Role ambiguity between the sales and planning investment departments in phu long real estates corporation

UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY International School of Business DO THI THANH THAO 22140045 ROLE AMBIGUITY BETWEEN THE SALES AND PLANNING INVESTMENT DEPARTMENTS IN PHU LONG

UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY

International School of Business

DO THI THANH THAO

22140045

ROLE AMBIGUITY BETWEEN THE SALES AND PLANNING

INVESTMENT DEPARTMENTS

IN PHU LONG REAL ESTATES CORPORATION

MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

SUPERVISOR: DR NGUYEN PHONG NGUYEN

Ho Chi Minh City, February 2017

CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1: PROBLEM INDENTIFICATION 5

1.1 Introduction about The Company and the potential problem 5

1.2 Select the central problem 13

CHAPTER 2: PROBLEM JUSTIFICATION 15

2.2 Justify the existence of the problem 15

2.3 Justify the importance of the problem 17

2.3.1 Interpersonal Tension 17

2.3.2 Low Job Satisfaction 18

2.3.3 Low Job Performance 20

2.3.4 Extreme Behavior 21

2.3.5 Propensity to leave 22

2.3.6 Opportunism 23

CHAPTER 3: CAUSE VALIDATION 25

3.1 Potential causes of problem 25

3.1.1 Vague Task 25

3.1.2 Restrictions on Employee’s Authority 25

3.1.3 Size and complexity of organization 26

3.1.4 Task Interdependence, Rules and Policies 27

3.2 Cause Validation 29

3.2.1 Justify the links between the potential causes and the central problem 29

3.2.2 Evaluate the relative importance of the real causes 31

3.2.2 Eliminate irrelevant causes 31

CHAPTER 4: SOLUTION 33

4.1 Alternative solutions 33

4.1.1 Clarify task before implementing a project by job description for each team and each team member 33

4.1.2 Increasing the effectiveness of teamwork quality through communication, coordination, balance of member contributions, mutual support, effort, cohesion 33

4.2 Solution Evaluation 36

4.3 Action Plan 37

CHAPTER 5: SUPPORTING INFORMATION 41

5.1 Interview transcript 41

5.1.1 Problem Identification 41

5.1.2 The existence of problem 44

5.1.3 Justify the importance of problem 47

REFERENCES 53

LIST OF TABLE

Table 1.1 The report of appraisal for applying ISO 9001:2015 9

Table 1.2 Processes underlying coordination 12

LIST OF FIGURE

Figure 3.1 The cause-effect map 27

Figure 4.1 The Teamwork Quality Construct 37

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

This research is to find out what problems are affecting on role ambiguity between Sales and Planning Investment Depts in Phu Long Real Estate Corporation The data from in-depth interviews with managers in Human Resources, Planning Investment and Sales Depts and employees in Planning Investment, Sales, Finance & Accounting and Human Resources Depts was used in this thesis Besides the report of DNV Organization taking assessment ISO 9001:2015, the research found out that lack of cooperation between Sales and Planning Investment Departments is the effect of role ambiguity between these two parts Next, in deeper analyze of the potential causes of the problem, the researcher found that Vague task, Size and Complexity of Organization, Task, Interdependences, Rules and Policies are root causes leading to effectiveness of Sales Strategic Team as well as the turnover of company Forwards, the paper suggested solutions relating to reduce role ambiguity between Sales and Planning Investment Depts in order to increase the

coordination of them as well as to improve the turnover in Sales as well as to meet the requirement of Sales Plan in Phu Long Corp Finally, the action plan with detailed steps was presented to implement this strategy

CHAPTER 1: PROBLEM INDENTIFICATION

1.1 Introduction about The Company and the potential problem

Introduction about The Company

Phu Long Real Estate Corporation was established in 2005 with charter capital: 700 billion of Vietnamese Dong It is one of the leading real estate developers in Ho Chi Minh City and the owner of 65-ha Dragon City in Nha Be District - the urban area

development The company has also developed and are operating other properties and projects in Vietnam including HD office Tower, Abacus office in District 1, Ho Chi Minh City; Saigon Sovico Phu Quoc 205 ha in Phu Quoc Island, one mixed - use project in City Center of Ha Noi

 Full name : Công ty Cổ phần Địa ốc Phú Long

 English name : Phu Long Real Estate Corporation

 Head office : 41 Nguyen Van Linh Street, My Hung 2 Quarter, Tan Phong Ward, District 7, Ho Chi Minh City

The company’s investment principle is to create sustainable value added for

users/buyers They always focus on details and build properties from user’s view, from planning & design, construction to property management Its products are designed and built with care and devotion, for instance: Kim Long Villas, Ngan Long Villas, Dragon Hill Residence and Suites, Dragon Parc Villas, PVGas office Tower, which brings not only high quality buildings but also an efficiency and optimal living community

Problem Identification

It cannot be denied that real estate market in Ho Chi Minh City has been heating up recently in generally and particularly at the south of Saigon This is not only a chance developing the projects in the south but also the challenging in this field for Phu Long Corp

According to CBRE (1) - the world’s largest commercial real estate services and investment firm, it stated that:

The demand for Saigon South has been growing as a commercial hub with quality office and commercial developments such as Crescent Plaza (home to ANZ bank), Broadway Office Park (home to IKEA’s sourcing operations) and other major multinationals have relocated to Saigon South as a an affordable location to the traditional downtown areas of Districts 1 and 3 it is no surprise that demand for Saigon South has been growing as a commercial hub with quality office and

commercial developments such as Crescent Plaza (home to ANZ bank), Broadway Office Park (home to IKEA’s sourcing operations) and other major multinationals have relocated to Saigon South as a an affordable location to the traditional

downtown areas of Districts 1 and 3 (1)

Based on the propensity to develop in Saigon South, Phu Long Corp is proud of being a many-year-experience real estate developer in this place With 10 years for

development, Phu Long Corp has been completing organizational structure for survival in this field as well as competing with strong competitors “The higher the environment variability and the uncertainty consequently experienced, the more the prevailing

structure of organization should be adaptive, with role open to continual redefinition and with co-ordination being achieved by frequent meetings and considerable lateral

communication” (2,p362) Obviously, besides the sources such as finance, experience,

personnel, the continuous improvement of organizational structure in Phu Long Corp is also very essential For instance, Phu Long Corp used standards to demonstrate the

ability to consistently provide products and services that meet customer and regulatory

requirement through applying ISO 9001:2015 - a quality management system revision, in

2016 According to the report of appraisal professors in Table 1.1, there are the existing problems in company about: lack of cooperation between Sales and Planning Investment Depts in selling goods, lack of the process control in construction site and lack of risk

analysis in quality management All of three problems have been singled out as of

particularly importance It is different to make a deep analysis for each issue

Site Name

Focus Area Process/Area/

Department

Standard Clause DNV

GL Auditors Initials

PHU LONG,

41 Nguye

n Van Linh Street (D2-19,

My Hung 2 Quarter ),Tan Phong Ward, District 7,HCM City,- ,+84,Vi

et Nam

Investment Department, Sales Department

ISO 9001:2015

ISO 9001:2

015 7.5

VNQ

There is no control process

risk-PHU LONG,

41 Nguye

n Van Linh Street (D2-19,

My Hung 2 Quarter ),Tan Phong Ward, District 7,HCM City,- ,+84,Vi

et Nam

Management

ISO 9001:2015

ISO 9001:2

015 6.1

The regulation of material for projects is more clearly For example: the uPVC pipe for water systems should be standardized and examine strictly

PHU LONG,

41 Nguye

n Van Linh Street (D2-19,

My Hung 2 Quarter ),Tan Phong Ward, District 7,HCM City,- ,+84,Vi

et Nam

Effectiveness

of service &

production process monitoring activities

Project Department

ISO 9001:2015

ISO 9001:2

015 8.5.1

TANAN

Table 1.1: The report of appraisal for applying ISO 9001:2015

Source: Human Resources Department of Phu Long Real Estate Corporation

The first mentioned issue is lack of cooperation between Sales and Planning Investment

Depts It is not a quite strange for the company Particularly, doing this research is easier

when it is supported by Human Resources Part as well as two related Parts The second

one is lack of process control in construction site However, this is the issue which is

associated with construction so that it takes too much time to do research and solve this

problem The last one is lack of risk analysis in quality management Listing and

management risk are necessary activities to prevent risk in future But considering the urgency, lack of cooperation between Sales and Planning Investment is the most essential which needs to be resolved in order to achieve a better operational result

Lack of cooperation between Sales and Planning Investment Depts., according to

information of Mr Tran Van Tai – a manager of Human Resources Dept stated: “This is

no clear job of each department: Sales and Planning Departments; hence there is no clear responsibility for any person and to lay blame on each other” Malone et al

(3,p362) also revealed: “If there is no interdependence, there is nothing to coordinate”

He also mentioned about three (3) kinds of interdependence: “prerequisite, shared

resources, simultaneity Prerequisite is output of one activity which is required by the next of activity Shared resource is resource required by multiple activities Simultaneity

is time at which more than one activity must occur (3,p363)” Or interdependence is the degree of influence on the others’ performance when one member of a team has to face with his task (4) Because of the effects of their performances on the others, members in Sales Strategic Team in Phu Long Corp might do the jobs for their members who cannot meet deadline, said Mr Tai In some situations, the delivery was not in time as they committed He also supposed that was the consequence of unserious reward, discipline and penalties system For the recent 2 years (2015-2016), the result after each Sales Strategy was less than the target of Sales Strategic Team 21,4%, 27,5% respectively Therefore, it really influences on the financial performance of company

Malone et al (3) preferred that the processes underlying coordination included 4 stages as Table 1.2 First, the coordination is “identifying goals, ordering activities,

assigning activities to actors, allocating resources, synchronizing activities”(3,p365) Second, group decision-making is “proposing alternatives, making choice (by authority, consensus, voting…)” (3,p365) Third, communication is “establishing common

languages, selecting receiver (routing), transporting message (delivering)”(3,p365) Finally, perception of common objects is “seeing same physical objects, assessing shared databases”(3,p365) According to Ms Tran Thi Minh Thuy is a team leader with 7

working years in Sales Department, she said: “In sales strategic team, the final result

usually is not on time For some reasons, one job in a chain will be delayed makes the process of all jobs are slower” On the other hand, “between Sales and Planning

Investment Parts, they seldom met each other to interact, share the information They just communicated via email, phone because of work The relationship between them may become cursory” - Mr Nguyen Liem Chinh – an expert in Planning Investment Dept

revealed Definitely, communication among them has not created a “common language” (5, p365) that is a language which is described the likeness of members in a team

Therefore, all the activities which are not the act of managing interdependencies and performed to achieve a goal is not the cooperation (3) Through the interviews, it can be found that the cooperation between Sales and Planning Investment Depts is not enough durable They implemented their tasks which were lack of interdependencies between them Moreover, they could not create a harmonious flow in cooperation because of

shortening the stages of coordination processes Therefore, lack of cooperation between Sales and Planning Investment Depts existed in Phu Long Real Estate Corporation

Coordination Goals, activities, actors, resources,

interdependencies

identifying goals, ordering activities, assigning activities to actors, allocating resources, synchronizing activities Group decision-

making

goals, actors, alternatives, evaluations, choices

proposing alternatives, evaluating alternatives, making choices (e.g., by authority, consensus, or voting) Communication senders, receivers, messages,

languages

establishing common languages, selecting receiver (routing), transporting messages (delivering)

Perception of

common objectives

actors, objects seeing same physical objects,

assessing shared databases

Table 1.2: Processes underlying coordination

Source: Malone et al (3,p365)

According to Tubre et al (6), lack of communication among teams or team

members can result in contradictory information that contributes role ambiguity

Furthermore, role ambiguity creates an extent of cooperation “existent or inefficient”

among teams or team members (6,p157) Carson et al (7) also stated that role ambiguity and cooperation have a negative effect The ambiguous in roles or responsibilities seems reduce incentives for cooperation According to Mr Yen – an employee in Planning

Investments Team, there were unclear assigned tasks in Planning Investment Department Some work relating to other parts, especially they would conduct some work of Sales

Team Although this work was not his role because of his superior direction There is

unclear expectation from superiors; thus the subordinates do not what their

responsibilities are Especially, because of no compensation for the extra work, one finds

unmotivated for this job He also stated: “Sales Departments is afraid of us implementing

all working relating to them If we finished this work well, my department will have the valid in company In contrast, their current role will be lost in company Because of this though, I feel uncomfortable in cooperating with them” According to the issue which

Planning Investments Team shared above, this problem is unclear rule between two departments

On the other hand, lack of cooperation in Phu Long Corp is caused by lack of trust among team members or teams, particularly unconditional trust According to

Jones et al (8), trust can lead to cooperative behavior in organization, particularly,

unconditional trust When trust is unconditional, people want to cooperate for shared values and reciprocated feelings, not for indebtedness (8) According to Mr Nguyen Liem Chinh, he felt uncertain about what he was doing and what he would achieve in his work Therefore, he often felt stress and unsatisfied with his job Furthermore, Ms Do Xuan Hoai also revealed that she felt untrusted in her supervisor Although she tried to work hard; she could be not recognized high-value For instance, two managers of Sales and Planning Investment Depts could not cooperated together because everyone had the own think and not trust in each other The lack of cooperation could lead to not match work of each member

The last one is leader behavior According to Cremer et al (9), two leadership

features related to the leaders’ ability to promote group belongingness: procedural

fairness and charismatic leadership The leaders may induce cooperation through

fostering positive within-group relations When an employee receives a positive social evaluation (respect, belongingness); fair treatment may motivate him engage in group-orientation behavior such as being conducive of cooperation (10) On the other hand, cooperation is created by charismatic leadership fostering a sense of group

belongingness Baetz et al (11) stated that charismatic leadership may appeal to group members’ motives, aspirations as well as to create motivation for staff These leader behaviors induce the splice of a vision as well as making personal sacrifices to realize the vision According to Mr Vo Duy Minh, he knew that the assigning of work was not suitable and not be clear However, he had to implement until he felt uninterested in work He could not do anymore because it was a mechanism of company

1.2 Select the central problem

Based on the analyzed information and potential problems, lack of cooperation between Sales and Planning Investments Departments comes from lack of trust among team members or team, particularly, unconditional trust; leader behaviors and the role ambiguity between Sales and Planning Investment Depts

Firstly, the trust of each individual to his team or colleagues requires the long time

to practice The development of trust is a function belonging an organization’s ability over time (8) Whether does the organizational culture endorse and encourage the

expression of the values underlying trust or not? Although significant advantages may obtain from the indication of unconditional trust, it takes time, effort, and considerable

resources to build and maintain unconditional trust (8) Thus, in order to enhance

unconditional trust among team members in Sales Strategic Team of Phu Long Corp, it takes too many resources which are not appropriate in this situation

Second, leader behavior is one of the potential problems creating lack of

cooperation This issue is one of emotional problem which is hard to solve in the

organizations It depends on the managerial system which is determined by the head of company With the limit of resources, this paper cannot solve this issue immediately

Third, role ambiguity makes employees unclear about their job objectives When

employee feels dissatisfied with work, low job performance is a certain thing; and job performance may be influenced In addition, this issue is supported by Human Resource Manager Thus, it is suitable to explore and find out the solution in order to reduce role ambiguity between Sales and Planning Depts

Therefore, this paper focuses on role ambiguity as a central problem of lack of cooperative behavior

CHAPTER 2: PROBLEM JUSTIFICATION

2.2 Justify the existence of the problem

It is very important to understand the meaning of “role” Role reflects a person’s position including rights, duties, power and responsibilities (12) Role ambiguity is

defined as an overlap of roles, rights and responsibilities among the positions (12)

Moreover, Schuler referred that role ambiguity was lack of clarification in the sent role as well as lack of “role expectations and the degree of uncertainty regarding the outcomes of one’s role performance” (13,p114)

According to Mr Chinh – an expert in Planning Investment Dept said that he could not do a lot of work well while he covered his responsibilities and some work from the others His responsibilities were not clear; hence, his work could be not recognized and rewarded Mr Duy – a manger of Planning Investment Department also stipulated that to get more work for the other made his part did overtime However, he was ready to do for the common objective And this might rely on the subjective appraisal of boss

Ambiguous in responsibilities is also a problem of a PR employee within a Sales

Strategic team “I find so hard to work while I am not recognized my ability My

responsibilities are really not clear and just shared from my superior”, she said

Role ambiguity, on the other hand, according to the chain-of-command principle organizations is lack of setting up the hierarchical relationships with a clear and single flow of authority from the top to the bottom (14) Roy et el (13) stipulated that role

ambiguity was as a single or multiple roles that confronted the role incumbent, which might be not clear behaviors or performance roles An experimental study of Smith (16)

was performed by 140 college students in order to measure the effects of role ambiguity The result of research concluded three issues First of all is that the performance of

groups being asked to solve problem without clarification of the role each member were less effective than when the roles were instructed clearly The second one is that role ambiguity significantly decreased group satisfaction And the last one is that the hostility level was markedly higher for group under conditions of role ambiguity than role

clarification (16) According to Rizzo et al (5), every position had a specific task as well

as responsibilities such as duties, role requirements with providing guidance and

direction He also stated that conversely, if an employee didn’t know what he has the authority to do and how he could do to get the achievement or what the achievement he had to obtain, he couldn’t perform what was unavailable measurement scale to judge his result These made him hesitate in making decisions or not meet the requirement or

expectation of his superior (5)

In addition, the questionnaire including fourteen (14) questions was designed and sent to ten (10) employees in Sales Strategic Team Company including Sales and

Planning Investment Departments to examine the existence of role ambiguity There were ten (10) surveys were returned with answers It meant that the response rate accounted for roughly 100% of total surveys The respondents were asked to indicate their degree of agreement or disagreement for each item in this section A five point scale will be used with 1 = "strongly agree" to 5 = "strongly disagree" to measure for each question In short, the mean rate was approximately 3.2 and it demonstrated that the level of role

ambiguity at Sales Strategic Team in Phu Long Corporation is higher than the average rate (2.5)

2.3 Justify the importance of the problem

According to Rizzo et al (5), ambiguity might increase his satisfaction with his role, being anxiety, distorting reality, and certainly would lead to perform less effectively Roy

et al (15) conducted a research on the relation of role ambiguity to member satisfaction and performance The study indicated that there was a high association between role ambiguity with tension, anxiety, fear and hostility, low job satisfaction, and loss of self-confidence as well as lower productivity often Ambiguous task from superior created an anxious feeling or less favorable attitude for superior as well as reduced productivity One of the appreciated and important characteristics of a good will manager was the ability to give his subordinates clear guidance Therefore, role ambiguity makes

employees less effective in performing their task which is relating to their obligations (17)

2.3.1 Interpersonal Tension

According to Nyanga et al (12), role ambiguity is the key reason of interpersonal tension Caldwell (18), Friedson (19), Lust (20) and Schuler (13) stipulated that when employees didn’t know what was expected to do for their tasks, misunderstanding could increase among them and might lead to tensions because of corroding the cooperation among them In fact, Sales Manager of company felt not comfortable when her work could be implemented by the others who wouldn’t know clearly about a flexible

combination among sales strategy, sales competition, persuading customer, etc… When

her responsibility will be done by the others, she wondered was her performance in work not good? These thought made her feel stress and unsecured about my job

Face to the action of Sales Department, Planning Investment Department found difficult in cooperation with them Manager of Planning Investment Department also shared that the more assigned task which they got from Sales Department made function

of his department weaker because of less time for incumbent job Furthermore, he didn’t find the clearly objective from the extra work How can he be judged what they were done by superiors? Certainly, there was a confused feeling from the unclear work, he said

According to Nyanga (12), when employee’s task was executed by the other, this is also the result of low self-image Role ambiguity influences on the employees feeling not self-confident for failing to perform as expected because what they were done probably had been finished by their colleagues There are the professional and personal conflicts because of overlapping, intertwining in work In addition, interpersonal conflict was one

of the major sources of stress (12) “Stress was very detrimental to the physical and mental health of an employee, hence such clashes should be avoided at all costs”

(12,p299) Therefore, unless the intense is solved, psychological work of employees in two departments would be getting worse

2.3.2 Low Job Satisfaction

According to Smith (21), there were five dimensions combining to job satisfaction: work satisfaction, satisfaction with colleagues, satisfaction with supervisors, satisfaction with salary and satisfaction with getting promotion Regarding to Keller’s research (22),

role ambiguity had a high negative impact on job satisfaction A staff in Planning

Investment Department shared: “Sales Team might feel unhappy with me when I must

cover some new works from their department When I got more work not including my responsibility, I did not only spend time for another job, but I also received scolding from

my superior sometimes Because superior assigned work to my department, so that we must do Really, we feel unhappy with temporary works which might make me lose my objective, even though lose promotion opportunities” Therefore, role ambiguity as a lack

of unclear job duties, rights and authority created job dissatisfaction (23) Roy (15), Rizzo (5), House (24), Hamner (25), Sell (26), Stout (27), Fang (28) and Cordes (29) also demonstrated that job ambiguity is one of key factors to lead to job dissatisfaction Other

information from staff of Sales Team, she said: “There was no job assignment for

instruction all members of two working team and clearly responsibilities in some

necessary cases We had many times to cooperation together but it got hard We

recognized that when there were some problems, who would be in charge of those works? Finally, employees who were enthusiasm with work were not only got award but also received complain from boss After that we worked under pressure and uncomfortable situation” Obviously, role ambiguity, the lack of clear and specific information regarding

work role requirements, has also been linked repeatedly with job stress

In addition, to test the consequences of role ambiguity: job satisfaction Based on the scales item of House et al (24), ten (10) surveys were returned with answers The results of correspondents contributed the evidences for the existence of job satisfaction in

Phu Long Corp Therefore, role ambiguity is one of factors creating low job satisfaction

in Phu Long Corp

2.3.3 Low Job Performance

According to Nyanga (12), role ambiguity did not only create low job satisfaction but also had a negative relation with performance and productivity Role ambiguity creates employee lose interest in her job and develops a negative attitude towards it Consequently, affectivity in work has a down trend (30) Nyanga (12) showed that when

an employee received too much unclear demands, he may panic and take pressure that his performance and productivity in work decreased He also alluded that the subordinates who received more work reduced the level of concentration on their task performance Certainly, they take a lot of time to be caution with new work Tubre and Collins (6) also revealed that an organization is the system of role which relies on the interaction of members, role ambiguity could have negative consequences on organizational

performance Role ambiguity effects on cognitive and motivational process (31) Because

of role ambiguity as a lack of knowledge of the most effective job behaviors, conflicting information, the individual is unable to do everything that is expected For the cognitive extent, role ambiguity results a low level of job performance for lack of information For the motivational perspective, role ambiguity tends to weaken effort-to-performance and performance-to-reward expectancies According to Walk (32), job performance is

recognized as employee outcomes, success, and financial performance of organizations When interviewed a staff in Planning Investment, he revealed that he was enthusiasm in cooperating with Sales team at first When he was made low-face in front of other

partners in some cases, he has no more desired for his contributing on Sales aspects On his part, he just did what he was assigned from superior carefully Because of

participating in Sales team, he might interrupt their authorities Being careful helped him

to avoid unwanted cases happening According to a subordinate working for in Planning

Investment also shared: “Our department becomes to be passive situation which make me

not interested in work anymore”

2.3.4 Extreme Behavior

Role ambiguity effects on both organization and individuals (12) Luo et al (14) also recognized that disorders in psychological dysfunctions such as stress, depression, conflict and low morale caused by role ambiguity Moreover, Macey (32) proposed that unwanted work behavior appeared in work environment were absenteeism and deviant behavior Turning to Mr Yen – a staff of Planning Investment Dept., he honestly shared:

“I’m a legal expert so that my responsibility is controlled by the legalization of

documents Besides, my new task received from superior was building sales policy as well as contributing sales campaign for the whole project of company Therefore,

whether I wanted or not, I had to fulfill this task However, Sales Department might think that I interfered in their work; they thus felt unhappy with me They began reacting with

me in work For instance, Sales manager suggested me moving my working place to Sales office Obviously, this was an unreasonable suggestion It seems to be the retaliation for interjecting their work When the conflict was highest, he attempted to protect my opinion and not moving another place To be honest, I felt disappointed with this and wanted to quit the job at that time After that, I often arrived to office late and come back early I

haven’t found interested in work instead of a positive position attitude I even though don’t want to go to work every morning after getting up This is the reason why I’m often absent at work”

2.3.5 Propensity to leave

Bedeian (33) indicated that the development from low job satisfaction to extreme

behavior would lead to the result on job engagement of employees as staying or leaving decision in a company The last major influence of role ambiguity is propensity to leave

of employees (33,p423) According to Roy (15), Rizzo (5), House (24), Hamner (25), Sell (26), Stout (27), Fang (28) and Cordes (29), they also comment that role ambiguity had significant effects on employee attitude which were dissatisfaction and propensity to leave in the company In addition, when role ambiguity is intense, employees would have trend to find alternative situations which are less uncomfortable (2) According to data of the Human Resource Department, the number of employee leaving job has increased significantly (i.e 19% in 2013; 26,4% in 2014; 27,5% in 2015 and 31,5% in the period of six first month ) In comparison with the average turnover rate in real estate field (i.e around 21,6% in 2015), the turnover rate of Phu Long Corp was higher than that The figures showed that the turnover rate rose by 4% in the first six months of 2016 From

2013 until now, the staff turnover rate has been on up trend and has the sign of

continuous increase next time

Mr Duy – manager of Planning Investment Department also shared: “My

department has some problem recently Receiving too much works makes our function weak For instance, we took too much time to solve the problems for other department;

although our function is to promote project investment Finally, our department had not met the requirement in employee appraisal of company Obviously, it’s hard to get the promotion without achievement I saw many seniors of my departments quit their job to find new opportunities for promotion Recently, my manager who has worked for

company in 8 years, decided to leave company for new chance Every staff knows that sooner or later the inevitable happens He had devoted so much to the company but he had never got the promotion in for 8 years Role ambiguity caused him never obtained significant accomplishment as expected”

2.3.6 Opportunism

Opportunism is defined as a self-interest seeking a strategy (7) Regarding Carson (7), ambiguity rises the opportunities for parties or individual to shirk, cheat, or being opportunism The phenomenon of opportunism is a system of behaviors including

shirking, failing to fulfill obligations, and withholding valuable information Role

ambiguity, thus increase the negative effects on organizational performance, especially in Sale Strategic Team According to Mr Yen – an employee in Planning Investment

revealed that some work belonging to Sales team which Planning Investment Dept must

to do For example, in setting up plan for selling product, Sales Team does not take care for this process This work is often conducted by Planning Investment Team Therefore, there is no commitment for the target sales It is a reason for the changing sales policy in order to take the advantages for them Mr Chinh also agreed with his colleague’s idea t

is clear to know this problem, but no one comment it because of their self-interest However, this effects on the other relating issues

CHAPTER 3: CAUSE VALIDATION

3.1 Potential causes of problem

3.1.1 Vague Task

Nyanga (12) revealed that vague task was a key factor which stimulated the role ambiguity He also stated when different person’s roles would be implemented at the same time, he performed unclear dual or multiple roles in definition or structure (12) Role incumbent, thus, became uncertain in what the expectation was from him in that role Furthermore, because ambiguous tasks were often closely interrelated, intertwined and difficult employees’ role, it’s hard to define separate them (34) Unclearly defined task performance objectives, lack of clarity of purpose, goals for both teams and

individuals would control in leaving the job incumbents to receive what was expected to

do from superiors (12) Certainly, ambiguous tasks would happen In fact, according to

Mr Yen in Planning Investment Department indicated: “Task performance of my

department which was drafted by Human Resource and General Director’s approval was not clear When some work done by Sales Department had not completed, the superiors asked him to do for them Or in some cases when we needed to cooperate in order to finished some products, it took a long time to wait for Sales team finishing To fulfill the task, my leader directed us to do for them Really, we didn’t find interested when

receiving more work.”

3.1.2 Restrictions on Employee’s Authority

Nyanga (12) supposed that in the enterprises being self-managed and self-directed work teams where would give their employees the jurisdiction to make decisions in their

areas However, the liberalisation of rights and responsibilities will lead to role ambiguity (12) Boles (35) also argued that an employee couldn’t know how much authority and responsibility of her in self-directed team There was no clarity and separation defined in this team In Phu Long Corp., there is cooperation between two teams in drafting new sales policy when the company launches a new project Therefore, according to a sales administrator, some related members would join in a group During that time, they often had some meeting to finalize the policy Instead of having work responsibilities table for each member and measurement to appraise performance of each member, some

employees covered too much while the others only contributed generally

3.1.3 Size and complexity of organization

The organizational complexity is a strong factor of role ambiguity (12) According

to Quah (36) viewed that large companies had a wide range of positions which were intertwined, overlapping and duplications of responsibilities “In Phu Long Corp., in order to decrease operation cost, each staff could be required some jobs by superior The working environment was not really professional Therefore, an employee could

undertake a part of work of the others”, Manager of Human Resource Department said

He also revealed that the company needed a Sales Director who could know clearly about market and finance to manage and make Sales Department stronger In addition, the other

in Planning Investment Department also shared: “we know that the company utilizes human resource for different objectives of company However, some work is not suitable for employees who receive that work”

3.1.4 Task Interdependence, Rules and Policies

Task interdependences is also viewed as a stipulator of role ambiguity (12) Russel (37) indicated that task interdependence was created from co-operating and working interactively of team members One’s performance was influenced on others’

performance as well as performance chain of task Thus, when bad performance of a group or team would be not good and didn’t do its part, the others would leave their job incumbents in order to be prior work for avoiding breaking performance chain

Unknowingly, role ambiguity was inevitable (12) According to above expert in Planning Investment said: “In order to fulfill the common task, our department had to work as demand of boss for Sales Team Because my manager was such a kind person of

comeliness; therefore, he didn’t want to debate for right or wrong issue He just wanted to complete the objective well However, this makes our department disappointed”