2 Employee self-management has a positive impact on self-efficacy

H3 Psychological empowerment has a positive impact on job performance

H4 Self-efficacy has a positive impact on job performance

H5 Self-management has a positive impact on job performance

In summary, this chapter presents theoretical background of each concept in the model Based on discussion of literature review, psychological empowerment and self-efficacy are affected by six dimensions of self-management, these are: self-observation, self-goal setting,

self-reinforcement, self-criticism, self-expectation, and self- rehearsal Then, the influence of these factors (e.g psychological empowerment, self-efficacy, and self-management) on job performance is also considered The relationship of these factors already tested by many previous scholars is presented for the conceptual model Hence, there are five hypotheses proposed for this research The next chapter will discuss about methodology that used to analyze the data and test hypotheses of the research model

Chapter 3: METHODOLOGY This chapter presents detail information of a research methodology of this study First, it starts with research process and sample description Then, measurement scales are presented to develop questionnaires, followed by data collection method After that, in-depth interview is conducted to help measurement scales clearer and understandable Through the final questionnaire, the data of quantitative survey is used to test the measurement and structural models

interviewee The in-depth interviews followed by one by one until the researcher got no more suggestions

Based on the feedback of respondents, the survey questionnaire was slightly modified to make it clearer and more understandable (see Appendix A, B, & C) After the questionnaire was modified, the self-administrated quantitative survey with convenience sampling was conducted

to collect data for testing the research’s hypotheses

Figure 3.1 Research process

Translation Draft Questionnaire

Revision Final Questionnaire

Research

Problem

Research Model & Hypotheses Literature Review

Analysis

Participants self-completed a survey with all items were measured by seven-point Likert scale, anchor points including “strongly disagree” (= 1), “disagree” (= 2), “somewhat disagree” (= 3), “neither disagree nor disagree” (= 4), “somewhat agree” (=5), “agree” (=6), and “strongly agree” (=7) The questionnaire was mainly delivered to respondents via electronic mail, Google survey and hard copies (see Table 3.1) SPSS and AMOS were used to test the measurement and structural models

3.1.2 Measurement scales

As mentioned above, the final questionnaires consisted of four measurement scales: management, psychological empowerment, self-efficacy, and job performance

self-Job performance

Job performance was measured by five items, accessing quality, productivity, and quality

of work life, costs, & safety (Becker et al., 1996)

Job Performance (adapted from Becker et al., 1996) Coding

1 I completed work in a timely and effective manner JobP1

2 I completed tasks in an unsatisfactory manner (reverse-coded) JobP2

3 I feel happy with my quality of work JobP3

4 I did my job better than others JobP4

5 Overall, I satisfied with my job performance JobP5

Psychological empowerment

The instrument for data collection of psychological empowerment was the PEI developed

by Spreitzer (1995) and the items were adapted to Vietnam context by eliminating unsuitable items and adding some words to help respondents to understand The psychological empowerment’s measurement scale comprised of four components: meaning, competence, self-determination, and impact Meaning was measured by three items, reflecting the value of a work

goal or purpose to employees Competence was measured by three items, addressing an individual belief in his or her capability Other three items were used to measure employee’s autonomy (self-determination) in the initiation and continuation of work behaviors and processes Impact was measured by three items, reflecting the degree to which an individual can influence strategic, administrative or operating outcomes at work

Psychological Empowerment (adapted from Spreitzer, 1995) Coding

Meaning

2 My job activities are personally meaningful to me PEMean2

3 In general, the work I do is meaningful to me PEMean3

Competence

1 I am confident about my ability to do my job PECom1

2 I am self-assured that I am well trained to perform my work activities PECom2

3 I have mastered the skills necessary for my job PECom3

Self-Determination

1 I have significant autonomy in determining how I do my job PESelfD1

2 I can decide my own how to go about doing my work PESelfD2

3 I have considerable opportunity for independence and freedom in how I do my

2 I have a great deal of control about hierarchical structure & information over

what happens in my department

PEImpa2

3 I have significant influences about hierarchical structure & information over

what happens in my department

PEImpa3

Self-efficacy

The scale items, which were adapted from the ten scales of Schwarzer and Jerusalem (1995), were used to measure self-efficacy These items accessed a general sense of perceived self-efficacy which reflects an optimistic self-belief, and each item refers to successful coping and implies an internal-stable attribution of success

Self-efficacy (adapted from Schwarzer & Jerusalem, 1995) Coding

1 It is easy for me to stick to my aims and accomplish my goals SelfE1

2 I am confident about my abilities to deal with unexpected events SelfE2

3 When I am confronted with a problem, I can usually find several solutions SelfE3

4 If I am in trouble, I can usually think of a solution SelfE4

Self-management

Measurement scales for the six components of self-management would be used from those developed by Manz and Sims (1987) It comprises self-expectation, self-rehearsal, self-goal setting, self-criticism, self-reinforcement, and self-observation/evaluation The self-management measurement scales were adjusted closing to features of Vietnamese cultures Therefore, self-observation was measured by three items, reflecting the information of individual’s performance and activities, so that correction action can be taken Self-goal setting was measured by three items, establishing the specific goals of given tasks Self-reinforcement and self-criticism were measured by six items (three items for each component), being the self-administration of rewards and criticism of each employee to increase desirable and reduce undesirable behaviors Self-expectation was measured by three items, making employee’s actions cohere with a self-image and social identity that he or she projects ahead of him or her Self-rehearsal was measured by other three items, helping employee to be self-prepared in advance for a given task

Self-management (adapted from Manz & Sims, 1987) Coding

Self-observation

1 I am aware of level of my performance SMObserv1

2 I know how my performance stands SMObserv2

3 I judge how well I am performing SMObserv3

Self-goal setting

1 I can define organization goals SMGoal1

2 I can establish task goals SMGoal2

3 I can set goals for personal performance SMGoal3

Self-reinforcement

1 My colleagues praise each other if we have done a job well SMReinf1

2 My colleagues praise each other for good job SMReinf2

3 I feel good about myself if I do a good job SMReinf3

Self-criticism

1 If my performance on a job is below par, I am critical of myself SECritic1

2 I am tough of myself if my performance is not up to standard SECritic2

3 I am critical when I do poorly SECritic3

Self-expectation

1 I think I can do very well in my job SEExpect1

2 I expect high performance from myself SEExpect2

3 I expect a lot from myself SEExpect3

Self- rehearsal

1 I always go over activity before I attempt it SERehears1

2 I always practice new task before I do it the first time SERehears2

3 I always think how to do a job before I do a job SERehears3

Finally, the completed questionnaire in English version and Vietnamese version were presented in Appendix D and E

3.2 Quantitative study

3.2.1 Sample

The model and hypotheses will be tested using data set collected from employees who working in tourism and hospitality industry Due to limited time, the convenience sampling approach with self-administrated questionnaires will be conducted in Ho Chi Minh City

About sample size, the size of the sample was necessarily big enough to guarantee

statistical significance Hair et al (2009) stated that the minimum sample for appropriate use for

statistical analysis is equal to or greater than five times of number of variables, but not less than

100 The model in this study consisted of thirty-nine variables so that the necessary sample size should be: n=39*5=195 observations The author delivered 397 questionnaires to participants in order to obtain a sample size of about 195 After data collection, total 371 responses from 62 travel agencies and hotels were collected; the response rate was approximately 93.45 percent (Table 3.1)

Table 3.1 Source of data collectionSource Distributed Collected Response rate Eliminated Valid

3.2.2 Data analysis procedures

The author used SPSS 16 for calculating Cronbach’s alpha and Amos 20 for running CFA to test the reliability for each measurement component separately and the validity for all scales Additionally, based on composite reliability (CR), the author evaluated the measurement scale’s reliability among constructs in the research model According to CFA results, average variance extracted (AVE) was used to conclude the convergent validity and correlation between items (r) was used to identify the discriminate validity Thus, to implies that the measurement is good, Cronbach’s alpha for each construct should be at least 0.6 (Nunnally & Burnstein, as cited

in Prajogo, 2007); the factor loading should be 0.5 (Hair et al., as cited in Prajogo, 2007); the minimum value of AVE is 0.5 (Molina et al., as cited in Chong et al., 2010); and the composite reliability should be over 0.7 as recommended by Nunnally (as cited in Chong et al., 2010)

Considering the convergent and discriminated validity, the inappropriate items would be removed if necessity Moreover, the CFA would indicate the model fit if CMIN/DF was less than

2 with p-value larger than 5%, and the comparative fit index (CFI) analyzed the model fit by examining the discrepancy between the data and the hypothesized model, while adjusting the issues of sample size inherence in the chi-squared test of model fit, and the normed fit index A CFI value of 0.90 or larger was generally considered to indicate acceptable model fit The non-normed fit index (NNFI; also known as the Tucker-Lewis index-TLI) resolved some of the issues

of negative bias, though NNFI values may sometimes fall beyond the 0 to 1 range Values for both the NFI and NNFI should range between 0 and 1, with a cutoff of 95 or greater, indicating

a good model fit The root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) avoided issues of sample size by analyzing the discrepancy between the hypothesized model, with optimally chosen parameter estimates, and the population covariance matrix A value of 0.06 or less was

indicated an acceptable model fit RMSEA was smaller than 8% (Tho & Trang, 2008) Then, structural equation modeling (SEM) tested the hypothesized model and estimated path coefficients for each proposed relationship in the structural model Finally, bootstrap was used to re-test the suitable and reliability of the model

As being mentioned above, four measurement scales were sufficient for convergent and discriminant validity, were analyzed by the Confirmatory factor analysis before the hypothesized model was tested by SEM The first-order constructs were self-efficacy and job performance The second-order construct were self-management, which consisted of six sub-components: self-observation, self-goal setting, self-reinforcement, self-criticism, self-expectation, and self- rehearsal; and psychological empowerment, which consisted of four sub-components: meaning, competence, self-determination, and impact

In summary, this chapter described the research process, measurement scale construction, calculation of sample size, and research method conducted to analyze the collected data This study was designed into two stages: first was qualitative study (in-depth interview), second was quantitative study (main survey) The in-depth interview was conducted to modify the measurement scale and the questionnaire was adjusted slightly and before the quantitative survey Main survey had sample size which included total 336 valid questionnaires that were used for data analysis with CFA and SEM The next chapter will present data analysis of main survey

Chapter 4: DATA ANALYSIS Chapter 4 presents the analysis results of the sample size n=336 This process used SPSS

to review the sample’s characters and the descriptive statistic tested the normal distribution of variables basing on respondents’ demographics Then, AMOS was used for confirmatory factor analysis to examine the reliability and validity of the first order constructs, the second order construct and the final measurement model In addition, structural equation modeling was used

to test the conceptual model and bootstrap method was used to measure the parameter estimates Based on the analysis’s results, the explanation for finding research was finally discussed

51 years old, with 7.4% respondents were between 19 and 23 years old, 25.9% people were from

31 to 40 years old, 1.2% of the respondents from 41 to 50 years old, and only 0.9% people was older than 50 years old Income per month was divided in four groups Income per month of most of respondents was not very high, fluctuated between 6 million VND and more than 13.99

million VND Specifically, 32.4% respondents revealed that their income ranged from 9 to 13.99 million VND, 29.5% people earned less than 6 million VND There were about 32.4% respondents’ income from 6 to 8.99 million VND, and the last portion with the lowest percentages was the respondents with the income more than 14 million VND per month with 18.2% of sample size Almost people in these groups graduated the university and reflected their understanding about self-management skills

Table 4.1 Respondents’ characteristicsDemographic profile Category Frequency Percentage (%) Business Types Travel agency

Hotel Total

19

43

62

30.1 69.9

100

Female Total

150

186

336

44.6 55.4

100 Age group 19 – 23

24 – 30

31 – 40

41 – 50 Over 50 Total

100 Income per month

(million VND)

3 – 5 99

6 – 8 99

9 – 13 99 Above 14 Total

100

4.2.1 CFA for the first-order constructs

Self-efficacy was measured by 4 items For the first run of CFA, the CFA model of efficacy fitted the data well However, the factor loading of SelfE1 was not significant (.33 < 0.5) and it is a main reason causing AVE of self-efficacy lower than 0.5 (Table 4.2) The author removed SelfE1 and re-tested the construct In consequence, as shown in Figure 4.1, the research had the model fit (Chi-square=3.122; df=2; Chi-square/df=1.561; P=.210; CFI=.996; TLI=.989; NFI=.990; RMSEA=.041)

self-Figure 4.1 CFA model of Self-Efficacy

Table 4.2 The first run of CFA (of Self-efficacy and Job performance)

Factor Loadings

For the first run of CFA for job performance construct, standardized regression weights

of JobP1, JobP2, JobP 3, and JobP5 were higher than 0.5 (0.83, 0.81, 0.85, and 0.82 in sequence) Although these estimates fitted the data well, the factor loading of JobP4 was not significant (0.28 < 0.5) (see Table 4.2) After removing insignificant item JobP4, the model of job performance was measured by four items: JobP1, JobP2, JobP3, and JobP5 Figure 4.2 displayed the result of CFA analysis