The moderating effect of locus of control on job stress job satisfaction relationship evidence from the banking industry in vietnam

The moderating effect of locus of control on job stress-job satisfaction relationship: evidence from the banking industry in Vietnam Abstract This research aims to investigate the impa

UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY

International School of Business

-

Hong Phuong Nhi

THE MODERATING EFFECT OF LOCUS OF CONTROL ON JOB STRESS-JOB SATISFACTION

RELATIONSHIP: EVIDENCE FROM THE

BANKING INDUSTRY IN VIETNAM

Ho Chi Minh City - Year 2016

UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY

International School of Business

-

Hong Phuong Nhi

THE MODERATING EFFECT OF LOCUS OF CONTROL ON JOB STRESS-JOB SATISFACTION

RELATIONSHIP: EVIDENCE FROM THE

BANKING INDUSTRY IN VIETNAM

ID: 22140033

SUPERVISOR: Dr Tran Phuong Thao

Ho Chi Minh City - Year 2016

Table of content

1 Introduction 6

2 Literature review and hypothesis development 9

2.1.Foundational theory 9

2.2.Related review and hypothesis 10

3 Research method 20

3.1.Procedure and sample 20

3.2.Measurements 22

4 Data analysis and results 23

4.1.Measurement validation 23

4.2.LOC as moderator of job stress - job satisfaction relationship: 25

4.3.Common method variance 26

4.4.Hypothesis testing 27

4.5.Discussion 32

5 Conclusions 34

5.1.Implications for theory and research 34

5.2.Implications for managers 35

5.3.Conclusions 35

5.4.Limitations and directions for future research 36

Appendix 1 Scale items 38

Appendix 2 Questionnaire English version 40

Appendix 3 Questionnaire Vietnamese version (Bảng câu hỏi khảo sát) 43

References 48

List of tables and figures

Table 1 : Literature review 17

Figure 1 : Conceptual model 20

Table 2 : Descriptive statistics 22

Table 3 : Means, Cronbach alpha, and EFA loadings of items after deleting items 24

Table 4 : Means, standard deviations, correlations and internal consistency reliabilities 28

Table 5 : Results of hierarchical regression testing moderating hypotheses for whole sample 30

Table 6 : Results of hierarchical regression testing moderating hypotheses for two groups 31

Table 7 : Results 32

The moderating effect of locus of control on job stress-job satisfaction relationship:

evidence from the banking industry in Vietnam

Abstract

This research aims to investigate the impact of locus of control on relationship between three dimensions of job stress (role ambiguity, role conflict and work overload) and job satisfaction in the banking industry in Vietnam This study also examines different levels

of job stress and job satisfaction of employees between state-owned banks and private banks The hierarchical regression was conducted to examine the impact The results indicated that role conflict, work overload and locus of control had significantly negative impact on job satisfaction The results also showed the moderating effect of locus of control on the job stress – job satisfaction relationship in private banks

1 Introduction

Employees can be one of the most precious fortunes in firms While banking marrket has been growing faster and faster, bank employees have experienced job stress Job stress refers to any characteristics of working environment posing a threat to

individual (Caplan, Cobb & French, 1975) Malik (2011) indicates that the global banking sector has experienced rapid and significant changes due to globalization, harsh competition Hence, such workplace seems to cause stress for bank employees Besides, a wide range of prior studies show that bank employees have experienced a high level of stress and low job satisfaction (Devi & Sharma, 2013; Bajpai &

Srivastava, 2004; Karatepe & Aga, 2013) A study by Malik and Waheed (2010) also mentions this negative relationship between job stress and job satisfaction in banking industry Other studies also indicate that bank employees are suffering from the issues

of low wages, high turnover, and job insecurity among bank employees which may lead to low job satisfaction (Springer, 2011; Belias, Koustelios, Sdrolias & Aspridis, 2015) Similar findings on the relationship between job stress and job satisfaction could be seen in other industries (Behrman, 1984; Grefson & Wendell, 1994; Chiu, Chien, Lin & Hsiao, 2005; Khattak, Ul-Ain & Iqbal, 2013) For example, Chen and Silverthorne (2008) examine job stress in accountant firms Siegal (2000) investigates three dimensions of job stress in software companies Moreover, Balogun and

Olowodunoye (2012) confirm that job satisfaction significantly impacts on turnover intention among bank employees Therefore, how to control job stress – job

satisfaction relationship is one of key factors in human resources management

In recent years, the Vietnamese banking industry has developed remarkably As reported by the National Financial Supervisory Commission (Ninh, 2016), the whole banking system has 35 local commercial banks, 55 foreign bank branches, comparing

to the figure of 4 commercial banks in 1986 (renovation stage) Since Vietnam joined

in World trade organization (WTO) in 2007, banking market has become more and more competitive In response, bank employees have to make effort to achieve high target, provide good customer services and complete other tasks in a restricted time Ngoc (2016) argues that bank employees in recent years have been suffering from high target, position movement, work conditions changes, over workload, cutting wages and benefits, etc so they intend to quit job Moreover, it could be explained by the facts that in 2012 the Prime Minister approved Project 254 “Restructuring credit institutions system 2011-2015” to reduce the number of weak banks and improve the banking system’ soundness and safety Thus, this has caused significant changes in policy and work conditions which led to high voluntary turnover rate Another

evidence given by Lan (2015) shows that an average turnover rate in banking sector in Vietnam reached to 15%, the highest level among several examined industries As such, it could be conducted that bank employees in Vietnam have suffered from high pressure, high level of stress and low satisfaction in recent years Consequently,

current research aims to examine the relationship between three dimensions of job stress (i.e role ambiguity, role conflict, and work overload) and job satisfaction in Vietnam

In addition, a few researchers suppose that the job stress – job satisfaction

relationship may depend on several individual personality characteristics, especially

locus of control (Chen & Silverthorne, 2008; Martin, Thomas, Charles, Epitropaki & McNamara, 2005) Locus of control is defined as an individual’s beliefs about what determines whether or not they get reward in life (Rotter, 1966) Rotter classifies locus of control into external and internal locus of control Locus of control is still a new concept in Vietnam, but it has been explored in many studies all over the world (Rahim, 1996; Judge, Erez, Bono & Thoresen, 2003; Chiu, Chien, Lin & Hsiao, 2005; Lee, 2013) Perrewe (1986) proves that employees who have external locus of control suffer higher level of job stress and lower job satisfaction Those previous studies suggest that there can be the presence of locus of control as a moderator of job stress - job satisfaction relationship Recently, some Vietnam banks have been studying the moderating effect of locus of control on job stress – job satisfaction relationship to manage human resources effectively

In general, Vietnamese banking industry has developed notably during the past few years and experienced many changes Because of these changes, bank employees have been suffering from high level of stress and low level of satisfaction Besides, locus of control may impact the job stress - job satisfaction relationship and have been studied by several researchers Current study aims to investigate locus of control as a moderator of job stress - job satisfaction relationship in Vietnam banking industry Specifically, the study intends to examine the impact of role amibiguity, role conflict, workload, locus of control on job satisfaction In addition, current research proposes

to compare the locus of control effect between private and state-owned banks

2 Literature review and hypothesis development

2.1 Foundational theory

Person–environment fit and person-organization fit theory

This research applies person-environment (P-E) fit and person-organization (P-O) fit theory in analysing relationship between job stress and job satisfaction (Yang, Levine, Smith, Ispas & Rossi, 2008) P-O fit concerns the antecedents and consequences of suitability between people and the organizations where they work (Kristof, 1996) Person–job fit is other way to consider P-E fit for work situations and it contributes positively to variance in job attitudes It is stated that people are happier and more successful in their work environment when their personality matches features of the environment Low level of P-O fit may lead to job dissatisfaction, intention to leave, and higher levels of stress Therefore, better fit between personal and organization as well as personal and job can enhance job satisfaction and minimize job stress

Social learning theory

The current study applies social learning theory of Rotter (1954) in studying locus of control The main idea in Julian Rotter's social learning theory is that

personality represents an interaction of the individual with his or her environment Rotter (1966) defines locus of control as people’s cross-situational beliefs about what determines whether or not they get reinforced in life Based on employee’s belief and daily behaviour, an individual can be classified as internal locus of control or external locus of control According to the theory, individuals with internal locus of control believe in their own ability to control themselves and influence the world around

them On the other hand, a person with a high external locus of control typically believes that personal outcomes depend on the environment (Rotter, 1990) People with different types of locus of control response differently to their environment This will be argued in next sections

2.2 Related review and hypothesis

Job stress and job satisfaction

According to Darmody and Smyth (2016), the individual is likely to experience

occupational stress or job stress when the demands of the job exceed a person’s

abilities Job stress may refer to a dynamic condition in which the individual is

confronted with an opportunity, constraint or demand related to what he or she desires and for which the outcome is perceived to be both uncertain and important (Robbins,

as cited by George & K.A., 2015) or any characteristics of the job environment which pose a threat to the individual (Caplan, Cobb & French, 1975) Job stress is different from general stress because it is organization related (Montgomery, Blodgett, & Barnes, 1996) The factors causing stress in a person are called stressors

Many studies have focused on two key role stressors: role conflict and role ambiguity (Coverman, 1989; O’Driscoll & Beehr, 2000; Siegall, 2000; Behrman, 1984) It is similar to the argument that organizational based antecedents of job

satisfaction are role ambiguity and role conflict (Van Sell, Brief &Schuler, 1981; Fisher & Gitelson, 1983; Siegall, 2000) In addition, Rahim (1996) indicates that job stress has four dimensions: role conflict, role ambiguity, role overload and role

insufficiency Most studies have included the dimension “role overload” along with role conflict and role ambiguity (Abraham, 1997; Hang-yue, Foley& Loi, 2005; Chiu,

Yeh & Huang, 2015) Base on existing studies, the current study also focused on three job stressors: role conflict, role ambiguity, and role overload Concepts of role conflict and role ambiguity examined by Rizzo, House, and Lirtzman (1970) are the most commonly used Rizzo et al (1970) define role conflict as the discrepant or

incompatibility in the role requirements of employees Role ambiguity implies

employees’ uncertainties as to which actions they must do to fulfil their expected role Cooper and Marshall (1976) define role conflict as the existence of conflicting

demands within a single role or between multiple roles Role ambiguity refers to a lack of information about a particular role and hence uncertainty regarding the

expectations associated with the role Elloy and Smith (2003) examine that role

overload results from not having enough time to complete the assigned tasks Elloy and Smith also indicate that overload occurs where multiple demands exceed

resources, and may be either qualitative (i.e too difficult to complete) or quantitative (i.e too many tasks need to be done)

The most commonly used definition of job satisfaction, which is studied by Spector (1997), implicates how people feel about their jobs and different aspects of their jobs Job satisfaction can refer to a pleasurable, positive attitudes resulting from the appraisal of one's job or job experiences (Levy, as cited by Morrison, 2008;

Gustainiene & Aukse, 2009) This can be interpreted that the happier people feel in their job, the more satisfied they are Shaikh, Bhutto, and Maitlo (2012) also indicate that job satisfaction is acquired when employees enjoy their work, or they get positive emotion after appraisal of his or her job and performance Other researchers have

linked low satisfaction with negative behaviours including unjust treatment (Donovan, Drasgow & Munson, 1998)

Person-environment (P-E) fit and person-organization (P-O) fit theory have been applied to explain the negative relationship between job stress and job

satisfaction (Yang et al., 2008) When employees’ abilities cannot fit the demands of the job, it means that they are suffering from stress Subsequently, P-E fit and P-O fit indicate that job stress decreases job satisfaction Many researchers have also

discovered the negative relationship between job stress and job satisfaction (Behrman, 1984; Yousef, 2002; Reilly, Dhingra & Boduszek, 2014) Particularly, several studies show that when role ambiguity and role conflict increase, the level of job satisfaction decreases (Behrman, 1984; Gregson & Wendell, 1994) Besides, Coverman (1989) mentions that role overload can reduce both job satisfaction and job performance In Vietnam context, a study by Lan (2015) indicates that most bank employees are

suffering from sales pressure, work overload so they regularly come home late and feel exhausted Nam (2008) also mentions that job stress usually leads to exhausted, low motivation, low performance and job satisfaction Consistent with earlier studies, current research assumes that three dimensions of job stress including role conflict, role ambiguity and work overload have negative effect on job satisfaction Therefore, the following hypotheses are developed:

H1a: There is a negative relationship between role ambiguity and job

satisfaction of bank employees in Ho Chi Minh city, Vietnam

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

of bank employees in Ho Chi Minh city, Vietnam

H1c: There is a negative relationship between work overload and job

satisfaction of bank employees in Ho Chi Minh city, Vietnam

Locus of control (LOC), job stress and job satisfaction

Additionally, the job stress - job satisfaction relationship can be impacted by individual characteristics, such as locus of control According to social learning theory

of Rotter (1954) mentioned in previous section, locus of control comprises internal and external locus of control Individuals with internal locus of control believes that events happening in their life are under their control People with internal locus of control can control their emotion and try best effort by themselves to achieve success Whereas, external-locus-of-control individuals believe that events happen by chance, luck or under control of powerful others, etc This means that individual with external locus of control usually blame their environment for failures (Rotter, 1966)

Therefore, external-locus-of-control individuals usually feel more stress and less satisfactory than internal-locus-of-control Srivastava and Sager (1999) suggest that locus of control influences the coping styles that individuals choose in order to

manage everyday problems and stress Many previous studies have identified the relationship between locus of control and job stress (Rahim, 1996; Kalbers & Fogarty, 2005), job satisfaction (Patten, 2005), and job performance separately (Judge et al., 2003) Some studies discover the impact of locus of control on the relationship

between job stress and job satisfaction (Fairbrother & Warn, 2003; Chen &

Silverthorne, 2008) Chiu, Chien, Lin, and Hsiao (2005) indicate that influences of perceived job stress on organizational commitment and job satisfaction are stronger for external locus of control than internals

However, most studies have investigated separately the relationship between locus of control and job stress or the relationship between locus of control and job satisfaction Reilly, Dhingra, and Boduszek (2014) indicate that job satisfaction is not only influenced by self-efficacy beliefs, self-esteem and job stress, it should be

examined associated with locus of control In a study in banking industry, George and K.A (2015) compare the level of job stress and job satisfaction between different bank sectors, but they do not examine the job stress - job satisfaction relationship In addition, most studies about locus of control, job stress and job satisfaction focus on developed countries such as the United States, Taiwan, Greek, etc or other industries such as accounting, auditing, education, medical, etc Little attention has been paid to banking industry as well as to Vietnam - a developing country To fill current

deficiencies, this study aims to examine the impact of locus of control on the

relationship between job stress and job satisfaction

Recently, locus of control has been found in many research all over the world (Reed, Kratchman, & Strawser, 1994; Patten, 2005; Lee, 2013) However, locus of control is still a new concept in Vietnam In the last few years, some organizations in Vietnam are studying locus of control to find out the appropriate solution for each staff to control stress and enhance job satisfaction (Le, 2008) From the above review

of literature, it can be understood that employees with external locus of control have lower level of job satisfaction As such, the below hypothesis is proposed:

H2: There is a negative relationship between locus of control and job

satisfaction of bank employees in Ho Chi Minh city, Vietnam

Developed from social learning theory by Rotter (1954), locus of control does not only have negative relationship on job satisfaction, but also have moderating effect on the job stress – job satisfaction relationship Specifically, the negative

relationship between job stress and job satisfaction is stronger for employees with external locus of control than internals (Perrewe, 1986; Chiu, Chien, Lin, & Hsiao, 2005) Chen and Silverthorne (2008) also indicate that locus of control strengthens the job stress - job satisfaction relationship Based on above review of literature, the following hypotheses are formulated:

H3a: The negative relationship between role ambiguity and job satisfaction is

stronger for employees with external locus of control than internals

H3b: The negative relationship between role conflict and job satisfaction is

stronger for employees with external locus of control than internals

H3c: The negative relationship between work overload and job satisfaction is

stronger for employees with external locus of control than internals

Impact of locus of control between private and state-owned banks

In Vietnam, banking sector has also been growing significantly during the past few years There are two main sectors of commercial bank in Vietnam: state-owned bank and private banks State-owned banks are commercial banks whose upward of 50% charter capital are held by the State bank of Vietnam Up to now, state-owned

banks consist of six banks such as Agribank, Vietinbank, Vietcombank, BIDV, Ocean bank and Construction bank Other commercial banks are private banks Private banks include those commercial banks whose less than 50% shares are held by the State bank of Vietnam Duc (2016) discovers that most of private banks cannot approach inexpensive and large scale capital from state-owned organizations Therefore, they find it difficult to lend to large firms and have moved their segment to small and medium enterprises Subsequently, state-owned banks easily approach large scale capital and attract large firms, while private banks have to put much higher target, more workload, etc to improve their performance in current competitive market Previous studies also indicate that employees in private banks are suffering from higher level of job stress than those in public banks (Malik, 2011; George & K.A., 2015)

To find out whether two banking sectors have different impact of locus of

control on the job stress - job satisfaction relationship, another hypotheses is

formulated:

H4a: There is higher moderating effect of locus of control on the role ambiguity

- job satisfaction relationship in private bank than in state-owned bank

H4b: There is higher moderating effect of locus of control on the role conflict -

job satisfaction relationship in private bank than in state-owned bank

H4c: There is higher moderating effect of locus of control on the work overload

- job satisfaction relationship in private bank than in state-owned bank

Details of some previous researches reviewed could be seen in the table 1 Figure 1 represents these relationships and hypotheses

Table 1 : Literature review

Author Factor Scope Results

Kaur (2015) Job satisfaction,

Workplace environment, supervision, cooperation from peers, work discrimination, employee acceptance, work allocation, job security,

remuneration

380 bank employees Indian -universal banks

The most important factor effecting employee satisfaction with their job is their immediate supervisor

George and

K.A (2015)

Job satisfaction, related tension, job- related stress

Job-337 employees from various banks belonging to private sector, public sector and new generation banks in Kerala, India

public sector banks have significant difference with private sector banks and new generation banks with regard to job-related stress and there is no such difference between private banks and new generation banks

Tlaiss (2013) job satisfaction, age,

education, Marital status, Position in management, Years

of experience, Size of bank, Salary/month

women managers in Lebanon - Arab Middle Eastern region

age was only statistically significant with satisfaction and with promotion

Springer

(2011)

Job Motivation, Satisfaction, and Performance

Bank Employees in US; Compare private and public banks

negative relationship between stress and job performance (not significant)

Certificated Public Accountant firms (CPA) in

Taiwan

who had an internal LOC perceived lower levels of job stress, reported higher levels of job satisfaction and job

performance

Siegall (2000) Role stressors: role

conflict, role ambiguity, work related outcomes

105 employees of an electronics/software firm

role conflict (both measures) is not associated with intent to leave, but role ambiguity (both measures) is

Yousef (2002) Job satisfaction, role

stressors and organizational commitment

361 employees in a number of

organizations in the United Arab Emirates

Role conflict and role ambiguity directly and negatively influence job satisfaction

Malik (2011) occupational stress private and public

banks employees in Quetta City

Occupational stress is found higher among private bank employees compared to public bank employees

Among different occupational stress variables role overload, role authority, role conflict and lack of senior level support contribute more to the occupational stress among private bank employees compared to public bank employees

Satisfaction and stress might be expected to be interrelated but not perfectly correlated The results of this study indicate that an overall majority

of Irish primary school principals were happy with their job although a significant proportion experienced occupational stress

425 employees in sales and customer service roles and their immediate supervisors from seven consumer product retail stores located in Taiwan

Role stressors (i.e role conflict, role ambiguity, and role

overload) are more strongly related to organisational than to interpersonal deviance

Role stressors (i.e role conflict, role ambiguity, and role

overload) are positively related

to employee deviance (i.e interpersonal and organisational deviance)

Figure 1 : Conceptual model

3 Research method

3.1 Procedure and sample

The research was conducted in Ho Chi Minh city, where most bank branches and transaction offices are located, is known as the centre of economy, culture, tourist, science and education in Vietnam The research was undertaken in two stages:

qualitative and quantitative In-depth interviews were used in qualitative stage with six employees recruited to refine the questionnaires Their opinions and recommendations for revising the wording were incorporated into the final survey

Job stress

H1b (-) H1a (-)

H3a H3b

H3c

H1c (-) Work overload

The quantitative stage, which was main survey, was undertaken from September

to October in 2016 The questionnaire included two parts: main part with the questions

on research’s items and demographic questions on gender, age, education level, types

of organization: state-owned bank or private bank The questionnaire was distributed through social media including Google docs and e-mail or send the hard copy of

survey directly to bank employees The original questionnaire was in English, and it was translated into Vietnamese Current study conducted this procedure because English is not well understood by all employees in Vietnamese banks Vietnamese version of the survey can be seen in appendix 3

Moderated hierarchical regression was used to analyse the data In term of

multiple regression model and rule of thumb (Tabachnick & Fidell,1996), the

minimum sample size needed for testing the overall model is n > 50+8m = 82 (where

m is the number of free parameters) Therefore, a survey with a convenience sample

of about 400 bank employees was conducted Specifically, researcher delivered 200 survey instruments to employees in the state-owned bank group and 200 instruments

to the private bank group1 Among 400 questionnaires distributed, 155 were not

useable due to missing values As a result, the final sample size was 245, including

107 state-owned bank and 138 private bank employees Table 2 provides descriptive statistics on the characteristics of samples

1 In Vietnam, State-owned banks comprise of Agribank, Vietinbank, Vietcombank, BIDV, Ocean bank, and Construction bank Other banks are private banks, whose less than 50% charter capital held by the State bank of Vietnam

Table 2 : Descriptive statistics

1 to less than 5 years 201 82.04%

5 to less than 10 years 28 11.43%

it was consistent with the three dimensions of the original instrument The first three items represented internal LOC, four items represented external chance and the last three items represented external powerful others The higher score in the internal LOC scale indicated internal locus of control The higher score in the external chance and external powerful others demonstrated external locus of control Participants

responded on a six-point Likert-type scale ranging from (1) strongly disagree to (6) strongly agree The widely accepted measures of role conflict and role ambiguity were based upon Siegall (2000) Role conflict (RC) was assessed with an eight-item scale

and role ambiguity (RA) was measured by six-item scale Both RC and RA used seven-point Likert-type scale, ranged from (1) never to (7) always Higher scores indicated higher levels of ambiguity and conflict According to Kim, Price, Mueller, and Watson (1996), work overload (WO) was measured by a four-item scale Finally, six items were used to measure the job satisfaction (JS) scale (Price, 2001) Both WO and JS used a five-point Likert-type scale, anchored by 1 = strongly disagree and 5 = strongly agree Higher scores represent greater levels of work overload and job

satisfaction Items marked with “R” in the questionnaire were reverse scored Detail of the questionnaire can be seen in Appendix 1

4 Data analysis and results

4.1 Measurement validation

This study used Cronbach alpha and explanatory factor analysis (EFA) to test

reliability and convergent validity of the scale Demographics including gender, age, education level, year of experience was considered as control variables

Base on reliability test, one item of RA (role ambiguity 5), one item of RC (role conflict 6), one item of WO (work overload 2), one item of JS (job satisfaction 2) and three items of LOC (LOC_1, LOC_2, LOC_3) was deleted due to their low item-total correlation After removing, other items of the scale used had satisfactory item-total correlation (≥ 0.30) as well as Cronbach alpha (> 0.60) (Nunnally & Bernstein, 1994) Cronbach alpha of RC, RA, WO, JS, and LOC were 0.831, 0.744, 0.750, 0.856 and 0.858 respectively The reliability of measurement and construct validity was tested

by EFA Only JS was extracted by principal components analysis and Varimax

rotation, other factors extracted by principal axis factoring and Promax rotation Some

items were deleted due to its factor loading lower than 0.5 (presented in Table 3) For independent variables, Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) was 0.813 and 56.0% total

variance explained For dependent variables (JS), KMO was 0.758 and 65.6% total variance explained

Table 3 : Means, Cronbach alpha, and EFA loadings of items after deleting

6 I do things that are apt to be accepted by one

person and not accepted by others

7 I receive an assignment without adequate

resources and materials to execute it

8 I work on unnecessary things

4.18 delete 3.11 3.65 3.95 delete 3.87 4.50

0.518 delete 0.674 0.723 0.810 delete 0.504 0.532

9 I feel certain about how much authority I have

12 I know what my responsibilities are (R)

13 I know exactly what is expected of me

14 Explanation is clear of what is to be done (R)

3.39 3.28 3.58 2.60 delete 3.50

0.586 0.686 0.570 0.678 delete 0.609

15 I have enough time to get everything done in

my job (R)

16 My workload is not heavy on my job (R)

17 I have to work very hard in my job

18 I have to work very fast in my job

3.98 delete 3.99 4.06

0.597 delete 0.738 0.951

delete delete

20 When I get what I want, it is usually because I

worked hard for it

21 My life is determined by my own actions

External chance (C):

22 To a great extent my life is controlled by

accidental happenings

23 Often there is no chance of protecting my

personal interest from bad luck happenings

24 When I get what I want, it is usually because

I’m lucky

25 It is not always wise for me to plan too far

ahead because many things turn out to be a matter

of good or bad fortune

External powerful others (P):

26 I feel like what happens in my life is mostly

determined by powerful people

27 Although I might have good ability, I will not

be give leadership responsibility without appealing

to those in positions of power

28 People like myself have very little chance of

protecting our personal interests when they

conflict with those of strong pressure groups

delete delete 3.98 3.49 delete

3.76 4.33

4.26

delete delete 0.701 0.746 delete

0.865 0.869

0.795

29 I am fairly well satisfied with my job

30 most days, I am enthusiastic about my job

31 I like working here better than most other

people I know who work for this employer

32 I do not find enjoyment in my job (R)

33 I am often bored with my job (R)

34 I would consider taking another kind of job (R)

3.37 delete 3.02 3.24 3.53 3.19

0.809 delete 0.540 0.871 0.900 0.876

4.2 LOC as moderator of job stress - job satisfaction relationship:

To examine the moderating effects of LOC on the relationship between role conflict, role ambiguity, work overload and job satisfaction, we conducted a moderated

hierarchical regression (Kirmeyer & Dougherty, 1988; Hsu, 2011) We entered the control variables (gender, age, education, year of experience and type) in the first step Then, the independent variable (role ambiguity, role conflict and work overload) was added in the second step The moderating variable LOC was entered in the third step The interaction terms computed by multiplying the moderator variable LOC and the independent variables were added in the last step We evaluated the significance of each step by considering the increment changes in the F and R2 values The p-values

of βs of the variables were used to evaluate the significance of the main effects and interaction

To investigate the different level of moderating effect of LOC on the job stress - job satisfaction relationship, current research conducted a moderated hierarchical regression separately for two group: state-owned bank and private bank For type of organization, state-owned bank was coded (1), private bank was coded (2)

4.3 Common method variance

Common method variance (CMV) is defined as “systematic error variance shared among variables measured with and introduced as a function of the same method and/or source” (Richardson et al, as cited by Tho, 2013) CMV may make the

researcher’s conclusion regarding to the model become erroneous Therefore, current research took some steps proposed by Tho (2013) to remedy these effects Current study used some questions with reverse scoring and different constructs had different scales For example, LOC was measured based on six-point Likert-type scale, while role conflict and role ambiguity were assessed with seven-point Likert-type scale For another example, a respondent expressed his feeling about work overload as follows:

“I have enough time to get everything done in my job”; or about role ambiguity:

“Explanation is clear of what is to be done” Besides, the items in questionnaires were randomly assigned in the questionnaire to avoid agreement tendency bias Moreover, current research communicated to respondents that there was no “right” or “wrong” answer to reduce the respondents’ apprehension over their responses As a result, the common method variance was not a common problem in this study

4.4 Hypothesis testing

The means, standard deviations, correlations, and internal consistency reliabilities for the measures (role conflict, role ambiguity, work overload, locus of control and job satisfaction) used in this study are reported in Table 4 In term of personal

characteristics, gender was significantly and negatively correlated with job satisfaction (r = -0.21, p < 0.01) Age, education, experience and type were not significantly

correlated with job satisfaction Role conflict and work overload were significantly and negatively correlated with job satisfaction (r = -0.50, p < 0.01; r = -0.35, p < 0.01 respectively) However, role ambiguity was not significantly correlated with job

satisfaction Locus of control was significantly negatively correlated with job

satisfaction (r = -0.42, p < 0.01) Because three items of internal LOC was deleted, the negative correlation between LOC and job satisfaction demonstrated that employees with external LOC likely had lower job satisfaction The results in table 3 provide preliminary support for H1b, H1c and H2

Notes: n = 245; **p < 0.01; *p < 0.05 (two-tailed); reliability estimates appear in parentheses along the diagonal

Gender: 1 = male, 2 = female; education: 1 = senior high school, 2 = vocational/college, 3 = university, 4 = master or above

age: 1 = < 30, 2 = 30-40, 3 = 41-50, 4 = > 50; experience: 1 = < 1 year, 2 = 1- less than 5 year, 3 = 5- less than 10 year, 4 = ≥ 10 year

type: 1 = state-owned bank, 2 = private bank

Table 5 presents the results of the moderated regression analyses for the whole sample The results showed that role ambiguity had no significant relationship with job satisfaction (p > 0.05) Thus, H1a was not supported As for the relationship

between role conflict and job satisfaction, work overload and job satisfaction, results show that role conflict and work overload had significantly negative effect on job satisfaction (β = -0.49, p < 0.001; β = -0.16, p < 0.01 in Step 2 respectively) In Step 2, LOC also had significantly negative effect on job satisfaction (β = -0.23, p < 0.001) Consequently, H1b, H1c and H2 was supported As shown in table 5, R square only changed from 0.403 to 0.407, p-value for this change = 0.704 Step 3 also indicated that interaction terms had no significant effect on job satisfaction (p > 0.05) This means that locus of control does not have moderating effect on the relationship

between three dimensions of job stress (role conflict, role ambiguity and work

overload) and job satisfaction Therefore, H3a, H3b, H3c were not supported

In addition, control variables including gender and age had significantly effect

on job satisfaction Specifically, gender had negative effect (-0.22, p < 0.001) and age had positive effect (0.14, p < 0.05) on job satisfaction