Factors afecting frontline employy performance in Vietnam retail banking sector

Abstract This study empirical examined quality of frontline employee performance to satisfy customers in the Vietnam retail banking.. Based on the model of multilevel investigation of fa

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NGUYEN HUU MINH PHUONG FACTORS AFFECTING FRONTLINE

EMPLOYEE PERFORMANCE IN VIETNAM

RETAIL BANKING SECTOR

MASTER OF BUSINESS (Honours)

SUPERVISOR: Dr Vo Thi Ngoc Thuy

Ho Chi Minh City – Year 2014

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT 4

CHAPTER1: INTRODUCTION 5

1.1 RESEARCH BACKGROUND 5

1.2 RESEARCH OBJECTIVES 7

1.3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY AND RESEARCH SCOPE 7

1.4 STRUCTURED OF REASEARCH 8

CHAPTER2: LITERATURE REVIEW AND HYPOTHESES 10

2.1 FRONTLINE EMPLOYEE PERFORMANCE 10

2.2 PERSONALITY TRAITS 12

2.2.1 INTRINSIC MOTIVATION 14

2.2.2.TRAITS COMPETITIVENESS 15

2.2.3 SELF-EFFICACY 16

2.3HUMAN RESOURCE PRACTICES 17

2.3.1 EMPLOYEE INVOLVEMENT 17

2.3.2 SERVICE TRAINING 18

2.4 SERVICE CLIMATE 19

2.5 THE CONCEPT MODEL 21

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 22

3.1 SAMPLE 22

3.2 MEASUREMENT SCALE 23

CHAPTER4: DATA ANALYSIS 30

4.1 DATA RESULTS 30

4.2 CRONBACH’S ALPHA COEFFICIENT OF REABILITY TEST 31

4.3 EXPLORATORY FACTOR ANALYSIS (EFA) 33

4.4 MULTIPLE REGRESSION ANALYSIS 36

4.5 DISCUSSION OF DATA RESULTS 38

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSIONS, IMPLICATIONS, LIMITATIONS AND FURTHER RESEARCHES 42

5.1 CONCLUSIONS 42

5.2 IMPLICATIONS 42

5.3 LIMITATIONS AND FURTHER RESEARCHES 44

APPENDIX 50

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: Cronbach’s Alpha

Table 2: Rotated Component Matrix

Table 3: KMO and Bartlett’s Test

Table 4: Model Summary

Table 5: ANOVA

Table 6: Coefficents

Abstract

This study empirical examined quality of frontline employee performance to satisfy customers in the Vietnam retail banking Based on the model of multilevel investigation of factors influencing employee service performance and customer outcomes by Liao and Chuang (2004), this study identified three factors that influencing direct to front line performance as followed: personality characteristics, human resource practices and service climate A quality method survey based on a sample of 200 people working in banks and using banking service in HCM City to test the concept model was given The result of this research shows the positive influence of service climate of banking environment and self- efficacy of frontline employees and the negative impact of employee involvement element to their performance The finding of this study could suggest some practical implications for mangers to improve their employees’ performance as well as competitive advantage in Vietnam retail banking sector

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

1.1 RESEARCH BACKGROUND

Development of retail banking segment is becoming a potential business and promises

to bring more profit for banks in the context of difficult domestic and foreign financial market In terms of slowdown credit growth in recent years, investment in developing a model of modern retail banking aim to divert revenue from services instead of focusing on profit from credit which is a traditional banking model When switched to retail fields, banks will have bigger market and have an ability to reduce risks in business Vietnam market with

a population of nearly 90 million people and growing level of income is considered as a potential retail market of commercial banks In addition, SMEs (small and medium enterprises) also tend to develop and expand the scale of business; hence this market will flourish in the future due to growth of income and all kinds of businesses Retail banking could be understood that is the provision of banking services to private individuals and SMEs through a network of bank or customers could access directly through means of technology, electronics, internet and telecommunications Services offered include saving and transaction accounts, mortgages, personal loans, debit cards, credit cards and online banking

From 2008 to now, the foundation of retail banking model has been begun to appear The first is card services and consumption loans (debit and credit cards) are more common to customers Until April 2012, the number of cards circulating is 44.6million cards (up to 12 times compared to end of 2006) In addition, more 13,700 ATMs and 83,000 POS were installed and almost 32,000 POS is connected (from IDG- International Data Group and BIU-Business Intelligence Unit).The next is the continued growth of online banking According to the State Bank of Vietnam, while there were only 4 banks which were deploying online

banking services in 2004, this number was increasing to 25 banks in 2008 and continually rising to 40 banks in the quarter 3/2012 with the main service is to provide information, bill payments and transfer periodic cash in the system And finally, the associated financial products (banking services in conjunction with insurance, securities, gold) are being deployed more and more An example of this type of products is the "bancassurance" (selling insurance through banks) that makes there venues for banks, develop customer market and create more diverse utilities to attract deposits, insurance premiums and payments via ATM cards

The expansion of the banking market lead to competitions in retail banking is inevitable Banks are constantly improving the quality of service that not only effective but also improve the business position and brand for the banks to pursue retail banking model, cultivate clients and build close relationships between bank and customers Banks tend to have prestige clients in the service commitment to eliminate the risks on the path towards sustainable retail banking According to a survey of 18,000 retail customers in 35 countries

by Capgemini Group- an international information technology group, the rate of customers who intend to change products and banking services in 2012 increased to 79% (up 12% compared to 2011) In Vietnam, 69% of customers would not sure to be faithful to current bank The reason of this psychological is due to the quality of services, interest rates and fees Since customer retention is a critical goal, the question that banks wonder becomes: what factors affect a customer’s perception of the bank and what actions can the bank take to increase positive perceptions

Some previous studies proved that frontline employee performance significantly influence the quality of service operations, since these employees present the face and the voice of their organizations to customers (Harline and Ferrell, 1996; Schneider, Wheeler and Cox, 1992) All customers need is relatedness, assurance, empathy and reliability from employees and

service quality (Brady and Cronin, 2001) Consequently, to improve service quality, bank need frontline employees who have good performance to attract customers using their service and high knowledge and experience to consult appreciate services/products, introduce new services and solve customer problems Therefore, frontline employee performance enhancement is becoming a concerned subject of managers and economists

1.3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY AND RESEARCH SCOPE

This study based on literature and concerned researches and develop a questionnaire

by English Then author select questions that are suitable for needs and culture of Vietnamese and translate in to Vietnamese An in-depth interview was carried out with first ten people for reference and amendment The questionnaire would be tested in the pilot study with 50 responses The aim of the pilot study is checking certain issues before undertaking large-scale study After that, the completed questionnaire was distributed through two ways: 1- face to face interview and 2- online survey on Google drive sent to social networks and banking websites

The sample has been chosen to conduct in Ho Chi Minh City- a biggest and crowded city with a population of nearly 8 millions The total observations must be at least 200 frontline employees and 200 customers

After gathering up full data, SPSS software was used to analyze multiple regressions linear The initial steps of this method are testing Cronbach’s alpha (the reliability of the measurement scale) and Exploratory Factor Analysis (the validity of the measurement scale) would be executed Finally, multiple regressions is analyzed after assumptions had been tested

1.4 STRUCTURE OF THE RESEARCH

This research includes five chapters:

Chapter 1: Introduction

The first chapter presents the background and purpose of the study through following part: Research Background, Research Objectives, Research Methodology and Scope

Chapter 2: Literature review and Hypotheses

In this chapter, the previous related researches are conducted to prove and supplement for hypotheses The author provides literature and recognized result of last researches in different fields and over the world that connecting to frontline employee performance The author also figures out evidences of positive impact of three main factors on frontline employee performance: personality characteristics, human resource practices and organization climate On that basic, hypotheses and concept model are established and tested

in Vietnam retail banking

Chapter 3: Research Methodology

This next chapter describes the method that research applies and the processes that author conduct the survey such as: identifying target populations, choosing sampling technique, data collection procedure and measurement scale for items The chapter divided in

to two parts: Sample and Measurement Scale

Chapter 4: Data Analysis

Chapter 4 reports the results of the survey Based on the survey data, the author tests items, hypotheses and concept model, the chapter presents in detail the steps that analyse database such as: Cronbach’s Alpha Coefficient of Reliability Test, Exploratory Factor Analysis and Multiple Regression Analysis

Chapter 5: Conclusions, Implications, Limitations and Further Research

The final chapter present the conclusions unify research results and discussion and elaborate on their significance to thesis Then the author gives some practical implication in real working environment Limitations and Further research are also given to complete thesis

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW AND HYPOTHESES

In this chapter, the literature that concerned to frontline employees will be provided and hypotheses will be suggested:

2.1 FRONTLINE EMPLOYEE PERFORMANCE

No one can deny the important role of frontline employees who do the most interacting with customers and observes customers’ responses about bank’s products or services then contribute significantly to the customers’ access to the services of the bank Solomon, Suprenant, Czepiel, &Gutman (1985) emphasized that frontline service employees play a pivotal role in services encounters and have a connection with customers and organization services and represent an organization to its customers, which often involve dyadic interactions between customers and service employees The employees’ performance

in relation to customer service activities can either create a sale for the bank or lose a customer Most of banks spend more time and energy trying to find new customers than they spend retaining the customers they have And every interaction between frontline employees and their customers has a direct impact on the publics’ opinion of the bank due to these employees are the primary connection between the banks and customers Some customers want to refer and find out information about the services of retail banking; the first thing they have to do is to meet the front line staffs for advices This is a decisive step when bank customers want to approach and persuade customers to use its services caused by the great first impression through the performance of the customer service representatives Agreeing with this point of view, Chase and Tansik (1983) argued that greater frontline employee knowledge and skills are needed where customers and employees have high level of communication because unpredictable situations creates a need for employees who can make

continuous and multiple non-programmed decisions during the service encounter In some cases, frontline employees may observe all service delivery process to contribute the testing and development of new service Hence, Schneider and Bowen (1984) argued that frontline employees are a valuable source of new service ideas and are even more useful in helping to determine ways to implement a new service to get a favorable customer response

The previous studies have been undertaken to explore factors affecting employee performance in high contact services that means typically involve activities in which neither service providers nor customers absent from the transaction and have a close and direct interaction for a prolonged period (Chase, 1981) Schlesinger and Heskett (1991) identified two critical elements that define a service strategy for high contact service organizations are human resources and service delivery systems More details, human resources element include tangible characteristic (experience, education), training and intangibles (personal characteristics of workforce) Service delivery systems include processes and infrastructure used to deliver the service Besides that, Harline and Ferrell (1996) summarized those preceding researches and showed that attitude and behavior of employees can positively or negatively affect customer’s perceptions to service encounter and their judgments to service quality They believed that service providers who lack experience and tend to be in conflict with others are likely are likely to exhibit decreased job satisfaction and performance which leads to a decrease in customers’ perceived service quality On the contrary, contact employees are better able to satisfy customers when employees have some controls over the service encounter like: self-efficacy, job satisfaction, adaptability A recent study by Goldstein (2003) indicated three dimensions of service strategy in a high contact service environment which mirror those addressed by Schlesinger and Heskett (1991): Work systems (the work and job designs that organizations establish for their employees), Staff education,

training, and development (how these efforts are focused on accomplishing key organizational plans and addressing organizational needs) and Staff well-being (how the organization maintains an environment and climate that support the well-being and motivation of employees)

In addition, Liao and Chuang (2004) investigated the factors influencing employee service performance and customer outcomes and they gave a concept model about this relationship They emphasized the impact of managerial practices and service climate on customer perceptions of service quality and business-unit financial performance at the store level of analysis and linked employees’ personalities to their service performance They also indicated a multilevel framework in which employee service performance was examined as a joint function of employee individual characteristics and service environment characteristics Previous researches just focused on either organization- level or individual-level analysis This is a first study that combined store-level (or macro) approach and individual-level (or micro) approach to measure employee service performance However, the limitation of this study is that the samples of survey were examined on a single occupation from the same organization in 25 restaurants in U.S Midwest For this reason, the study presented here based

on a research of Liao and Chuang (2004) and find out factors that effecting to front line service employees in retailing banking

model called Big Five model This model measures different traits of human lead to their behaviors without overlapping and is used as an observational tool based on five factors: agreeableness, conscientiousness, extroversion, neuroticism, and openness In addition to, a similar idea of Liao and Chuang (2004) and Barrick and Mount (1993) is that four of these five factors (conscientiousness, neuroticism, extraversion and agreeableness) were associated with performance in all jobs and expected to be particularly relevant when performance involved interactions with other people, as it does in a service context Except for neuroticism, three remaining characteristics have a positive effect to performance of

employee in high contact service Conscientiousness is defined as a good trait of a people or employees in working environment who is dependability, responsibility, carefulness, and perseverance (Rhoades and Eisenberger, 2002) Barrick, Stewart, and Piotrowski (2002)

described individuals who have extroversion characteristic to be energetic, communal, bold,

confident, lively, and adventurous and tend to be friendly and open to the world

Agreeableness reflects the attitude an individual holds toward other people is willing to

getting along with others while neuroticism was described as a person who is not good at

adjusting their emotions and tend to hostility, anxiety, depression, and vulnerability (Edward (2003)

Another aspect to be considered by Yavas, Karatepe and Babakus (2009) is better insights to be shift the focus from basic personality traits of big five model to specific traits which are relevant for frontline service jobs in general These are intrinsic motivation, traits competitiveness and self- efficacy These three traits are measured by items that are associated with frontline employees who usually work under stressful condition and require keeping a smiling face to interact with customers As a result, they found a susceptible link

between personality traits and job performance of front line employees working in different hotels of Ankara, Turkey’s capital

2.2.1 Intrinsic motivation

According to Ryan and Deci (2000), intrinsic motivation is conceptualized as an

individual’s activities for inherent satisfaction of the work itself rather than for some separable consequences Simply speaking, when intrinsically motivated, a person is turned to act just for the fun or challenge entailed rather than because of external motivations, pressures or rewards Agree with this concept, Oldham and Cummings (1996) assumed that intrinsic motivation is the extent of employee in excited about work activities and that is motivated to engage in it for the sake of the activity itself and not everyone is intrinsically motivated for any particular task Clearly, intrinsic motivation is good for the improvement of work creativity, work quality and job performance when people have internal desires to perform a particular task that gives them more pleasure, develops a particular skill, or satisfies their self- esteem More specifically, due to intrinsic motivation, frontline employees

in banking have more creativity and strong desire to perform their best ability and expect to receive good evaluations from their supervisors and customers They are likely to confront a difficulty or current problem and learn how to solve it by themselves Therefore, intrinsic motivated employees are interested in explore new pathways and to take greater risks (Amabile, Goldfarb, and Brackfield, 1990) That is the reason why one of the most important concerns for service enterprises is effective improvement the front-line employees’ intrinsic motivation Since intrinsic motivation reflects the tendency to experience positive personality traits, we expect that:

Hypothesis 1a: There is a positive relationship between Intrinsic motivation and front line

service performance

2.2.2 Traits competitiveness

Extant research has investigated to be positive related between traits competitiveness and job performance (Carsrud and Olm 1986; Brown and Peterson 1994; Brown,Cron and Slocum 1998) Very broadly, traits competitiveness is conceptualized as an internal and intentional desire of individual to engage in her/his activities and situations that involve interpersonal competition (Kohn 1992) This definition is consistent with Spence and Helmreich’s (1983) concept about one of personality traits Spence and Helmreich notes that person in high competitiveness enjoy in interpersonal competition and have strong desire to win and be better than others Kohn (1992) also demonstrates that those who are highly competitive always keep monitor their performance to make sure that they are surpassing their peers They are committed by themselves and set a goal to outperform others, hence, take an extra effort in preparation and execution For highly competitive frontline employees

in banking industry, the inherent desire to be a professional staff and the importance they attach to exceeding the performance of others motivate them to set higher target of revenue and faster promotion, exert a high effort level, and act meaningfully in the expectation that the chosen behaviors will lead to winning performance Then, we propose the following:

Hypothesis 1b: There is a positive relationship between Traits competitiveness and front line

service performance

2.2.3 Self- efficacy

One of the most famous researchers that explores social cognitive theory and focuses mainly on the concept of self- efficacy is Albert Bandura In his opinion, self- efficacy is the

belief of a person in her/his capabilities to organize and to execute required action process to achieve given attainments (Bandura, 1977) Agree with this concept, Stajkovic and Luthans (1998) states that a high self-efficacy individual could mobilize the motivation, cognitive resources and courses of action needed to successfully execute a specific task within a given context Moreover, Bandura (1977) also emphasized the different between the concept ”self- efficacy” and “self- confident” ( an overall or general feeling of competence) and “self- esteem” (an estimate of one’s value and degree of self- appreciation) Self- efficacy plays an important role in changing and affecting an individual’s behavior Gist and Mitchell (1992) determines that self-efficacy is an important motivational construct It influences individual choices, goals, emotional reactions, effort, coping and persistence Any individual who has the ability to show commitment to his career always is found to make an attempt to improve his skills and motivate himself to perform well Self-efficacy also changes as a result of learning experience and feedback In contrast, employees who doubt their capabilities will drive them to shy away from difficult tasks They easily give up and slow to recover their confidence following failure When frontline employees don’t judge themselves able to do their job well, they may not try to do it, and not to put themselves willing in to the situations which they think they will fail People in poor sell-efficacy are afraid of new things and challenges then they neither recommend new products, services and solutions to customers Naturally, this leads to a passive manners and attitude of employees in working environment Therefore, we propose that:

Hypothesis 1c: There is a positive relationship between Self- efficacy and front line service

performance

2.3 HUMAN RESOURCE PRACTICES

Human resources management is the important variable for the sustainability and growth of any organization According to Storey (1995), Human Resource Practices involves top management and line management in practicing the principles which improve staffs' capability and committed to endow with a competitive advantage In policies of human resource management, employees are considered as valuable resource and all the employees

of the organization have the right to make their own decisions profitable on the long term

basis

As the Human resource practices are been given more importance and implemented, there is extent for direct involvement of employees through schemes of employee engagement When the employees are accepted in the decisions making process in dealing routine matters it has a successful impact on the organizations If these actions and decisions are predisposed by their individual inner drives and enthusiasm it is assumed that employees are fully engaged and are working in positive direction (Iaffaldano and Muchinsky, 1985) Followed by Liao and Chuang (2004), the review of the literature on human resource practices indicated employee involvement and employee training as the most relevant for employee performance in service settings

2.3.1 Employee Involvement

One of the determinants that Liao and Chuang (2004) mentioned in employee involvement is participative decision-making option of employee in the organization’s decisions There are many previous research examined this relationship and its consequences Denison (1990) reported that organizations, in which employees could be participated in decision-making practices at higher levels, have showed more employee engagement and

their competition in company will be gradually increased Cascio et al (1997) promulgated that employee could involves in decision- making tendency voluntary engage with organization Employees refer to contribute their ideas that they detected while serving customers and feedbacks from customers to improve products or services of company Empathetic frontline employee involvement in development and implementation may help prevent productivity and efficiency improvement goals of the firm from overwhelming the objective of meeting customer needs in the new service Moreover, Schneider and Bowen (1984) contend that frontline employee involvement in new service development improves the technical quality of the new service, improves the service climate and employee morale in the service establishment, and positively affects customer satisfaction Therefore, employee involvement has a direct affect to employee performance:

Hypothesis 2a: There is a positive relationship between employee involvement and front line

service performance

2.3.2 Service Training

Swanson and Holton (2001) defined training is a systematic process of attempting to develop employees’ knowledge, skills and abilities that are critical for successful job performance For employees engagement training has usually been established by management to develop a particular range of brain thinking, developing skills, logical reasoning and problem solving Training is essential for future position as well as present position of employees to acquire fast changing technologies, system based thinking and on time logical decision making abilities Front-line service employees might receive initial training on how the organization expects them to serve customers, handle customers’ complaints and learn about bank’s products and services More and more researches were

given to prove that employee training has a positive effect to employee performance and customer satisfaction Saks (1996) showed that the amount of training provided is significantly related to job satisfaction, as well as to job performance, commitment, and ability to cope Schneider and Bowen (1985) showed that formal training for new employees, general service training (Johnson, 1996) and gaining knowledge about an organization’s environment and about service (Schneider et al., 1980) were helpful in achieving quality

service and customer satisfaction Therefore,

Hypothesis 2b: There is a positive relationship between employee training and front line

service performance

2.4 SERVICE CLIMATE

Organization climate refers to a set of measurable properties of the work environment

that affecting directly or indirectly to people who live and work in this environment That may influence to their motivation and behavior in working (Litwin and Stringer, 1968) If company cannot bring a creativity and innovation in their working environment that means they fail to establish a motivated organization climate That will reduces effectiveness of employee performance and profit of company As Ismail (2003) said that successful organizations have the ability to provide a bonding between creativity and innovation with their climate and management processes Moreover, Martins and Terblanche (2003) found that leaders’ support, open communication, and providing facilities encourage employees to come up with new ideas Have a same point, Enson, Pirrie and Band (2006) demonstrated that work group supports, organizational encouragement, and lack of organizational impediments, freedom, and sufficient resources are positively correlated with creativity

among organizational members

However, service climate is a different definition in context of customer service Service climate was defined by Schneider et al (1985) as employees’ shared perceptions of the policies, practices, and procedures that are rewarded, supported, and expected concerning customer services Working in motivated organization environment, employees understand which opportunities in their future promotion are likely to show their best performance to customers and ready to deal with any awkward situation Thus,

Hypothesis 3: There is a positive relationship between service climate and front line service

performance

H2a-H2b

H3

2.5 THE CONCEPTUAL MODEL

A conceptual model is depicted in Fig.1:

Fig.1 Conceptual model

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

The third chapter report the methodology that author used to do the research

Simultaneously, this chapter also presents the measurement scales and their resources

3.1 SAMPLE

Two phrases comprised the research, a pilot and a main survey was undertaken in private banks of Ho Chi Minh (HCM) City, Vietnam such as: Asia Commercial Bank (ACB), Military Bank (MB), Techcombank, Sacombank

The objective of the study is investigating the factors that affect to frontline employees performance Hence, the author chooses bank’s employees are subject to survey, especially those who have directly contact with customers in daily The frontline employees may work at the positions such as teller, customer service relationship, credit officer Two group respondents are separate to survey: Group 1 includes people who working in banks environment as a customer service representative (frontline employees), group 2 includes people who studying and working in HCM City and using retail banking services (customers) The questionnaire system also was divided into two streams: one for employees (questionnaire of personality, HR practices and service climate) and another for customers (questionnaire of employee performance) The reason of this division is gathering objective information from each subject survey and that obtained parameters can evaluate frontline employee’s performance objectively

Before going to collect pilot survey and main survey, the author have a deep interview with five frontline employees who have an experience in serving customers for over three years The aim of these interviews is investigate if they could understand all the scale and collect more ideas from experienced employees, then select scales that adaptable with

Vietnamese thinking and cultures After that, the pilot testing of questionnaire with first 50 samples will be investigated to prepare for adjustments and revisions before the main survey The result shows that all respondents could understand the questions and pilot data could be analyzed The main survey is undertaken by dispatch widespread through:

 Social networks: facebook, emails…

 Relationship: friends, friends of friends, colleagues, acquaintance…

 Banking website: ub.com.vn

The sample of this research must be at least: 40 questions *5= 200 observations That means the author need 200 responses from frontline employees and 200 responses from customers using retail banking services in HCM City The purpose of this survey is to validate the measures and to test the concept model

3.2 MEASUREMENT SCALES

Personality Yavas, Karatepe and Babakus (2009) measured three personality traits

which are developed by Low et al., 1999 (Intrinsic motivation), Brown et al., 1998 (Traits competitiveness) and Jones, 1986 (Self-efficacy) Each of personality traits is measured by 4 items Employees were asked to access themselves with a five-point Likert scale, anchoring from 1- very inaccurate to 5- very accurate

Employee Involvement The 5-item scale of Haynes et al (1999) was used to

estimate the influence that employees have over decisions at work in health service This study applies Haynes’ scale to value the level of employee evolvement in their bank There is

5- point Likert for employees to rate from 1-“not at all” to 5-“a great deal”

Service Training We borrowed DINESERV- a tool for measuring restaurant service

quality of Stevens, Knutson and Patton (1995) to measure in retail banking There are 13 items scales to value service training for employees but only 10 items could be suitable for banking sector Two remaining items are: keeping restroom thoroughly clean and provide services as ordered Front line employees rated through three-point Likert scale: 1-not at all,

and 3-to a great extent

Service Climate The quality of service climate is measured by 8 item global service

scale determined by Schneider et al (1998) with 5 point Likert scale: 1- poor, 5- excellent This scale provides a summary measure of service employees’ perception of their organization’s climate for service

Frontline Employee Performance The scales developed by Borucki and Burke

(1999) are used for identifying front line employee performance 7 of 13 items are determined in accordance with banking sector and Vietnamese culture to be given for banking customers Customers access performance of employee who served them by rating through 11-point Likert scale from 1- completely dissatisfaction to 2- extremely good

This study tested all components in the conceptual model with an united 5 point Likert scale, anchoring from 1- “strongly disagree” to 5- “ strongly agree” The table below shows the full list of these components:

2 I feel a great sense of personal satisfaction when I do my job well

3 When I perform my job well, it contributes to my personal growth and development

4 My job increases my feeling of self esteem

Trait

competitiveness

Brown et

al (1998) 1 I enjoy working in situations involving

competition with others

2 It is important to me to perform better than others on a task

3 I feel that winning is important in both work and games

4 I try harder when I am in competition with other people

4 I have all the technical knowledge I need

to deal with my job, all I need now is practical experience

5 I feel confident that my skills and abilities equal or exceed those of my colleagues

6 My past experiences and accomplishments increase my confidence that I will perform successfully in this bank

7 I could have handled a more challenging job than the one I am doing

8 Professionally speaking, my job exactly satisfies my expectations of myself

own

Service Training Stevens,

Knutson and Patton (1995)

1 Employees in this bank receive continued training to provide good service

2 Employees in this bank receive extensive customer service training before they come into contact with customers

3 Employees of this bank receive training

on how to serve customers better

4 Employees in this bank receive training

on how to deal with complaining customers

5 Employees of this bank receive training

on dealing with customer problems

Service Climate Schneider

et al

(1998)

1 Rate the job knowledge and skills of employees in your bank to deliver superior quality work and service

2 Rate efforts to measure and track the quality of the work and service in your bank

3 Rate the recognition and rewards employees receive for the delivery of superior work and service

4 Rate the overall quality of service provided by your bank

5 Rate the leadership shown by management in your bank in supporting the service quality effort

6 Rate the effectiveness of your firms' communications efforts to employees and customers

7 Rate the tools, technology, and other resources provided to employees to support the delivery of superior quality work and service

Employee

Performance

Perceived

Borucki and Burke (1999)

1 Being friendly and helpful to customers

2 Approaching customers quickly

3 Asking good questions and listening to find out what a customer wants

4 Being able to help customers when needed

5 Pointing out and relating item features to a customer’s needs

6 Suggesting items customers might like but did not think of

7 Explaining an item’s features and benefits