Factors affecting on the job behavior at sparton corporation

Following the analysis process, factors collected are Organizational Commitment, Work Control, Goal and Process Clarity, Fairness Perceptions on an Organization Policy and On The Job Beh

RESEARCH PROJECT

FACTORS AFFECTING ON THE JOB

BEHAVIOR AT SPARTON CORPORATION

STUDENT’S FULL NAME : NGUYEN THANH NAM

ADVISOR’S NAME & TITLE : DR BUI PHI HUNG

FEB, 2017

On the very outset of this report, I would like to extend my sincere & heartfelt obligation towards all the personages who have helped me in this endeavor Without their active guidance, help, cooperation & encouragement, I would not have made headway in the project

I am extremely thankful and pay my gratitude to my faculty Dr Bui Phi Hung for his valuable guidance and support on completetion of this project in its presently

I also acknowledge with a deep sense of reverence, my gratitude towards

my family, who has always supported me morally as well as economically

At last but no least gratitude goes to all of my friends who directly or directly helped me to complete this project report

Any omission in this brief acknowledgement does not mean lack of gratitude

Thank You

NGUYEN THANH NAM

Advisor’s Assessment

-Advisor’s signature

DR BUI PHI HUNG

TABLE OF CONTENT

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

LIST OF FIGURES

LIST OF TABLE

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 General 1

1.2 Medical Segment 3

1.3 Complex Systems Segment 3

1.4 DSS Segment 3

1.5 Risks and Uncertainties 4

1.6 Sparton Vietnam 6

1.7 Research Introduction: 7

1.8 Goal of the Research 7

1.9 Objective of the Research 8

1.10 Limitations of the Research 8

1.11 Research Questions 8

CHAPTER II: LITTERATURE REVIEW 9

2.1 Organization Commitment 9

2.2 Work Control 12

2.3 Goad and Process Clarity 15

2.4 Fairness Perceptions of an Organization Policy 16

2.5 On the Job Behaviors 20

CHAPTER III: RESEARCH MODEL AND HYPOTHESES 22

3.1 Research Model 22

3.2 Hypotheses 23

3.2.1 Organizational Commitment 23

3.2.2 Work Control 26

3.3.3 Goal and Process Clarify 29

3.3.4 Fairness Perceptions on an Organization Policy 32

3.3.5 On the Job Behaviors 36

3.3 Research Methodology 39

3.3.1 Introduction 39

3.3.2 Research design 39

3.3.3 Sampling 39

3.3.4 Data collection method 40

3.3.5 Data collection instrument 41

3.3.6 Analysis of data 41

CHAPTER IV: ANALYSIS AND RESULT 43

4.1 Demographic Characteristics of the respondents 43

4.2 Reliability Analysis 44

4.3 Descriptive Statistic 45

4.4 Correlation of all variables statistics 46

4.5 Hypotheses Testing 48

CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION 50

5.1 Summary and Discussion 50

5.2 Management Implications 51

5.3 Limitations and Recommendation for Further Research: 53

REFERENCES 55

APPENDIX 59

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1: Financial highlights of Sparton Corporation 2 Figure 2: Hypothesized Research Model 22 Figure 3: Correlation of all independent variables with dependent variable

47

LIST OF TABLE

Table 1: Summary of Cronbach’s Alpha of the variables 44

Table 2: Descriptive Statistics 45

Table 3: Summary of Correlations of all variables 47

Table 4: Model Summary of all hypotheses 48

Table 5: Coefficients of all hypotheses 48

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The success of an organization is widely believed to stem from individuals’

contributions and its fellows are precious assets of an institution This is especially true for Sparton Corporation

Sparton Corporation is currently facing challenges is in recently some employees have intention to leave Sparton Corporation after being a long time in service Accordingly, identifying the factors affecting the levels of organization

commitment to attract employee’s cooperation and contributions in the long time is

critical Being able to tackle this mission will bring about a desirable success for Sparton Corporation in the Human Resource Management

The theoretical framework of this study will be tested by collecting data from

300 Sparton Corporation employees in the Office and Production floor They are provided their ideas in the trial and official surveying processes The reliability analysis, descriptive analysis, and hypothesis testing were employed to analyze the data

The purpose of the study is to explore factors affecting to the organizational commitment of employees in Sparton Corporation through a questionnaire Following the analysis process, factors collected are Organizational Commitment, Work Control, Goal and Process Clarity, Fairness Perceptions on an Organization Policy and On The Job Behaviors

The interpretation of collected data will be followed by the researcher’s

strategic recommendations related to organizational commitment In spite of unavoidable limitations, the research outcomes are expected to be a possible constructive source for Sparton Corporation to refer in planning and developing the strategies to enhance the organizational commitment of the employees

Key words: On The Job Behaviors, Organizational Commitment, Work Control,

Goal and Process Clarity and Fairness Perceptions on an Organization Policy

CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION 1.1 General

Sparton Corporation and subsidiaries (the “Company” or “Sparton”) has been in

continuous existence since 1900 It was last reorganized in 1919 as an Ohio corporation The Company is a provider of design, development, and manufacturing services for complex electromechanical devices, as well as sophisticated engineered products complementary to the same electromechanical value stream The Company serves the Medical & Biotechnology, Military & Aerospace and Industrial & Commercial markets through three reportable business segments; Medical Device

(“Medical”), Complex Systems (“CS”) and Defense & Security Systems (“DSS All

of the Company’s facilities are certified to one or more of the ISO/AS standards,

including ISO 9001, AS9100 or ISO 13485, with most having additional

certifications based on the needs of the customers they serve The Company’s

products and services include offerings for Original Equipment Manufacturers

(“OEM”) and Emerging Technology (“ET”) customers that utilize microprocessor-

based systems which include transducers, printed circuit boards and assemblies, senso9rs, and electromechanical components, as well as development and design engineering services relating to these product sales Sparton also develops and manufactures sonobuoys, anti-submarine warfare (“ASW”) devices used by the

United States Navy and other free-world countries Many of the physical and technical attributes in the production of sonobuoys are similar to those required in

the production of the Company’s other electrical and electromechanical products

and assemblies

The Company uses an internal management reporting system, which provides

important financial data to evaluate performance and allocate the Company’s

resources on a segment basis Net sales are attributed to the segment in which the

product is manufactured or service is performed A segment’s performance is

evaluated based upon its operating income (loss)

A segment’s operating income (loss) includes its gross profit on sales less its

selling and administrative expenses, including allocations of certain corporate operating expenses

Certain corporate operating expenses are allocated to segment results based on the nature of the service provided Other corporate operating expenses, including certain administrative, financial and human resource activities as well as items such

as interest expense, interest income, other income (expense) and income tax expense (benefit), are not allocated to operations and are excluded from segment profit

These costs are not allocated to the segments, as management excludes such costs when assessing the performance of the segments Inter-segment transactions

are generally accounted for at amounts that approximate arm’s length transactions

Identifiable assets by segments are those assets that are used in each segment’s

operations The accounting policies for each of the segments are the same as for the Company taken as a whole

Financial Highlights:

Figure 1: Financial highlights of Sparton Corporation (source: Sparton annual report)

1.2 Medical Segment

Medical segment operations are comprised of contract design, manufacturing, and aftermarket repair and refurbishment of sophisticated medical and biotechnology devices and sub-assemblies Customers include industry leaders, emerging technologies companies and start-ups In manufacturing devices for its customers, this business unit follows specific design and manufacturing processes to assure product reliability and safety in accordance with Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”) guidelines and approvals This group specializes in 27

technologies, systems and processes required by medical OEM and ET customers primarily in the diagnostic, therapeutic, surgical and laboratory device segments of the medical and biotechnology marketplaces The Medical segment also includes some non-medical customers

1.3 Complex Systems Segment

Complex Systems segment operations are comprised of manufacturing and aftermarket repair and refurbishment of sophisticated printed circuit card assemblies, sub-assemblies, full product assemblies, and cable/wire harnesses Customers include military and aerospace, as well as industrial and commercial

OEM’s In manufacturing for its customers, this segment adheres to very strict

military and aerospace specifications in addition to product and process certifications Customers are primarily engaged in applications that include: flight controls, industrial and military control systems, cockpit displays, fuel system controls, secure communications, early warning detection, security systems, satellite communications, and audio The CS segment also includes some medical customers

1.4 DSS Segment

Defense & Security segment operations are comprised of design, development and production of products for both domestic and foreign defense as well as

commercial needs Sparton designs and manufactures antisubmarine warfare (“ASW”) devices known as sonobuoys for the U.S Navy and foreign

governments that meet Department of State licensing requirements This segment also performs an engineering development function for the United States military and prime defense contractors for advanced technologies ultimately leading to future defense products as well as replacements for existing products The sonobuoy product line is built to stringent military specifications These products are restricted

by International Tariff and Arms Regulations (“ITAR”) and qualified by the U.S

Navy, which limits opportunities for competition Sparton is also a provider of ruggedized flat panel display systems for military panel PC workstations, air traffic control and industrial applications Ruggedized displays are manufactured for prime contractors to specific military grade specifications Additionally, this business unit internally develops and markets commercial products for underwater acoustics and

microelectromechanical (“MEMS”)-based inertial measurement

1.5 Risks and Uncertainties

Sparton, as a high-mix, low to medium volume supplier, provides rapid product turnaround for customers High-mix describes customers needing multiple product types with generally low to medium volume manufacturing runs As a contract manufacturer with customers in a variety of markets, the Company has substantially less visibility of end user demand and, therefore, forecasting sales can be problematic Customers may cancel their orders, change production quantities and/or reschedule production for a number of reasons Depressed economic conditions may result in customers delaying delivery of product, or the placement of purchase orders for lower volumes than previously anticipated Unplanned cancellations, reductions, or delays by customers may negatively impact the

Company’s results of operations As many of the Company’s costs and operating

expenses are relatively fixed within given ranges of production, a reduction in

customer demand can disproportionately affect the Company’s gross margins and

operating income The majority of the Company’s sales have historically come from

a limited number of customers Significant reductions in sales to, or a loss of, one

of these customers could materially impact our operating results if the Company were not able to replace those sales with new business

Other risks and uncertainties that may affect our operations, performance, growth forecasts and business results include, but are not limited to, timing and fluctuations in U.S and/or world economies, sharp volatility of world financial markets over a short period of time, competition in the overall contract manufacturing business, availability of production labor and management services under terms acceptable to the Company, Congressional budget outlays for sonobuoy development and production, Congressional legislation, uncertainties associated with the outcome of litigation, changes in the interpretation of environmental laws and the uncertainties of 28 environmental remediation and customer labor and work strikes

Further risk factors are the availability and cost of materials, as well as non- cancelable purchase orders we have committed to in relation to customer forecasts that can be subject to change

A number of events can impact these risks and uncertainties, including potential escalating utility and other related costs due to natural disasters, as well as political uncertainties such as the unrest in Africa and the Middle East and increased tension between Vietnam and China over oil rights in the South China Sea

Additional trends, risks and uncertainties include dependence on key personnel, risks surrounding acquisitions, uncertainties surrounding the global economy, U.S healthcare legislation, U.S budget sequestration and debt ceiling negotiations and the effects of those uncertainties on OEM behavior, including heightened inventory management, product development cycles and outsourcing strategies Finally, the SarbanesOxley Act, and more recently the Dodd-Frank Act, have required or will

require changes in, and formalization of, some of the Company’s corporate

governance and compliance practices The SEC and the New York Stock Exchange

have also passed or will pass related rules and regulations requiring additional compliance activities, including those implementing the conflict minerals provisions of the Dodd-Frank Act Compliance with these rules has increased administrative costs and may increase these costs further in the future A further

discussion of the Company’s risk factors has been included in Part I, Item 1A, “Risk Factors”, of this Annual Report on Form 10-K Management cautions readers not to

place undue reliance on forward-looking statements, which are subject to influence

by the enumerated risk factors as well as unanticipated future events

1.6 Sparton Vietnam:

Sparton Viet Nam, is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sparton Corporation, U.S.A Built in 2005, Sparton Viet Nam has acquired the latest technology and equipment available, housed in a modern 55,000 square foot plant Everything from manufacturing, material procurement, logistics, RoHS and WEEE, through technological enhancements and managerial support provides Sparton with over 110 years of experience

Sparton Viet Nam is a full-service electronics manufacturing service provider Prototyping, printed circuit board assembly, design services, design for various test, component obsolescence management, material procurement, box-build, repair

depot are among Sparton’s offerings To excel at its core competencies,

Sparton focuses its attention on specific markets such as aerospace, industrial, medical, instrumentation & commercial electronics

Representatives: Drew Graham Richmond, Deputy General Director Address:

No.3, Street No 6, Vietnam – Singapore Industrial Park I Thuan An District, Binh

In the fact, even if Sparton is a one of top companies in the area in paying salary for staffs and also invest much for training but the annual employee turnover rate is not low if compared with other companies and it showed a negative trend in recent years

The high employee turnover rate is negative impacted most company KPIs such

as quality performance (PPM), delivery performance (delivery on time), customer complaints, operation costs …

1.8 Goal of the Research

The goal of this research is finding factors that related to the employee job behavior, specific are the impactions of commitment, work control, goal & process clarity, and fairness perception on the job behavior

1.9 Objective of the Research

This research is to be achieved following objectives:

1.10 Limitations of the Research

Just three days at Sparton, it isn’t enough time for studying to find out right

variables that impact on the Job Behavior Doing this research is the first time for

me, my limited experience may be also a limitation of this research

1.11 Research Questions

The questionnaire will be established based on elements so that its answers to search the relationship between the job behavior and its element factors such as

1.11.2 How does work control impact to the job behavior?

1.11.3 How is the job behavior influenced by goal and process clarity?

1.11.4 How is the fairness perceptions related to the job behavior?

CHAPTER II: LITTERATURE REVIEW

The chapter presents definitions of elements’ model and their relationship, specific

as below:

2.1 Organization Commitment

Organizational commitment (OC) has been a popular topic for research into work attitudes and behaviors in recent years (see Meyer, Stanley Herscovitch, & Topolnytsky, 2002) It has been formulated in a variety of ways, typically as a

construct with multiple components describing individuals’ feelings of attachment

to, identification with and obligation to the organization (e.g Allen & Meyer, 1990; Cook & Wall, 1980; Mowday, Steers, & Porter, 1979)

Cook and Wall (1980), working in a UK context, view OC as the “feelings of

attachment to the goals and values of the organization, and attachment to the organization for its own sake rather than for its strictly instrumental values” (p 40)

This attachment takes three forms: identification (a feeling of pride and belonging

to the organization); involvement (the willingness to invest personal effort for the sake of the organization); and loyalty (attachment and obligation towards the organization) This is operationalized in the British Organizational Commitment

Scale (BOCS), modeled on Mowday et al.’s (1979) Organizational Commitment

Questionnaire, and has been widely used in the UK across a range of employment contexts (e.g Biggs & Swailes, 2006; Pendleton, 2003) Its psychometric properties

have been extensively tested: a recent study by Mathews and Shepherd (2002) supported the three-component structure, although like Guest and Peccei (1993) a decade earlier, cautions remain regarding some negatively worded items

Internationally, the BOCS has been used in the USA (Madsen, Miller, & John, 2005), in Israel (Bar-Hayim & Berman, 1992), and in Australia (Albrecht & Travaglione, 2003), however there are no reports of its use in the Near East (Israel

is located in the Latin Europe cluster in the GLOBE studies and tends more towards

northern Europe in Hofstede’s 1980 study) Allen and Meyer’s (1990) formulation

also proposes a three-component model: affective commitment (employees remain with the organization because they want to; AC), continuance commitment (employees remain because they need to; CC) and normative commitment (they remain because they feel they ought to; NC) A self-report measure of these three components has been developed by Meyer, Allen, and Smith (1993) The BOCS

and Meyer and Allen’s conceptualization share an “affective” component

(organizational identification or affective commitment), which is generally suggested to be the main determinant of commitment-related focal and discretionary behaviors (Meyer et al., 2002) They also share a broadly normative component (NC

or loyalty) emphasizing mutual obligation The remaining components (job involvement and continuance commitment) are not directly comparable

Meyer et al.’s (1993) measure has been researched extensively across

cultures Its construct validity has been demonstrated in Europe (Vandenberghe, 1996; Vandenberghe, Stinglhamber, Bentein, & Dehaise, 2001), Nepal (Gautam, Van Dick, & Wagner, 2001), and the Middle East (Yousef, 2002) although others question its validity in East Asian samples (e.g Chen & Francesco 2003; Cheng & Stockdale 2003; Ko, Price, & Muller, 1997; Lee, Allen, Meyer, & Rhee, 2001) The debate continues as to whether differences arise from translation problems (Lee et al., 2001) or cultural differences in the OC construct: Wasti (2003)

demonstrated the importance of developing “emic” items when assessing “etic” OC

constructs The antecedents of OC appear to vary systematically with societal

values, particularly collectivism Wasti (2003) found that satisfaction with work and promotions were the strongest predictors of OC among individualists, whereas satisfaction with supervisor was an important predictor of OC among collectivists

Across seven nations, Mesner Andolšek and Štebe (2004) also found that material

job values (e.g job quality) were more predictive of OC in individualistic societies whereas post-materialistic job values (e.g helping others) were more predictive of

OC in collectivistic societies

Research on the consequences of OC has found that OC in general is a more powerful predictor of job performance in nations scoring high on collectivism (Jaramillo, Prakash Mulki & Marshall, 2005) Meyer et al (2002) report AC in particular to be a powerful predictor of job outcomes in the (individualistic) U.S, with NC becoming more important elsewhere (cf Gautam, Van Dick, Wagner, Upadhyay, & Davis, 2005; Wasti, 2003) Recent theoretical developments, (Gellatly et al., 2004; Meyer & Herscovitch, 2001; Wasti, 2005) have begun to emphasize the importance of overall commitment profiles This goes beyond the extent to which individual components of commitment relate to other variables, to looking at the combinations of those components and how they interact as a whole

to influence focal and discretionary outcomes A review of the literature identified only limited research on commitment profiles and their work- related implications,

and these have adopted Allen and Meyer’s (1990) approach to OC Until recently

such studies have limited themselves to exploring only two-way interactions among the three forms of OC For example, Meyer, Paunonen, Gellatly, Goffin, and Jackson (1989) and Randall, Fedor, and Longenecker (1990) associated the components of organizational commitment with job performance and behavioral manifestations of job attitude Both studies reported differences in the correlations

of each component of commitment with the predictor variables, and some two-way interactions, but neither examined three-way interactions Subsequently, Somers (1995) identified that while AC was the sole predictor of turnover and absenteeism, when observed in conjunction with NC a positive relationship with intent to remain

emerged; a two-way interaction However, the statistically significant relationships among the variables were modest Similar results were found by Jaros (1997), where turnover intentions were more strongly correlated with AC than with either

NC or CC In China, Cheng and Stockdale (2003) found that NC reduced the relationship between CC and job satisfaction, and Chen and Francesco (2003) found that NC moderated the impact of AC on organizational citizenship behavior and performance, providing support for the primacy of NC in non-Western cultures

2.2 Work Control

Control has long been viewed as an essential and innate aspect of human nature (e.g., Miller, 1972; Skinner, 1995; White, 1959), and it is increasingly recognized as an important determinant of health and well-being (Miller, 1979); Thompson, 1981) Although it is possible to distinguish between objective and perceived control, in this chapter we focus on the perception of control, as this chapter we focus on the perception of control, as this appears to have a stronger relationship with work-related out comes (e.g., Ganster et al., 2001; Jimmieson &

Terry, 1997; Spector, 2002 Perceived control is the belief in one’s ability to influence outcomes; events are controllable when it is believed that one’s actions

affet outcomes, and events are uncontrollable when it is believed that nothing one does or can do will change what will occur (deCharms, 1968; Thompson, 1981)

Control at work focuses on job and organizational characteristics such as the extent to which employees perceive they are able to make decisions about their work (e.g., when and where to work, how to work, what type of tasks to do, and the extent to which there are opportunities for employees to use their skills and knowledge at work (e.g., Karasek & Theorell, 1990) In the work setting, control

increases employees’ beliefs that situations can be anticipated and managed

Although there are a multitude of workplace stressors (e.g., role conflict, role overload/underload, interpersonal relationship at work, technological advances,

uncertainty; see Barling et al., in press), control has emerged as one of the most studied stressors at work, likely due to its strong association with a wide variety of outcomes (e.g., Ganster & Fusilier, 1989) A stressor refers to an objective characteristic or event in the environment and is something that has the potential to cause strain, which refers to both the short-term and long-term psychological,

physical, behavioral, and physiological responses to stress (i.e., an individual’s

subjective experience of the particular stressor) (Jex & Beehr, 1991; Pratt & Barling, 1988) Not only has control been shown to act as a stressor with implications for subsequent strain, but it has also been found to act as a moderator to the stressor-strain relationship Not all stressor lead to strain, and under some conditions (e.g., a lack of perceived job control), some stressors might be more closely linked with strain

Although an employee can have control over any aspect of work (see, for example, Carayon & Zijlstra, 1999; Dwyer & Ganster, 1991; Ganster, 1988; Jackson

et al., 1993), most research on work control focuses on control in terms of job characteristics A wide variety of dimensions of job control have received attention across studies: for example, Hurrel and McLaney (1989) focused on task, decision, physical, and resource control; Wall et al (1995) considered the importance of timing and method control; and Carayon and Zijlstra (1999) examined task, resource, and organizational control Research on the topic of control at work continues to vary considerably in terms of what types of job are examined, the forms of control included, and the outcomes considered (Evans & Fischer, 1992) Jobs differ tremendously in the amount and type of control they allow employees, and there is no theory that defines the conceptual boundaries of the job control construct (Kasl, 1989; Sauter et al.,1989)

Many occupational health psychology theories suggest that stress-related-

outcomes con be improved by increasing employees’ control over their work

Research is based on the assumption, and data indicating, that job that impose limits on control are associated with less favorable work outcomes For example,

the job characteristics model (Hackman & Oldham, 1975), action theory (frees & Zapf, 1994), and job design theory (Carayon, 1993) of stress all propose that providing people with control over various aspects of their work will improve health-related outcomes One of the most influential theories concerning job control

is the demand-control model, first proposed by Karasek in 1970 Karasek’s model

focuses on organizational factors and has been the underlying theoretical basis for much research on job stress According to his model, the influence of work demands (e.g., psychological stressors, such as a requirement for working fast and hard, having a great deal to do, or not having enough time) on health is moderated by the

degree of control (i.e., “the working individual’s potential control over his tasks and his conduct during the working day”, p.290) Karasek suggested that job

demands were not in themselves harmful, but when combined with low employee

control, these demand could affect employees’ physical and mental health The major prediction is that job strein, reflected in employees’ mental and physical

health problems, occurs when jobs are simultaneously high in demands and low controllability

The role of control in determining the effects of work stress in general, and the Karasek model in particular, has been the subject of much research (e.g., Bishop et al., 2003; Sauter et al., 1989) Although studies have shown that job demands an increase strain and strain-related outcomes, and that high job control can reduce these negative outcomes (Bosma et al., 1997; Johnson et al., 1996), empirical findings have not consistently supported a moderating pattern of influence between these variables (Carayon, 1993; de Rijk et al., 1998; Ganster & Fusilier, 1989; Jones

& Fletcher, 1996; Landsbergis, 1988; Perrewe & Anthony, 1990; Sauter, 1989), whereas others have shown the predicted interaction (Fox et al., 1993; Parkes et al., 1994; Wall et al., 1996) To explain these discrepancies, methodological explanations relating to the conceptualization and measurement of job demands and job control have been proposed, as well as acknowledgment of the confounding effects of unmeasured third variables (e.g., socioeconomic status), the use of a

varying range of measures of strain, and the differences in power when using alternative methods to test the model (Ganster, 1989; Karasek, 1979; Terry & Jimmieson, 1999; Wall et al., 1996) Additionally, many researchers have suggested that people adapt in different ways to the environment (Kristensen, 1995; Parkes, 1989; Warr, 1994) and that this can influence the nature of the demands-control relationship (Karasek, 1979; Parkes, 1990, 1994; Xie, 1996) Given the frequently contradictory findings, many researchers have expanded their focus to include other variables that might play important roles in the relationship between job control and various outcome variables, and these will be included in the following discussion

2.3 Goad and Process Clarity

According to Weber and Weber (2001), goal clarity is the degree to which

employees understand an organization’s goals and the means for achieving

those goals precisely People are goal-oriented They are driven by their sense of purpose, desire, and value The degree to which change violates a person's sense

of purpose, will influence that person’s resistance to the change If change is aligned with people’s sense of purpose, they will engage the change in a positive fashion

(Moran and Brightman, 2001)

According to Allen-Meyer (2001) all employees have something they would like to address in their jobs When they experience a change initiative as being one that allows them to improve their performance and bolster their own success, they will not only support the change, they will understand clearly what it is and why it is being conducted Often people are confused about the purpose of the change and the expected outcome At the outset, clarity must be brought to the initiative What will success look like? What is the plan for getting there? How will this plan overcome the pain of not changing? The vision should be articulated in a few forceful and memorable words (Covington, 2001; Moran and Brightman, 2001) Pounder (2001)

suggests that the leader ‘walks the talk’ and aligns deeds with words Integrity is a

measure of the extent to which a high degree of congruence between the leader’s words and the leader’s actions exists The change leadership group should exhibit

strong alignment to the desired future, should develop and communicate a vision, and should stress the need for urgent action first When people know why the change is needed, they can figure out what to change and how to change it (Covington, 2001) Change should be both top-down and bottom-up Change must

be top-down to provide vision and create structure, and bottom-up to encourage participation and generate support (Moran and Brightman, 2001) Ultimately, leading change is a shared responsibility of everyone in an organization, from top to bottom If the whole organization is not committed to the change effort, it will fail The whole organization must be pulling in the same direction to achieve the change initiative goals it has set (Moran and Brightman, 2001) By creating trust and

preventing an ‘us versus them’ mentality, both management and employees can

create the proper behavioral consequences that lower resistance to change and drive the behavioural process to maximum fruition (Barret, 2000)

2.4 Fairness Perceptions of an Organization Policy

The concept of justice or fairness which permeates many actions and reactions in organizations today has received much attention by researchers (Nowakowski and Conlon, 2005) Like Nowakowski and Conlon, Colquitt et al (as cited in Esterhuizen and Martins, 2008) opine that the perception of fairness and specifically the relationship between fairness and various organizational antecedents (for example job satisfaction, turnover and organizational commitment) have been directly linked in recent research However, one cannot talk of fairness, without the mention of Equity theory (Adams, 1965) which suggests that individuals will make comparisons between themselves and others with regard to their rewards resulting in fairness perceptions which may affect their motivation, morale and work related behavior (Furnham, as cited in Williamson and Williams, 2011) Thus, any policy implementation leading to an organizational change can be perceived as ominous

by those affected and careful consideration is needed to guard and guide against feelings of inequity (that is, suspicion and lass of security)

According to Colquit et al (2001), justice or fairness in the workplace can be defined as the focus on the antecedents and consequences of two types of subjective perceptions, namely the fairness of outcome distribution and allocation and the fairness of the procedures used to determine outcome distribution and allocation However, Williamson and Williams (2011) emphasize that organization justice theory (OJT), which combines social psychological theories and psychological contract paradigms to explain fairness judgments, provides a model through which perceptions of fairness and equity by those affected by change resulting from policy implementations can be explored and understood It is, then, conceivable that when a policy implication is seen as unfavorable within the organization, employees will usually experience perceptions of inequity (or fairness

violation) Hence, based on an individual’s perception of fairness within a particular

organization, three forms of organizational justice can be deduced, videlicet distributive, procedural and interactional justice or fairness

Distributive justice primarily is the first of the fairness constructs to have ben studied According to Adams (1965) distributive justice occurs when an individual determines fairness by evaluating his/her perceived inputs relative to the outcome received Opotow (as cited in Esterhuzen and Martins, 2008) asserts that distributive justice focuses on whether societal resources such as jobs, promotions and educational opportunities are distributed fairly Opotow (1997) further postulates that in general, political and economic policies lead to specific distributive outcome Though available literature demonstrates that distributive justice have a significant correlation with pay satisfaction (Roch and Shanock, 2006) and intention

to reduce effort (Stecher and Rosse, 2005), Forret and Love (as cited in Williamson and Williams, 2011) suggest that distributive justice has a direct impact on co-worker relationships which results in a lack of trust, poor morale and low productivity Thus, it is worth noting from the foregoing discussion that any adverse

impact on co-worker relationship in the banking institution, be they lack of trust and poor morale, would have significant implications for customer care and service delivery

Available literature suggests that the original work of procedural justice was done in the context and framework of legal procedure Nowakowski and Conlon (2005) define procedural justice as the fairness of the process that is used to arrive

at decisions According to Esterhuizen and Martins (2008), the development of the concept of procedural justice was made possible by (Thibaut and Walker, 1975) work on procedural justice from the psychological perspective However, studies have shown that procedural justice has a direct bearing on organizational commitment and extra-role behavior (Fischer and Smith, as cited in Williamson and Williams, 2011) is seen as a behavior which benefits or is intended to benefit the organization and goes beyond existing role expectations (Van Dyne and Lepine, 1998) Thus, given the enormous benefits behooves management in the banking sector to reduce the level of employees perception with respect to what constitutes the outcomes of procedural justice in order to encourage extra-role behavior

Interactional justice focuses on decision makers in that in the same organization a fair procedure could create very different reactions among employees, depending on how different managers (or decision makers) implement and enforce that procedure (Bies and Moag, 1986) Greenberg (as cited in Esterhuizen and Martins, 2008) asserts that interactional justice can be divided into two forms, interpersonal and informational justice is seen as the explanation or justification provided by decision makers as to why outcomes were distributed in certain way All in all, interactional justice can be seen as respect, dignity and sensitivity shown to employees when outcomes are allocated as well as the justification underpinning the allocation of outcomes Niehoff and Moorman (1993) assert that interactional justice, in the form of interpersonal and informational, has an effect on co-worker relationships and organizational citizenship On the other hand, Crawshaw (as cited in Williamson and Williams,

2011, p.62) suggests that “the agents of change within an organization could be

linked with fairness perceptions and that adequate information and feedback in relation to decisions made must be provided in order to promote

organizations where they work

The consequence of perceived unfairness could be seen in an individual’s

behavioral response to the magnitude of perceived inequity Lullins (2010, p.275) proffer the view that based on exchange theory of organizational and social

behavior, “equity theory focuses on people’s feelings of how fairly they have been treated in comparison with the treatment received by others” However, inequity

occurs when the ratio of a person’s outcomes (e.g salary, promotion, job security,

recognition) to inputs (e.g level of education, performance, past experience) are not equal as compared to that of others (Admas, 1965; Henle, 2005; Hellriegel et al., 1989) A study by Stecher and Rosse (as cited in Williamson and Williams, 2011) demonstrates a significant correlation between distributive justice, negative emotions and withdrawal behavior-most notably intention to leave and intent to reduce workplace effort Like (Nowakowski and Conlon, 2005; Coquitt et al., 2011), Roch and Shanock (2006) maintain that many important organizational

attitudes and behaviors can be directly linked to employees’ perceptions of fairness

For instance, research has shown that the contravention of distributive, procedural

and interactional, be it interpersonal or informational justice lower employees’ job

satisfaction, organizational commitment and trust in decision makers (Coetzee, 2005; Colquitt et al., 2001) Again, Colquitt et al (2001) theorize that negative relationship exists between performance and perceived procedural injustice It is worth noting that the behavior outcome emanating from perceived inequity by employees in the banking sector could have an adverse consequence on service delivery and client relations if care is not taken to mitigate this dilemma called injustice

2.5 On the Job Behaviors

Even though various definitions of job search behavior exist, most of them have recognized its multidimensional natural For instance, Schwab, Rynes, and Aldag (1987) proposed that job search behavior consists of the sources used to acquire information about job vacancies as well as the intensity with which such information is pursued Soelberg (1967) developed a sequential model of job search behavior and distinguished a phase of planning job search (i.e., allocating resources

to job search and identifying search generators or sources to produce initial job alternatives) from a job search and choice phase (.e., activating search generators, collecting information on job alternatives, and evaluating job alternatives, Power & Aldag, 1985) Similarly, Barber, Daly, Giannantonio, and Phillips (1994) suggested that job search behavior refers to identifying the existence of job opportunities and gathering more detailed information on selected job alternatives

More recently, Kanfer et al (2001) defined job search behavior as the product

of a dynamic self-regulatory process that begins with the identification of and commitment to an employment goal This goal subsequently activates search behavior designed to bring about the desired goal Accomplishing or abandoning the employment goal is posited to terminate the job search process and associated job search efforts and activities Given that job search behavior is different job largely self- regulated, Kanfer et al (2001) further conceptualized that it is like to vary across individual along three major dimensions: effort-intensity (effort and frequency of job search activity), content-direction (activities engaged in and quality

of these activities), and temporal-persistence (dynamic processes and persistence in job search)

This chapter builds on the multidimensionality of job search behavior implied

by these definitions and relies on the three dimensions proposed by Kanfer et al (2001) to organize, review, and discuss the different kinds of job search behaviors and sources that have been studied in the literature (see Table 1 for a (no-exhaustive) overview) Whereas previous research has mainly focused on the effort-

intensity dimension, research on the other two dimensions (i.e., the content and dynamics of job search behavior) is relatively scarce but equally or even more important

CHAPTER III: RESEARCH MODEL AND HYPOTHESES

3.1 Research Model

As mentioned above, from four independent constructs: Organization commitment, Work control, Goal and Process clarity and Fairness Perceptions of an Organizational policy and the dependent construct: On the Job Behaviors To investigate impacting of independent constructs on the dependent construct, I propose a research model as below:

Figure 2: Hypothesized Research Model

Organization Commitment

Work Control

On the Job Behaviors (Workplace Behaviors) Goal and Process Clarify

Fairness Perception of an

Organization Policy

organization’s goals and values, a willingness to exert considerable effort on behalf

on the organization, and a strong desire to maintain membership in an organization The various definitions reflect three broad themes: commitment reflecting an affective orientation toward the organization, recognition of costs associated with leaving the organization and moral obligation to remain with an organization

(Meyer & Allen, 1997) An employee’s liking for an organization is termed

affective commitment and includes identification with and involvement in the organization Employees with a strong affective commitment continue employment with the organization because they want to do so (Cohen, 1993) Continuance commitment refers to an awareness of the costs associated with leaving he organization Employees whose primary link to the organization is based on continuance commitment remain with their employer because they need to do so Finally, normative commitment reflects a feeling of obligation to continue employment Employees with a high level of normative commitment feel that they ought to remain with the organization (Meyer & Allen, 1997) Others have argued that commitment reflects the psychological bond that ties the employee to the organization but that the nature of the bond can take three forms, labeled

compliance, identification, and internationalization (O’Reilly & Chatman, 1986)

Compliance occurs when attitudes and behaviors are adopted not because of share beliefs but simply to gain specific rewards In this case, public and private attitudes, may fifer Identification occurs when an individual accepts influence to establish

and maintain a relationship; that is, an individual may respect a group’s values

without adopting them On the other hand, internationalization occurs when influence is accepted because the induced attitude and beliefs are congruent

with one’s own value (Caldwell, 28 Chatman & O’Reilly, 1990; Meyer & Allen, 1997; O’Reilly & Chatman, 1986; O’Reilly, Chatman & Caldwell, 1991) Clearly,

not all of these views are in agreement For example, some researchers have questioned whether compliance should be viewed as a component of commitment because it is distinct form other common definitions and can be viewed as the antithesis of commitment That is, compliance has been found

to correlate positively with employee turnover (O’Reilly & Chatman, 1986),

whereas commitment generally reduces turnover (Mowday et al., 1982) The studies I reviewed from the 1990s suggest there is a growing consensus that commitment is a multidimensional construct that certainly includes an effective dimension and many include components that reflect normative pressures as well as practical considerations such as the costs of leaving an organization and locating another job with similar pay and benefits

Hypothesis 1: Organizational Commitment is positively related to On – the – Job

Behaviors

b Measures of construct of Organizational Commitment

This measure, developed by Cook and Wall (1980), describes an employee’s

overall organizational commitment The measure uses nine items The items can be grouped to form subscales for organizational identification, organizational involvement, and organizational Loyalty Each subscale contains three items

Coefficient alpha values ranged from .71 to .87 (Furnham, Brewin, &

O’Kelly, 1994; Oliver, 1990; Sanchez & Brock, 1996) The identification,

involvement, and Loyalty subscales correlated positively with work rewards and committed behaviors, which included such actions as reading in-house publications, attending general meetings, voting frequently in internal elections, activism, and job effort The three subscales all constructs negatively with the range of other employment alternatives (Oliver, 1990) Furnham et al {1994) found that a personality style that tends to attribute positive events at work

to internal causes correlated positively with the combined measure of organizational commitment

Responses are obtained using a 5-point Likert-type subscale where 1 = strongly disagree and 5 = strongly agree

Questionnaire:

1 I am quite proud to be able to tell people who it is that I work for

3 I'm not willing to put myself out just to help the organization (R)

4 Even if the firm were not doing too well financially, I would be reluctant to change to another employer

5 I feel myself to be part of the organization

6 In my work I like to feel I am making some effort, not just for myself, but for the organization as well

7 The offer of a bit more money with another employer would not seriously make me think of changing my job

9 To know that my own work had made a contribution to the good of the organization would please me

Items denoted with (R) are reverse scored

3.2.2 Work Control

a Definition

The demand for valid measures of job characteristics is driven by continuing efforts in organizations to determine the features of jobs that induce employees to work harder and perform better One of the most widely used perspectives of how aspects of jobs affect employee Willingness to consistently perform better is the job characteristics model (JCM) developed by Hackman and Oldham (1980) This model predicts that if a job is well designed, it leads to higher levels of three critical Psychological states These are experienced meaningfulness of the

work, such as results from the job that are meaningful within the employee’s

system of values; experienced responsibility for the outcomes of the work, or belief that the employee has personal accountability for the outcomes; and knowledge of the results of the work activities, including judgments of others about the quality or quantity of the work performed (Hackman & Oldham, 1980)

The JCM predicts that jobs that are well designed have live key characteristics:

1 Skill variety, which is the extent to a job requires the use of different skills and talents

a whole identifiable outcome

of people in an organization or society in general

4 Autonomy, which describes the extent to which a job provides the employee with discretion to choose how the work is done and to set the schedule for completing the work activities

5 Job feedback, which indicates the extent to which carrying out the work activities provides the employee with clear information about his or her performance

Jobs with these characteristics create higher levels of the critical Psychological states, which in turn leads to higher levels of internal work motivation (Hackman & Oldham, 1980) Research on the JCM has generally found that employees in jobs that score higher on variety, identity, significance, autonomy, and feedback have more internal motivation and better performance (Hochwarter, Zellars, Perrewé, & Harrison, 1999; Renn & Vandenberg, 1995) Individual differences among employees (personality, age, etc.) may affect the relationship between job dimensions, the psychological states, and internal motivation (Spector, Jex, & Chen, 1995)

The JCM has provided the framework from which to view the effects that job characteristics have on employee outcomes such as satisfaction, organizational commitment, and intention to remain with an organization (Hochwarter, Zellars, et al., 1999) Other approaches to describing and assessing job characteristics have been developed that provide an expanded view of jobs including engineering and biological perspectives (Campion, 1988) Many studies have attempted to isolate particular aspects of jobs, such as control, interdependence, and complexity that may have significant effects on workers (Dean & Snell, 1991; Karasek, 1979) An increasing amount of attention has been paid to the role that contextual variables play in the perceptions that employees form about their jobs For example, perceptions of the extent to which employees believe they are empowered in their jobs and the extent to which employees believe the organization appreciates their efforts may affect the way that employees view I he identity, significance, variety, autonomy, and feedback in their jobs (Eisenberger, Huntington, Hutchinson, & Sowa, 1986; Gagne Senecal, & Koestner, 1997; Spreitzer 1995)

Hypothesis 2: Work control is positively related to On – the - Job Behaviors

b Measures of conduct of Work Control

This measure, developed by Dwyer and Ganster (1991), describes the extent to which workers perceive they have control over numerous aspects of the work environment These aspects include control over the variety of tasks performed, the order of task performance, the pace of tasks, task scheduling task procedures, and arrangement of the physical layout/environment In Dwyer and Ganster (1991), coefficient alpha was 87 Control over aspects of a job correlated positively with sick days taken, workload, and work satisfaction In multivariate analysis, control moderate the relationship of workload with work satisfaction (Dwyer & Ganster1991) Instructions and items: Below are listed a number

of statements which could be used to describe a job Please read each statement carefully and indicate the extent to which each is an accurate or an inaccurate description of your job by writing a number in front of each statement The response options 1 = very little, 2 = little, 3 = a moderate amount, 4 = much, and 5 = very much

1 How much control do you have over the variety of methods you use in completing your work?

on any given day?

5 How much control do you personally have over how much work you get done?

6 How much control do you have over how quickly or slowly you have to work?

breaks?