Psychological capital, burnout, and quality of work life: evidence from Vietnam

Abstract The present study investigates the impacts of psychological capital on burnout and quality of work life of employees in Vietnam.. The study based on positive organizational beha

UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY

International School of Business

-

Nguyen Hong Mai

PSYCHOLOGICAL CAPITAL, BURNOUT,

AND QUALITY OF WORK LIFE:

EVIDENCE FROM VIETNAM

MASTER OF BUSINESS (Honours)

Ho Chi Minh City – Year 2016

UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY

International School of Business

-

Nguyen Hong Mai

PSYCHOLOGICAL CAPITAL, BURNOUT,

AND QUALITY OF WORK LIFE:

EVIDENCE FROM VIETNAM

Acknowledgement

I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor Dr Nguyen Thi Mai Trang for the continuous support of my research, for her patience, motivation, and immense knowledge Her guidance helped me in all the time of research and writing of this study

In addition, I would like to thank my family and my friends for supporting me spiritually throughout writing this study Therefore, I dedicate this work as a gift to them all

Abstract

The present study investigates the impacts of psychological capital on burnout and

quality of work life of employees in Vietnam The study based on positive organizational behavior theory to propose a model in which psychological capital has impacts on

burnout and quality of work life This research also examines the roles of burnout in quality of work life The model was tested with a sample of 302 employees working for firms in Ho Chi Minh City by means of structural equation modeling The results show that the proposed model fits the data well and all hypotheses were supported The test confirms that psychological capital has positive impacts on quality of work life and negative impacts on burnout of employees These findings verify the importance of psychological capital in work and lives in a transitioning market Hence, psychological capital is important for enhancing employee’s quality of work life and reducing job burnout In addition, firms should pay attention to this type of capital in their recruiting, training and career development programs

Keywords

psychological capital, quality of work life, burnout, Vietnam

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

ABSTRACT

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF FIGURES

LIST OF TABLES

1 INTRODUCTION 6

2 LITERATURE REVIEW AND HYPOTHESIS 8

2.1 Conceptual model 8

2.2 Psychological capital 9

2.3 Burnout 11

2.4 Quality of work life 12

2.5 Moderating effects of demographics 15

3 METHODOLOGY 16

3.1 Design and Sample 16

3.2 Measurement 19

3.3 Measurement refinement 22

4 DATA ANALYSIS AND RESULT 23

4.1 Measurement validation 23

4.2 Psychological capital 24

4.3 Burnout 24

4.4 Quality of work life 25

4.5 Saturated model 28

4.6 Hypothesis testing 31

5 DISCUSSION 31

5.1 Implications 32

5.2 Limitations and directions for future research 34

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1: Conceptual model 8

Figure 2: Structural results (standardized estimates) 30

LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Sample characteristics 18

Table 2: Measurement scale 21

Table 3: Means, standard deviations, and standardized CFA loadings of items 26

Table 4: Unstandardized structural paths in the model 29

to find out new methods to human resource management (Luthans, Norman, Avolio & Avey, 2008) Researchers have focused on two components of the working people in recent years (Nguyen & Nguyen, 2012) The first component is the positive

organizational behavior and its derivative psychological capital, which is described as an individual’s psychological state of development (Luthans et al., 2008) and the quality of work life is the second component (Sirgy, 2006; Wright & Cropanzano, 2004)

Researchers show that there is a relationship between psychological capital and quality of work life (Nguyen & Nguyen, 2012; Nguyen, Nguyen & Minh, 2014) and a relationship between psychological capital and burnout (Luo & Hao, 2010; Luthans, Luthans &

Luthans, 2004) Nevertheless, little information remains on the relationships between psychological capital, quality of work life, and burnout, notably in developing countries Moreover, the role of psychological capital and quality of work life of staff members has not gained much awareness by researchers in developing nations like Vietnam (Nguyen

& Nguyen, 2012; Nguyen, Nguyen & Minh, 2014) Thus, the purpose of this study is to investigate the roles of psychological capital in quality of work life and burnout of

employees in Vietnam In addition, this research also investigates the moderating roles of age and gender in the relationships between psychological capital, quality of work life, and burnout

In the 1990s, Vietnam started to build its economy after many years of war and post-war readjustment Highly skilled workforce is required during the process of change

toward a market-oriented economy and integration into the global economic main stream

However, it is very challenging for Vietnam’s employers to attract and retain qualified employees (Bodewig, Badiani-Magnusson & Macdonald, 2014) Therefore,

understanding the relationship between employee psychological capital, burnout and quality of work life will help firms in designing appropriate policies for staffs and will allow them to recruit qualified people All of this could result in a happier and healthier workforce leading to a healthier, more successful and profitable organization This study

is organized around the following key points: introduction; literature review and

hypotheses; research method, data analysis, and results; discussion and implications; limitations and directions for future research

2 Literature review and hypotheses

2.1 Conceptual model

Figure 1 proposes a conceptual model clarifying roles of psychological capital in burnout and quality of work life, the model proposes that psychological capital of employees will have negative impacts on burnout and positive impacts on quality of work life In

addition, burnout will have negative impacts on quality of work life of staff members This study also examines the moderating effects of demographic characteristics (age and gender) on the relationships between psychological capital, quality of work life, and burnout

Demographics

 Gender

 Age

2.2 Psychological capital

Psychological capital is a multidimensional construct referring to a positive psychological state of development of an individual (Luthans, Youssef & Avolio, 2007) Not many organizational behavior researchers have paid much attention to trait-like personality and state-like psychological capacities of employees Trait-like personality is more likely to

be solid over time and is not specific to any task or situation, however state -like

psychological capacities are more likely to adapt over time and are more specific to

certain situations or tasks (Chen, Gully, Jon-Andrew & Kilcullen, 2000) Psychological ownership (Avey, Avolio, Crossley & Luthans, 2009) and psychological capital (Luthans

et al., 2008) are conceptions that outline state-like psychological capacities of staff

members These conceptions can be discovered in the literature of positive organizational behavior This study focuses on psychological capital of employees

Hope, efficacy, optimism, and resilience are four positive constructs that have been determined to best fit the criteria of the definition of positive organization behavior until now (Luthans, 2002; Luthans et al., 2007), whereas various positive constructs have been studied (Cameron, Dutton, Quinn & Wrzesniewski, 2003; Nelson & Cooper, 2007) Psychological capital is defined as “an individual’s positive psychological state of

development that is characterized by: (1) having confidence (self-efficacy) to take on and put in the necessary effort to succeed at challenging tasks; (2) making a positive attribution (optimism) about succeeding now and in the future; (3) persevering toward goals and, when necessary, redirecting paths to goals (hope) in order to succeed; and (4)

when beset by problems and adversity, sustaining and bouncing back and even beyond (resiliency) to attain success” (Luthans et al., 2007, p 3) According to Luthans et al (2008), psychological capital has received both conceptual and empirical support

Snyder, Irving, and Anderson (1991) defined hope as a “positive motivational state that is based on an interactively derived sense of successful (1) agency (goal-

directed energy) and (2) pathways (planning to meet goals)” (p 287) Hope indicates “the belief that one can find pathways to desired goals and become motivated to use those pathways” (Snyder, Rand & Sigmon, 2002, p 257) This psychological source

progressively contributes hope that the objective will be achieved Agency and pathways thinking are both significant and reciprocal factors of hope Applying hope to the

professional level in a company, hopeful employees express the remarkable ability to develop numerous pathways to attain their goals

The second positive construct of psychological capital is optimism It was

characterized by Carver and Scheier (2002) that “optimists are people who expect good things to happen to them; pessimists are people who expect bad things to happen to them” (p 231) This explanation describes the expectancy framework used to distinguish optimistic people and pessimistic people in an organization Applied to the professional level, optimistic staff members are people who have positive expectations of results (Luthans et al., 2008) Regardless of personal ability, optimistic staffs expect positive results for themselves Hence, the optimistic employees have forward looking beliefs regardless of past issues or setbacks

A third positive construct of psychological capital is self-efficacy It is people’s determination in their capacity to accomplish a specific goal in a specific condition Peoples trusts about their abilities to generate designated levels of performance that exercise affect over events that influence their lives and decides how people feel, think, stimulate themselves and behave (Judge, Jackson, Shaw, Scott & Rich, 2007) Applying self-efficacy to the professional level, staffs with high efficaciousness are described by tenacious pursuit and persistent efforts toward achievement and are directed by trusts in their own successes

The fourth positive construct forming psychological capital is resilience Luthans (2002) defined resilience as a “positive psychological capacity to rebound, to bounce back’ from adversity, uncertainty, conflict, failure, or even positive change, progress and increased responsibility” (p 702) Applying resilience to the professional level in a firm, employees are those who have the ability to positively adapt and thrive in very

challenging circumstances

2.3 Burnout

Maslach, Jackson, and Leiter (1996) defined burnout as a syndrome of exhaustion, depersonalization and reduced professional efficacy Firstly, emotional exhaustion is obtained when staff members feel severe emotional fatigue and diminished or no

ambition against the employment Exhaustion is the central quality of burnout and the

most obvious manifestation of this complex syndrome (Maslach, Schaufeli & Leiter, 2001).Of the three aspects of burnout, exhaustion is the most widely reported and the most thoroughly analyzed However, the fact that exhaustion is a necessary criterion for burnout does not mean it is sufficient (Maslach, 2003) Secondly, cynicism is

accomplished when employees get away from work and indicate an indifferent and

callous attitude at firms Lastly, reduced personal accomplishment is attained when people feel a lack of competence and successful work accomplishment

Currently, only some research has analyzed the relationship between

psychological capital and job burnout (Luo & Hao, 2010; Luthans et al., 2004)

Psychological capital plays a crucial role in the development of job burnout and that it can productively decrease the extent of burnout (Luthans et al., 2004) Luo and Hao (2010) discovered proof for the preventative impact of psychological capital on job burnout by using Chinese nurses as attendants Nevertheless, the body of research

regarding the relationship between psychological capital and job burnout stays relatively small, especially in staff members Therefore, we propose the following hypothesis:

H1: Psychological capital has a negative impact on burnout

2.4 Quality of work life

Quality of work life is defined as an employee satisfaction with a variety of needs

through resources, activities, and outcomes stemming from participation in the workplace

(Sirgy, Efraty, Siegel & Lee, 2001) Studies demonstrate that employees with a high quality of work life tend to report high levels of identification with their organizations, job satisfaction, job performance and lower levels of turnover and personal alienation (Efraty, Sirgy & Claiborne, 1991) Marta et al (2013) indicated one conceptualization of quality of work life, based on need-hierarchy theory of Maslow, concerns quality of work life as employee satisfaction of seven sets of human developmental needs: (1) health and safety needs, (2) economic and family needs, (3) social needs, (4) esteem needs, (5) actualization needs, (6) knowledge needs, and (7) esthetic needs Quality of work life was conceptualized in terms of need satisfaction stemming from an interaction of employee’s needs (survival, social, ego and self-actualization needs) and those organizational

resources relevant for meeting them

Arandjelovic, Nikolic, and Stamenkovic (2010) showed that burnout, quality of life and work ability are significantly interrelated categories in food manufacturing workers In addition, Anagnostopoulos and Niakas (2010) indicate that burnout not only may negatively impact on quality of life of health-care providers but also may influence short sick leaves Karisalmi (1999) examined the relationship of burnout and the quality of working life in retail trade and metal industry Results revealed that six dimensions of the quality of working life, namely: conflicts, job control, work of superior organization of work and monotonous job had different impacts on job burnout in both the retail trade and

in the metal industry Employee burnout is expected to have a negative impact on their quality of work life Therefore, we propose the following hypothesis:

H2: Burnout has a negative impact on quality of work life

Past study shows that psychological capital is positively related to employees’ psychological health and job satisfaction (Luthans, Avolio, Walumbwa & Li, 2005) Research also demonstrates that these four components (self-efficacy, optimism, hope, and resiliency) of psychological capital have positive relationships with performance, happiness, well-being, and satisfaction of employees For instance, self-efficacy has been discovered to have a positive effect on performance (Stajkovic & Luthans, 1998)

Employees’ optimism is linked to their performance, satisfaction, and happiness (Youssef

& Luthans, 2007) Hope is connected with employees’ performance, satisfaction,

happiness, and retention (Youssef & Luthans, 2007) Resiliency has a positive

relationship with employee performance and happiness and satisfaction (Youssef & Luthans, 2007) In general, self-efficacy, optimism, hope, and resiliency are connected to the quality of work life of workers (Nguyen & Nguyen, 2012; Nguyen et al., 2014) Compare with its individual components, psychological capital overall is a better

predictor of staff performance (Luthans, Youssef & Avolio, 2007) Hence, in this

research, the author concentrates on the anticipating power of psychological capital

overall rather than its individual parts The author also proposes that overall

psychological capital may have positive impact on quality of work life of employees Thus, the third hypothesis was proposed as following:

H3: Psychological capital has a positive impact on quality of work life

2.5 Moderating effects of demographics

The moderating impacts of demographic characteristics (age and gender) on the

relationships between psychological capital, quality of work life, and burnout had studied

in this paper Not many research has investigated the connection between demographic variables and psychological capital as a core construct (Avey, Nimnicht & Graber

Pigeon, 2010) Even though no researchers have predicted male-female differences in psychological capital, related research findings offer at least suggestive evidence that there may be crucial gender differences For instance, past papers present male-female differences in levels of resilience that men are more resilient than women (Bonanno, 2004) If women consistently vary from men on some components of psychological capital, there may be differences in the factor structure by gender Furthermore, age and psychological capital were significantly linked in a negative direction (Avey, Nimnicht & Graber Pigeon, 2010) Results of analyses of covariance of the effects of gender and job level on burnout components, while controlling for tenure, indicated no significant

differences between men and women in the amount of emotional exhaustion,

depersonalization or personal accomplishment (Pretty, McCarthy & Catano, 1992) Particularly, women are likely to be more emotionally exhausted than men, but men are likely to be more depersonalized than women (Purvanova & Muros, 2010) Overall, it occurs that employee demographic characteristics have an impact on the relationships between psychological capital, quality of work life, and burnout Therefore, the following hypotheses were proposed:

H4a: The impacts of psychological capital on both burnout and quality of work

life and the impact of burnout on quality of work life are weaker for male employees than for female employees

H4b: The impacts of psychological capital on both burnout and quality of work

life and the impact of burnout on quality of work life are weaker for younger employees than for older employees

3 Methodology

3.1 Design and sample

The research consists of two stages, a pilot and a main survey, and was conducted in Ho Chi Minh City, the main business centre of Vietnam Participators are employees

working for companies in Ho Chi Minh City The pilot study was implemented in the qualitative stage We conducted a series of in-depth interviews with 5 employees working for 5 different companies in Ho Chi Minh City to modify the measures Although most of the measures of constructs are available in the literature, this step is important to make them appropriate for the context of this study (a transition market) Google Forms and face-to-face interviews were used to undertake the main survey A total of 115

questionnaires were released to employees of various firms in Ho Chi Minh City through Google Forms After one week, there were 112 feedbacks from respondents However, 10 questionnaires were not valid because respondents did not finish the questions or they chose the same answer for all questions Therefore, 102 valid questionnaires were

collected from Google Forms Meanwhile, a total of 230 questionnaires were sent to employees of seven firms in Ho Chi Minh City through printed questionnaires Seven firms included three state – owned companies, three joint – stock companies and one private company After two weeks, there were 215 feedbacks from respondents

However, 15 questionnaires were not valid because respondents did not answer all of the questions or they chose the same answer for all questions Therefore, 200 valid

questionnaires were collected from printed questionnaires As a result, 302 valid answers could be used to analyze The respondents were a diversity of age, gender, education, etc

as descriptive data was showed in Table 1 This main survey aims to validate the

measures and test the structural model Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) is applied to assess the measures and structural equation modeling (SEM) is used to test the theoretical model and hypotheses

Table 1 Sample characteristics

Category Frequency Percentage (%) Gender Male 109 36.1%

Type of firm State – owned company 142 47%

3.2 Measurement

There are three constructs investigated in this study: psychological capital, quality of work life, and burnout All of the constructs are second-order constructs Psychological capital comprised four elements: hope; optimism; resiliency; and, self-efficacy Hope was measured by four items acquired from Snyder, Rand, and Sigmon (2002) Note that state hope is utilized in this study (Snyder et al., 2002) Optimism was measured by three items borrowed from Carver and Scheier (2002) Resiliency was measured by four items,

followed from Block and Kremen (1996) Self-efficacy was measured by four items, borrowed from Parker (1998) Quality of work life was measured by nine items focusing need satisfaction of staffs (Sirgy et al., 2001) Quality of work life contained three items which are survival needs, belonging needs, knowledge needs Seven-point Likert scaling, anchored by 1 (strongly disagree) and 7 (strongly agree) was used for psychological capital and quality of work life in this study Job burnout contained three dimensions which are exhaustion, cynicism and professional efficacy mainly based on Maslach Burnout Inventory-General Survey (Maslach et al., 1996) As suggested by Schutte, Toppinen, Kalimo, and Schaufeli (2000), one item (“When I’m at work or I’m working I don’t want to be bothered”) was eliminated because it was shown to be ambivalent and thus unsound Seven-point Frequency rating scale, ranging from 1 (never) to 7 (always) was used to collect the responses of burnout

The questionnaire was initially prepared in English and then translated into Vietnamese by an academic fluent in both languages This procedure was undertaken because English is not well understood by all employees in this market

Table 2 Measurement scales

Variables Code Item Reference Screening

Question

S1 Are you currently employed?

Hope HOPE1 At the present time, I am energetically pursuing my goals in

work

Snyder, Rand, and Sigmon (2002); Carver and Scheier (2002); Block and Kremen (1996) ; Parker (1998)

Sirgy et al (2001)

HOPE2 There are a lot of ways around any problem that I am facing

in work now

HOPE3 I can think many ways to reach my current goals in work

Optimism OPT1 In uncertain times in work, I usually expect the best

OPT2 I always expect things go to my way

OPT3 Overall, I expect more good things to happen to me

Resiliency RES1 I quickly get over and recover from being startled in work

RES2 I am generous with my colleagues

RES3 I get over my anger at someone reasonably quickly

Self-efficacy SELF1 I feel confident of analyzing a long-term problem to find a

solution in work

SELF2 I feel confident of presenting my work area in meetings with

senior Management

SELF3 I feel confident of contacting people outside the company

SELF4 I feel confident of presenting information to a group of

colleagues

Survival needs SUR1 My job provides good medical benefits

SUR2 I am satisfied with what I’m getting paid for my work

SUR3 My job does well for my family

Belonging

needs

BELO1 I have good friends at work

BELO2 Away from work, I have enough time to enjoy other things

in life

BELO3 I feel appreciated at work

Knowledge

needs

KNOW1 I feel that my job allows me to realize my full potential

KNOW2 My job allows me to sharpen my professional skills

KNOW3 My job helps me develop my creativity

Variables Code Item Reference

Maslach, Jackson and Leiter (1996)

Exhaustion EXHA1 I feel emotionally drained by my work

EXHA2 I feel used up at the end of a day at the company

EXHA3 I feel tired when I get up in the morning and I have to go to

work

EXHA4 Working is really a strain for me

EXHA5 I feel burned out from my work

Cynicism CYN1 I have become less interested in my work since my join in

the company

CYN2 I have become less enthusiastic about my work

CYN3 I’ve become more cynical about the use of my work

CYN4 I doubt the significance of my work

Professional

Efficacy

EFF1 I can efficiently solve the problems that arise in my work

EFF2 I believe that I make an effective contribution to the

company

EFF3 In my opinion, I am a good employee

EFF4 I feel stimulated when I reach my work goals

EFF5 I learned many interesting things during my work EFF6 During working I feel confident that I am effective in getting

things done

3.3 Measurement refinement

The measures were refined via Cronbach’s alpha reliability and EFA, using the data

collected from 302 employees in the main survey Specifically, EFA (principal

components with varimax rotation) extracted four factors from the items measuring

psychological capital with 71.217 percent of variance extracted The Cronbach’s alpha scores for these scales were 734 (hope), 793(optimism), 745 (resiliency), and 879 (self-efficacy) EFA extracted three factors from 9 items measuring quality of work life with

79.869 percent of variance extracted The Cronbach’s alpha scores for these scales were 841 (survival needs), 761 (belonging needs), and 892 (knowledge needs) Note that 1 item measuring survival needs (My job provides good medical benefits) was deleted due

to their low item-total correlations (<.30) in the reliability analysis Finally, EFA

extracted three factors from the items measuring burnout with 69.923 percent of variance extracted The Cronbach’s alpha scores for these scales were 889 (exhaustion), 896 (cynicism), and 882 (professional efficacy) In sum, the results of the preliminary

assessment indicated that all scales satisfied the requirement for reliability

4 Data analysis and results

4.1 Measurement validation

As earlier presented, three constructs were examined: psychological capital, burnout, and quality of work life The scales measuring these constructs were refined via Cronbach’s alpha and EFA using the data set (n = 302) collected in the main survey These scales were then accessed via CFA using the data set (n = 302) Two steps were undertaken in validating measures First, a CFA model was used to assess the constructs (psychological capital, burnout and quality of work life) Next, the three second-order constructs

(psychological capital, burnout, and quality of work life) were incorporated into a

saturated model (final measurement model)

4.2 Psychological capital

As discussed earlier, psychological capital was a second-order construct comprising four components: hope; optimism; resiliency; and, self-efficacy The CFA results indicate that the measurement model of psychological capital received an acceptable fit:χ2

[28] = 125.450 (p = 0.000), GFI = 0.934, IFI = 0.951, CFI = 0.950, and RMSEA = 0.071 All CFA factor loadings were equal or greater than 0.66 (p < 0.001) These findings indicate that the scales measuring the components of psychological capital satisfied the

requirement for unidimensionality and within-method convergent validity Further, all factor correlations were significantly below unity (p < 0.001), supporting the within-construct discriminant validity between the components of psychological capital

(Steenkamp & van Trijp, 1991)

measuring the components of burnout satisfied the requirement for unidimensionality and within-method convergent validity Further, all factor correlations were significantly below unity (p < 0.001), supporting the within-construct discriminant validity between the components of burnout (Steenkamp & van Trijp, 1991)

4.4 Quality of work life

As discussed earlier, quality of work life was a second-order construct comprising three components: survival needs, belonging needs, knowledge needs The CFA results indicate that the measurement model of quality of work life received an acceptable fit:

χ2

[15] = 9.091 (p = 0.000), GFI = 0.990, IFI = 0.996, CFI = 0.996, and RMSEA = 0.041 All CFA factor loadings were equal or greater than 0.61 (p < 0.001) These findings indicate that the scales measuring the components of quality of work life satisfied the requirement for unidimensionality and within-method convergent validity Further, all factor correlations were significantly below unity (p < 0.001), supporting the within-construct discriminant validity between the components of quality of work life

(Steenkamp & van Trijp, 1991)

Table 3 Means, standard deviations, and standardized CFA loadings of items

Items Mean SD Loadings Hope: Composite reliability = 0.742; Average variance extracted = 0.503

HOPE1 At the present time, I am energetically pursuing my

goals in work

HOPE2 There are a lot of ways around any problem that I am

facing in work now

HOPE3 I can think many ways to reach my current goals in

work

Optimism: Composite reliability = 0.802; Average variance extracted = 0.58

OPT1 In uncertain times in work, I usually expect the best 5.30 1.13 0.664

OPT3 Overall, I expect more good things to happen to me 5.56 1.13 0.740

Resiliency: Composite reliability = 0.753; Average variance extracted = 0.505

RES1 I quickly get over and recover from being startled in

work

RES3 I get over my anger at someone reasonably quickly 5.25 1.29 0.632

Self-efficacy: Composite reliability = 0.879; Average variance extracted = 0.646

SELF1 I feel confident of analyzing a long-term problem to

find a solution in work

SELF2 I feel confident of presenting my work area in meetings

with senior Management

SUR2 I am satisfied with what I’m getting paid for my work 4.29 1.3 0.804

Belonging needs: Composite reliability = 0.762; Average variance extracted = 0.517

BELO2 Away from work, I have enough time to enjoy other

things in life