Factors influencing quality of working life, a study of front line employees in the vietnamese aviation service

Findings – This study found that perceived of organization supports, emotion exhaustion, extra-role services and servicesescape affecting on quality of working life of those employees..

UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY

International School of Business

SUPERVISOR: DR NGUYEN THI MAI TRANG

Ho Chi Minh City, Year 2015

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Firstly, I would like to express my gratefulness to my supervisor Dr Nguyen Thi Mai Trang for her professional guidance, intensive support, valuable suggestions, instructions and encouragement during the time of doing my research

I would like to express my deepest gratitude to ISB Professors Committee for their valuable time as the members of the proposal examination committee Their comments and meaningful suggestions were contributed significantly for my completion of this research

My sincere thanks are given to all of my teachers at International Business School – University of Economics Ho Chi Minh City for their teaching and guidance during my master course

Abstract

Purpose – This research aims to explore factors influencing on quality of working life of

front - line staffs in Vietnamese aviation services

Methodology/Sample – A total of 280 questionnaires were distributed out at many airports in

Vietnam As the method are directly interviewing combining with online surveying, respondents including the front-line staffs at those airports such as check in staffs, security staffs, boarding staffs, hence, data collecting also was primary sources The hypothesized relationships were tested using structure modeling

Findings – This study found that perceived of organization supports, emotion exhaustion,

extra-role services and servicesescape affecting on quality of working life of those employees Based on the thesis findings, several implications have been provided

Key words – Quality of working life, perceived of organizational supports, extra role

services, emotional exhaustion, intrinsic motivation, Vietnamese aviation sector, Vietnamese airports

Contents

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT 1

Abstract 2

List of Figures 5

List of Tables 6

List of Abbreviations 7

Chapter 1 Introduction 1

1.1 Research background 1

1.2 Statement of the problem 3

1.3 Research objectives 5

1.4 Research scope 6

1.5 Research significance 7

1.6 Structure of the study 7

Chapter 2 Literature review 9

2.1 Quality of working life (QWL) 9

2.2 Perceived organizational support (POS) 12

2.3 Emotional exhaustion (EE) 14

2.4 Extra-role customer service (ECS) 15

2.5 Servicescape (SE) 17

2.6 Intrinsic motivation (IM) 18

2.7 Model and hypotheses 22

2.7.1 Research model 22

2.7.2 Hypotheses 22

Chapter 3 Research Methodology 24

3.1 The research design 24

3.1.1 Qualitative research 24

3.1.2 Main survey method 25

3.1.3 Research procedure 25

3.2 Measurement scale building 26

3.3 The main survey 27

3.3.1 Objects of main survey 27

3.3.2 Sample size 27

3.3.3 Research sample description 28

Chapter 4 Data analysis and results 31

4.1 Reliability analysis 31

4.2 Confirmatory factor analysis 34

4.2.1 Perceived organizational supports (POS) 35

4.2.2 Intrinsic motivation 36

4.2.3 Emotional exhaustion 37

4.2.4 Extra role customer services 38

4.2.5 Servicescape 39

4.2.6 Quality of working life (QWL) 40

4.3 The discriminant validity among the six constructs 41

4.4 Model evaluation 42

4.5 Hypotheses evaluation 45

4.6 Research findings 47

Chapter 5 Conclusion 49

5.1 The main results and research contributions 49

5.1.1 Measurement model 50

5.1.2 Managerial implications 51

5.2 Limitations and future research 54

References 56

Appendix 1 Source of measurement scales 62

Appendix 2: Guidelines for In-Depth Interview 65

Appendix 3 English questionnaire 71

Appendix 4: Questionnaire (Vietnamese Version) 74

List of Figures

Figure 2.1 The conceptual model 22

Figure 3.1 Research procedure 25

Figure 4.1 CFA model of Perceived organizational supports 35

Figure 4.2 CFA model of intrinsic motivation 36

Figure 4.3 CFA model of Emotional exhaustion 37

Figure 4.4 CFA model of extra-role customer services 38

Figure 4.5 CFA model of servicescape 39

Figure 4.6 CFA model of Quality of working life 40

Figure 4.7 SEM of research model 44

List of Tables

Table 3.1 Sources of data collection 28

Table 3.2 Description of sample 29

Table 4.1 Reliable test result 32

Table 4.2 Confirmatory factor analysis results of POS 35

Table 4.3 Confirmatory factor analysis results of IM 36

Table 4.4 Confirmatory factor analysis results of EE 37

Table 4.5 Confirmatory factor analysis results of ECS 38

Table 4.6 Confirmatory factor analysis results of SE 39

Table 4.7 Confirmatory factor analysis results of SE 41

Table 4.8 Discriminant validity test result 41

Table 4.9 Results of measurement scale evaluating 42

Table 4.10 Fitness of conceptualized model 43

Table 4.11 Final results of relationship checking of model’s constructs 45

Table 5.1 Managerial implication: How can the manager assess quality of working life of their front-line staffs? 51

Table 5.2 Managerial implication: How can the manager reduce the emotional exhaustion as well as increase the extra-role customer services of their front-line staffs? 52

List of Abbreviations

1 CFA Confirmatory factor anlysis

2 ECS Extra role services

4 GDP Gross National Product

5 IM Intrinsic motivation

6 POS Perceived of organizational supports

7 QWL Quality of working life

9 SEM Structure equation modeling

10 VGP Vietnam Government Newspaper

Chapter 1 Introduction Research background

1.1.

According to the General Statistics Office of Vietnam, the service industries increased over 6.56% in 2013, which contributed over 50% growth to total GDP in the same year (VGP News, 2013) Playing the most indispensable role in the group of services – related sections, aviation has been developed for long time

Asia is known as one of the most potential leading areas in passenger traffic where the volume of passengers carried by airlines is rapidly increasing (5% per month in 2013) It is also forecasted that, in long term, air traffic growth continues to be above 5% growth rate (Schubert, 2014) In Vietnam, many evidences also approved for the potential aviation sector for recent years Following Schubert in the airline planning workshop conference (2014), the average Vietnam passenger growth will be up to 7.4% per year for the next 5 years from 30.000.000 passengers in 2013 to 52.200.000 passengers in 2017

In associated with grow-up market, Vietnamese air transportation is now overwhelmingly changing from public ownership into other kinds of owner (private sector or semi-private sector) The typical significant of diversified owners can be illustrated that is the increase in the number of operators and participants in the sector (Ogwude, as cited in Wifred et al, 2012) For five recent years, there have been many airlines jumped up to Vietnamese air transport market such as: Jetstar Pacific, Air Mekong, Indochina Airline, Vietjet Air and Blue Sky with many kinds of ownerships such as private, joint-venture owners In fact, the appearance of these airlines not only stimulates the commercial air transport demand, but also, improves the total number of passengers of Vietnamese airports systems per year

Hence, commercial management practices are given top priority for most of the airport‘s authorities to adapt for the present background One of the most visible indicators of moves towards commercialization is greater reliance focus on non – aeronautical services like duty free shopping malls, beauty salon centers, hotels, restaurants, car rentals, catering services, concession (Graham, 2011, p.14)… The hard challenge here is that it is really difficult for the airport to attract the passenger, raise the revenue because it is up to the flight routes planning which are derived from the air travel demand Obviously, it is important to know that there

are not only the airlines identifying the quality of aviation services, but “an airport's role by its service level, and the airport’s service level reflects the type of service the airport provides

to the nation, state and local community” (US National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems, as cited in Utah Continuous Airport System Plan, 2007, p.3–1) Hence, delivering service excellence is becoming an important organizational capability (Wolfe-Morrison, 1996) And, airport surely is not an exception

In fact, Vietnamese air transport services are now facing the hard challenges in services quality together with the market difficulties as well as external environment issues Firstly, from the airports aspect, the Guide to Sleeping in Airports (2014) has listed Tan Son Nhat airport and Noi Bai airport as two of the worst in Asia Clearly, this online survey fiercely challenges Vietnamese aviation and suffers its future prospects

Moreover, the common international organization of aviation services quality measurement – Skytrax (2015) has just listed Vietnam airlines as a four – star airline (the lowest rank in Skytrax ranking) and not any airport in Vietnam is on the good quality of lists Additionally, the monthly online research of Vietnamese civil aviation authority via the official website (2015) also reveals that more than 60% respondents unsatisfied with Vietnamese aviation services in compare with less than 25% of satisfaction This is due to the fact that nowadays the airport environment, on one side, becomes more lively with a lot of passengers from economy class to exclusive class with the different expectation of services level On the other side, Vietnamese airports activities are now classified into three types of services: necessary operational services, traffic-handling services and commercial services (Doganis, as cited in Yamamoto, Taniguchi, & Kimata, n.d.) The diversification of services makes the airport director harder when ensuring the quality of services and toward to passenger satisfaction To explain for this situation, deputy minister of Vietnamese transportation industry – Pham Quy Tieu (2014) admitted that “the attitude of frontline- staff towards passengers is among the key reasons for the poor service quality at the Vietnamese international airports” Obviously, the Vietnamese air transport development as mentioned above takes the conditions for all walks of life to travel with the airplanes But on the opposite sides, staffs at the airport also have to face with the pressures from the different

behaviors of customers In detail, many front-line working positions at the airport everyday have to serve the large number of passengers all day including check-in staffs, securities staffs, boarding staffs, ground servicing staffs,… For instance, according to the information from Vietnamese airport official website, Tan Son Nhat is now on top 50 crowded airports all over the world, there are 25 million passengers processing per year as well as 43000 passengers per day at Tan Son Nhat airport (Vietnam corporation airport, 2015) It turns to the meaning that the employees of Tan Son Nhat airport have to serve a huge passenger per day This article also emphasized the working condition of the front-line staffs in this airport who have not had off-day in the peak seasons such as Chrismas day, New Year eve, Tet holiday…

All in all, the growing up of Vietnamese air transportation, on one hand, is a motivation for the authorities to select and enforce the appropriate strategies to gain the profit, on the other hand, puts the pressures and, also, even the challenges for the airport employees to reach the variety of customer demand when serving air services

Statement of the problem

1.2.

At the airport, front-line employees occupy a privileged position to collect first hand market information and show their performances as a representative of company brand to reach the customer satisfaction (Coelho, Augusto and Lages, 2011) To a large extent service excellence is determined by customers' perceptions of how services are delivered by frontline service staff (Bitner, Booms & Mohr, 1994) In Vietnamese airports, some first face job positions, always interacting face to face or voice to voice with passengers, customers or clients at the airports, should be referred are checking – in staffs, securities staffs, boarding staffs, customs staffs, selling staffs Specially, each front-line position as mentioned above

is operated by different kinds of specialized companies as stake holders, coordinating in harmony with the airport such as: ground services companies, airlines, aviation secured company, commercial companies, advertising companies… All above, the employees get in charges with these job always have to work under pressures likewise: serving a lot of passengers through the airport every day with all level societies, working in shift all day, even overnight, working under fixed process with the strict regulation toward the safety and

on time performance This working conditions also directly impact on their working feeling, working conditions and motivation, etc The main reasons to explain for these issues is that almost Vietnamese airports are now trying to modern the facilities and infrastructures for aeronautical services, meanwhile, seem to forget the main point is what employee received from company policies, working conditions, employees emotion…also directly impact on their performance which are create the quality of services To get over the difficulties in term

of work life, employees at the airport need to have many supports from their organization and the manager need to deeply understand what they have devoted for both the company’s career and customers which impact on the employee work life and gain the quality of services furthermore Quality of work life is important criteria that need to be focussed by the organizations to achieve higher productivity and business goals and retain the employees (Ashwini and Anand, 2014) The service sectors especially expect their employees to perform multi-functions at challenging work environments Notwithstanding, employees find it trying

to take the burden of overloaded work which results in adverse effects in worklife, affecting directly and indirectly the personal life, mental well-being, and health

According to Sirgy and his colleagues (as cited in Nguyen and Nguyen, 2012), quality of working life (QWL) is “about the well-being of employees” This notion cover also refers all actual working conditions which strengthen the satisfaction of physical, social, economic and psychological aspects of a labor in work place Monkevicius (2014) has recognized that investing in the quality of working life can bring great benefits to both individuals and the organization as a whole Furthermore, from this point of view, many researches turns out that QWL having the strong relationship with many concepts as quality of working condition (Monkevicius, 2014), job satisfaction (Muthukumar and Subburaj, 2012), life satisfaction (Mohamad and Mohamed,2012), productivity (Nayeri, Salehi and Noghabi, 2011), organizational performance (Pot, Koningsveld and Erg, 2009), quality of life (Nguyen and Nguyen, 2012)…

However, the majority of these studies about quality of work life have been undertaken and applied successfully in advanced economies in various sectors like retail, banking, education, and other services The investigation of Nguyen and Nguyen (2012) has been

analyzed the impact of psychological capital which are defined as an individual’s psychological state of development on job performance and quality of work life of marketers

in a transitioning market, Vietnam The finding has finally suggested that psychological capital has positive impacts on both job performance and quality of work life in the research context Likewise, Mohamad and Mohamed (2012) also have a deep study to identify the impact of quality of work life on life satisfaction and services quality among nurses in the public hospitals This research comes to conclusions that the higher the life satisfaction and the higher the perceive quality of working life are, the higher the perceived nursing service quality is Another inquiry of Nayeri, Salehi and Noghabi (2011) makes an effort to deal with the relationship between the quality of work life and productivity among Iranian nurses Finding shows the significant connection between productivity and one’s quality of work life The research of Yeo and Li (2012) aims to explore how the employees make sense of their work context and it influences on their learning orientation to improve their quality of work life in the south west of the USA The findings show that perception of work life context influences the cognitive intent of employees in such a way that they change their learning orientation and develop learning strategies to improve their current work conditions Furthermore, few researches have been done or addressed in aviation sector in developing and transitioning countries such as Vietnam

Therefore, the author aims to examine the quality of work life of the front-line staffs and what factors impact on this concept Furthermore to find out more critical implications to help the manager of Vietnamese aviation turning up their quality of employee work life as well as the quality of airport’s services

Research objectives

1.3.

Generally, the purpose of this research is to examine the factors impacting on the quality

of working life

The latent variable which is quality of working life is defined as the well-being of

employees (Nguyen and Nguyen, 2012) Five observe construct are proposed in this study

including perceived of organizational support is defined as refers to the extent to which

employees perceive that the organization values their contributions and cares about their

well-being (Karatepe, 2015); intrinsic motivation is defined as an individual’s “feeling of

challenge or competence derived from performing a job” (Keaveney, as cited in Karatepe,

2015); emotional exhaustion is “draining energy and emotional resources because of high levels of stressors on the job” (Cordes and Dougherty, as cited in Karatepe, 2015); extra-role customer services refers to “all the behavior that are not specified by job descriptions, as well

as not included in developing formal reward systems” (Yap, Bove, and Beverland, 2009) and

servicescape refers to the physical surroundings of employees (Bitner, 1992) Specifically,

the research aims to investigate the following relationships:

1 The relationship between the perceived of organizational supports and intrinsic motivation

2 The relationship between the perceived of organizational supports and quality of working life

3 The relationship between the perceived of organizational supports and servicescape

4 The relationship between intrinsic motivation and emotional exhaustion

5 The relationship between intrinsic motivation and extra role customer services

6 The relationship between the emotional exhaustion and quality of working life

7 The relationship between extra-role customer services and quality of working life

8 The relationship between servicescape and quality of working life

Research scope

1.4.

The research was studied in the airport sector Airport sector is defined as an essential part of the air transport system providing the entire infrastructure needed to enable passengers and freight to transfer from surface modes of transport to air modes of transport and allowing airlines to take off and land (Graham, 2011, p.2) Specially, many airports in the Vietnamese airport system were implemented the survey Basing on the convenient in contacting with airport’s authorities, Lien Khuong airport (Da Lat), Tan Son Nhat airport (Ho Chi Minh), Buon Me Thuot airport (Kon Tum), Phu Quoc airport and Da Nang airport are chosen to collect the data for this study

The selective sample of this study targets to the front-line staffs at the airports Front-line staff can be understood as the representatives for the company directly serving the services

for customers In this case, the services imply both the aeronautical services for passengers (check in, airline lounge serving, security services, catering, baggage delivery, flight information serving…) and the added services (non-aeronautical services) for other customers or clients (banking, currency exchange, shops, post offices…)

Research significance

1.5.

Suitable with the trend of commercialization in aviation systems, this research gives out one of the most important dimension as the airport authorities in Vietnam should have to consider: the quality of employee working life

To make this concept clearer, the factors findings are analyzed in the relationship impact

on the quality of work life such as: intrinsic motivation, emotional exhaustion, extra role services of the employees and perceived of organizational supports from the airports

The study also takes a basement for many further researches in future conducting more detail in the aviation section

Structure of the study

Chapter 2: Literature Review and Hypotheses

This chapter provides the literature review and previous studies, and then the research model

of the study and the hypotheses are also discussed

Chapter 3: Research Methodology

In this chapter, the method used to design and implement the research base on the research objectives and scopes, the processes of doing the research are also presented

Chapter 4: Data Analysis and Data Results

All the data collected from the survey are analyzed The final model of the research is built based on the results of those analyses Depending on output results from the analyzing, the relationship of those factors as mentioned in the research model will be examine

Chapter 5: Conclusion

In this chapter summarizes the main results of this study and give some conclusions for managerial implement as well as limitation for further research

Chapter 2 Literature review

In order to achieve these objectives this study, this part presents a discussion of quality of working life, perceived organizational support, intrinsic motivation, emotional exhaustion, extra role customer, service escape and the relationship of those constructs This is followed

by the development of hypotheses and the construction of a conceptual model

Quality of working life (QWL)

2.1.

The concept of quality of working life has been spread as a hot issue, especially, for the purpose of sustainable social development and the public benefits focus during many recent years

In the organizational section, according to Sirgy and his colleagues (as cited in Nguyen and Nguyen, 2012), quality of working life is “about the well-being of employees” This notion cover also refers all actual working conditions which strengthen the satisfaction of physical, social, economic and psychological aspects of a labor in work place

From the several different aspects of work life quality, there are many different components are clarified in this concept Pot, Koningsveld and Erg (2009) have already pointed out that work organization, the way to manager human affairs, manager style are all the view point when considering the quality of life Whereas, QWL, as a multi-dimensional concept, Nayeri, Salehi and Noghabi (2011) has clarified in term of working conditions, particularly job promotion, salary and financial rewards, autonomy, management support and the importance and attractiveness of their job

In the context of this study, following Sirgy and his partners, a new measurement of work life quality based on need satisfaction and spillover theories is used At that time, QWL refers

to the level of satisfaction, motivation, involvement and commitment individuals experience with respect to their lives at work (Sirgy et al., 2001) By this way, the concept of QWL is designed to capture the extent to which the work environment, job requirement, supervisory behavior, and ancillary programs in an organization are perceived to meet the needs of employees They define seven major needs of an employee These are:

- Health and safety needs: Protection from ill health and injury at work and outside

of work, and enhancement of work health

- Economic and family needs: Pay, job security and other family needs

- Social needs: Collegiality at work and leisure time off work

- Esteem needs: Recognition and appreciation of work within the organization and outside the organization

- Actualization needs: Realization of one’s potential within the organization and as

a professional

- Knowledge needs: Learning to enhance job and professional skills

- Aesthetics needs: Creativity at work as well as personal creativity and general aesthetics

From Sirgy viewpoint, study of Nguyen and Nguyen (2012) has deeply researched the QWL of marketers in transitioning market After doing exploration factor analysis, the determinants of QWL are clarified as three common needs included in survival needs, belonging needs, and knowledge needs In specific, survival needs cover items of health and pay, belonging needs include items measuring social and esteem needs and knowledge needs comprise items of actualization, knowledge and aesthetics needs

The attention to employee well-being serves as a foundation for a climate for service Notwithstanding, the ability of the organization to deliver higher quality service is enhanced

if employees are satisfied resulting in higher performance (Berry, Hensel, and Burke, 1976)

In the case of service sector employees, quality in the work life of an employee reflects instinctively in mental and physical well-being and is appropriately conveyed as “quality” in the service towards customers Some studies have been conducted in the context of viewing customers as not just external entity, but the employees of the organization are also considered internal customers (Holman, 2002) A British study conducted by Holman (2002)

in call centers as certains the correlation of higher levels of employee well-being with employees having greater control over work methods and procedures Hossain and Islam (1999) claim that QWL plays a greater role in job performance than the job satisfaction Their studies among the nurses of the government hospital demonstrated revealed a significant positive correlation between QWL and job satisfaction, between QWL and performance, and job satisfaction and performance QWL has the highest contribution to performance

In terms of aviation sector, with the trends of commercial in aviation, quality of work life now plays a crucial role in employee performances to serve the customer (Graham, 2011) Though few studies have the deep conducted about the quality of work life in both airlines and airports, some scholars focus on the employee performance, especially front-line staffs Study of Ortiz and Ford (2009) has already targeted to the role of front-line management in employee communication by one major US airline – American West Airlines With the aims

of enhancing the performance of front-line employees, the research finding shows the key charge of front-line manager in promoting the business strategy or policy for the employees, essentially, top – down information Another research about the employee engagement was conducted by Smitha (2013) in Cochin International Airport Limited By qualitative method

of analysis, study gives an overview of many researches As a results, there are some critical factors which lead to employee engagement such as: opportunities for personal development, effective management of talent, clarity of company values, respectful treatment of employees, company’s standard of ethical behavior, empowerment, image of firm, equal opportunities and fair treatment, pay and benefits, performance appraisal, performance appraisal, health and safety, family friendliness, job satisfaction, communication, cooperation At the same time, these factors are also mentioned in the quality of work life as conducted above

In the view of Vietnamese airport sector, seven major of QWL as Sirgy (2001) mentioned have had many issues as mentioned such as:

- Health and safety needs: This is the two important elements of employees that the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) has been addressed for a long time Three major parts to an airport safe guarding framework come to the confront: safeguarding the airport airspace and airfield and enabling optimal safety awareness, securing the airport’s public areas against unlawful interference, and responding to emergencies of all kinds (Ashford and Mumayiz, 2011) Owing to unsafe working environment, the employees at the airport seems to face with this from their awareness to their working implement Otherwise, the airport authority also realizes the safety needs of employees and showing many kinds of policies to

minimize the workplace dangers such as the safe principals, safety culture building, personal protective equipment as well as allowances

- Aesthetics needs: Base on the specific characteristics of the airport, there are three main kinds of accessing flows such as: passenger accessing flows, cargo accessing flows as well as luggage accessing flows (Ashford and Mumayiz, 2011) To assure this process can be operated accessibly, the airport employees have to follow many principals as an aeronautical law Then, it is limited for the staffs to be showed their creativity at work as well as personal creativity

Hence, because of the typical features in operating activities, the concept of QWL in the airport seems to be more complex though it is obviously need to be considered to reach the workforce performance and the quality of services The below parts try to take a further care

of the direct and indirect influences on the QWL of front-line staffs at the airports

Perceived organizational support (POS)

2.2.

It has been found that organizational behavior has the significant affect in workplace The employees who work in workplace are influenced on their thoughts, feelings, and even actions To consider behavior of organization from all sides, it is necessary to concern with both impacts: the organization supports on labor and the labor on work organization (Brief and Weiss, 2002) Such a component of organizational behavior, the construct of perceived organizational support is defined as refers to the extent to which employees perceive that the organization values their contributions and cares about their well-being (Karatepe, 2015)

As proofs of this POS constructs, the manager style which focuses on supported policies

or working conditions such as clear recruitment, manager supports, suitable rewards, favorable condition working that turns out give the staff having the positive perception with both their job and their company Hence, whatever to reach the organizational or individual goal, definitely, it have to integrate the transactions between self- interested actors and other self-interested actors because the goal cannot be achieved alone In this case, only do the company objectives reach if the company gives out some best transactions in the require engagement with the employees Rhoades and Eisenberger (2002) also referred the consequences of POS as the psychological processes In the beginning, to reach the company

goals, it is essential to take consideration about the organization’s welfare Secondly, the more perceived organizational supports employees recognize with the caring, approvals policies, the more close level the employees and managers incorporate Thirdly, POS is also a key factor to strengthen the employee performances All in all, what organizations support in the working process of employees leading the two - side efficient outcomes both in company and even personal labor

In Vietnamese airport sector, perceived of organizational supports is quite a strange aspect so up to now the airports have not cared about yet They might have many supporting policies like allowances for the overtime working, dangerous working environment, working bonus, rewards as well as emergency supports, empowerment policy… The key issue here is whether the employee perceives those supporting policies Obviously, it is up to the way to establish the policy and also the way to deploy of each airport Nowadays, since the majority

of Vietnamese airports are public ownership with the traditional management style, they have not cared about the employee’s perception of their supports

As Rozaini, Norailis and Aida mentioned in their study (2015), POS is a key factor in influencing worker commitment to the organization, job satisfaction, and general quality of work life In today’s competitive business environment, workers of organizations can be viewed as representing a unique organizational resource, which can be used for gaining competitive advantage under a work environment that is conducive for human work Organization support is one of the most important organizational concepts that keep workers

in the organization, since organizational support is known as a key factor in increasing job satisfaction and the organizational commitment of workers

The notion of quality of working life also refers all actual working conditions which strengthen the satisfaction of physical, social, economic and psychological aspects of a labor

in work place In the Monkevecius study, quality of work life covers the whole of actual working conditions that promote full satisfaction of physical, social, economic and psychological needs of the employees, in harmony with the success of the organization (Monkevicius, 2014) As mentioned above, those elements obviously are derived mainly

from the organization supports and personal attitude of labor as also the outcomes of organization supports Hence, the following hypothesis is proposed:

H1b: Perceived organizational support has a positive impact on quality of work life

Emotional exhaustion (EE)

2.3.

In line with theory of emotion, the outcomes of emotional states have already regarded for a long time Weiner (as cited in Lawler and Thye, 1999) has shown that while the positive emotions lead the positive actions or positive events, surely, the negative emotions lead the positive actions Burnout syndrome in working place is one of common problem, especially,

in the modern working around two recent decades Burnout base on the Maslach’s model is consisted of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and reduced personal performance when individual abilities are not enough for the demands of work obvious it signs (as cited in Yaghoubi, Pourghax, Toomaj, 2014) According to research of Aksu and Temeloglu (2015),

in many ways, burnout at work also expresses as “exhaustion, exhaustion syndrome, vocational exhaustion” Another study of Karatepe (2015) has stated that in processing of working burnout, emotional exhaustion in the first symptoms leading burnout in job This conditional working disease is “a progressive and gradual process by the mismatch between the demands of employees and job demands” (Ardic and Polatci, as cited in Aksu and Temeloglu, 2015) Emotional exhaustion drains energy and emotional resources because of high levels of stressors on the job (Cordes and Dougherty, as cited in Karatepe, 2015)

A more important thing is that the emotional exhaustion gives out bad consequences of working life in personal problem and organization as well From the organizational view, it comes to the symptoms of lower self-esteem, depression, nervousness, discorded relationship

of colleagues, lower ability of working… and all these problems easily are the hard challenges for the company to get the goals

Furthermore, taking into account about the relationship between QWL and emotional exhaustion, QWL is perceived by employee and reflected on leading the outcomes as showing: emotional exhaustion and extra role services behaviors (Sharma, Yadav, Aggarwal, and Singh, 2012) On the subject of connection between emotional exhaustion and quality of life at workplace, obviously, the negative emotion of worker turns out decreasing the job

performance of employee (Sharma et al., 2012) Seligman (as cited in Monkevicius, 2014)

has already agreed that the higher level of willingness to work, the lower level of optimistic style and helplessness Obviously, in case of employees take importance charges with their job, it seems to be more optimistic Thus, the hypothesis is given out:

H3: Emotional exhaustion has a negative impact on quality of working life

Among the groups of services sectors, aviation is one of the toughest working environments when talking about the exhaustion of employee Study of Rosskam and Greiner (2009) highlights the changes in Civil Aviation workers’ conditions between 2000 and 2007 There are many findings need to be considered:

- For cabin crew, air traffic service and ground staff workers around the world long hours, physical work and lack of rest were the factors cited most often as contributing to fatigue

- Working under constant pressure increased progressively between 2000 and 2007, and caused ground staff workers to become emotionally and physically drained

- Significant associations were observed between constant pressure due to heavy workloads and ‘burnout’ (feeling completely used up) among cabin crew, ground staff, and air traffic service workers A

- Majority of air traffic service workers reported having to work very fast and feeling used up at the end of the workday Similarly, a significant number of air traffic service workers around the world worked under constant pressure that caused them to become emotionally drained

Hence, with the typical characteristics of the airports, it is really deserved to weigh up the connection between emotional exhaustion and QWL

Extra-role customer service (ECS)

2.4.

Service orientation behaviors play a key role in business’s success and customers’ satisfaction (Homburg, Hoyer, and Fassnacht, 2002) So far, customer orientation behaviors

in services have crucially been under consideration, especially, for the front- line staff having

a representative image of the company, firstly, facing with customer or client (Karatepe, 2012) In any case, it is totally essential for front-line staff to be willing to meet consumer

needs and not always focus on raising the selling volume as saying customer orientation concept (Liaw, Chi, and Chuang, 2010) The behavior of employee shapes the customer perception about the quality of product and strong influence on customer satisfaction (Yap, Bove, and Beverland, 2009)

Employee behavior performance is classified into two categories: in role and extra role (Stoner, Perrewé, and Munyon, 2011) In these categories, behaviors includes “volunteering, demonstrating effort, helping others, following rules, and supporting organizational objectives” (Borman and Motowidlo, as cited in Stoner, Perrewé, and Munyon, 2011)

Extra role customer services are defined as “all the behavior that are not specified by job descriptions, as well as not included in developing formal reward systems” (Yap, Bove, and Beverland, 2009) This construct appreciates the role of volunteering, effort to help customer, take care for customer relationship in employee working activities Thought the extra role behavior may be directed at customers, the organization and co – workers, the extra behavior

is actually encouraged in the services sector, especially, with the front-line staff contacting frequently to customer every day

In any case, quality of life and life satisfaction refer a healthy and productive life style

(Corrigan, Bofner, Mysiw, Clinchot and Figate, as cited in Sharma et al., 2012) Moreover,

beside the emotion of working life, what employee intent and do the action towards work can influence their perceived quality of work life (Yeo and Li, 2013) As showing in the study of Gittell and his parner (as cited in Yeo and Li, 2013), quality of working life is also concerned about employee participation in collaborative problem solving and decision making, leading

to mutual benefits between employees and their employer More specific considerations of quality of work life enhancement include autonomous work group, job enrichment, and high performance opportunities In this view, that is the intra role behaviors (mean what include in job description) and extra role behaviors (mean what intents or actions beside job description) Haskett et al (as cited in Mohamad and Mohamed, 2012) have stated that “QWL

is the feeling that employees have towards their job, colleagues and organizations that stimulate organization’s growth and profitability”

Consequently, quality of work life is the archived feeling that employees reach when they want to devote for their job as an extra working role and is lower emotional exhaustion On the other hand, if an employee has made the working ills, burnout or emotional exhaustion as well as has not fulfilled the job performance, even no extra role beside job description, it is evidently lower the quality of working life Basing on these arguments, it is hypothesized that:

H4: Extra-role customer service has a positive impact on quality of working life

Servicescape (SE)

2.5.

The term servicescape (servicescape), credited to Bitner (1992), refers to the physical surroundings (‘built environment’) that impact on the behaviors of customers and employees

in service organizations The author identifies three environment dimensions:

• Ambient conditions (e.g temperature, music, odor - atmospheric factors)

• Spatial layout and functionality (e.g equipment, furnishing)

• Signs, symbols and artifacts (e.g style of de´cor)

In her study, Bitner (1992, p 59) states that ‘a variety of objective environmental factors are perceived both by customers and employees and that both groups may respond cognitively, emotionally and physiologically to the environment Those internal responses to the environment influence in turn the behavior of individual customers and employees in the servicescape and affect social interactions between and among customers and employees’ Adjacent to this argument, the received service escape is subsidiary to the organizational policies, even from the managerial perception At the same time, POS constructs is also implied as the extent to which employees perceive that the organization cares about their well-being It turns out that the working physical environment as servicescape has been impacted by the organizational supports

H1c: Perceived organizational support has a positive impact on servicescape

In addition, Bitner conceptualized the existence of three types of objective, physical, and measureable stimuli that constitute a servicescape These stimulate are characterized as being organizationally controllable and able to enhance or constrain employee and customer approach/avoidance decisions and to facilitate or hinder employee/customer social interaction

(Rosenbaum and Massiah, 2011) Following Zeithaml (as cited in Rosenbaum and Massiah, 2011) servicescape is the easiest for managers to comprehend because it encompasses manufactured, observable, or measurable stimuli that are controllable by the firm to enhance (or constrain) employee and customer actions For example, ambient conditions represent background environmental stimuli, or atmospherics (Grayson and McNeil; Kotler; Turley and Milliman, as cited in Rosenbaum and Massiah, 2011), that affect human sensations These stimuli comprise visual (e.g lighting, colors, brightness, shapes (Dijkstraet al., as cited in Rosenbaum and Massiah, 2011), aesthetic cleanliness, olfactory (scent, air quality, fragrance; Mattila and Wirtz, 2001), ambient (e.g temperature (Reimer and Kuehn, 2005)), and auditory (e.g music, noises (Morinet al.; Oakes and North, as cited in Rosenbaum and Massiah, 2011)) elements At the same time, the concept of quality of work life emphasizes the degree

of subjective human prosperity caused by the relationship between the work physical environment and personality, and reflecting the status of personal satisfaction-happiness at work (Monkevicius, 2014) Hence, it comes to the hypothesis that:

H5: Service escape has a positive impact on quality of working life

Intrinsic motivation (IM)

2.6.

With regard to either job satisfaction or quality of work life, many researches refer to the phenomenon of intrinsic motivation as a part of factors system influencing on this dimension According to Karatepe (2015), intrinsic motivation, positive affectivity and self-efficacious all are main contributors in personal resources concept Intrinsic motivation can be understood as an individual’s “feeling of challenge or competence derived from performing a job” (Keaveney, as cited in Karatepe, 2015) That is to say one of the main reasons brings on the feeling of interest while employees do their job activities is motivating worker inner As the result of intrinsic motivation, an employee gets the engagement in the working activities engagement (Oldham and Cumming, as cited in Coelho, Augusto, and Lages, 2011) In reality, intrinsically motivating is clearly known when people play their working role for happiness or challenge themselves instead of their salary or job rewards as well

From the two sides of the coin, perceived organizational support has clearly influenced

on both organizational and personal side as mentioned above Cognitive evaluation theory,

which explained for the relationship of perception of organizational supports with intrinsic motivation, has stated “some contextual factors which effect on the individual’s feelings of control and self –determination” Following this, the contexts in this reference implied the supporting of company, the promoting competence when individuals perceive them as pressure to think and behave (Deci and Ryan, as cited Coelho, Augusto, and Lages, 2011) Thus, the more working supporting employees perceived, the less pressure to complete the tasks in the job description way as well as enhancing their intrinsic motivation Therefore, it can be expressed as follows that employee is more enthusiasm and strong motivation if they get more supports from company Clearly, we have currently witnessed the trend of company culture building in working environment where those employees stay at the office even overtime not for any rewards or regulation but deriving from there strong motivation like their indulgence In the consideration POS and IM, research of Karatepe (2015) has also concluded that POS has the positive impact on intrinsic motivation To be more, Karatepe states “employees who perceived that their organization values their contributions and cares about their well-being will be autonomously motivated” In view of empirical evidences, it is hypothesized that:

H1a: Perceived organizational support has a positive impact on intrinsic motivation

One of the main reasons comes to emotional working exhaustion is the heavy workload

or long over working period as mentioning in many previous studies (Chang and Chiu, 2009; Aksu and Temeloglu, 2015) Relationship between perception of organizational supports and emotional exhaustion is also analyzed in many studies such as Hamwi, Rutherford and Boles (2011); Coelho, Augusto and Lages (2011); Moon, Hur and Jun (2013), Yaghoubi, Pourghaz and Toomaj (2014); Karaptepe (2015) A case in point, Hamwi, Rutherford and Boles (2011) explored stressors that may influence salespersons’ emotional exhaustion and their perception

of organizational support The study has stated that salespeople, calling as the common frontline staff, who satisfies and feel fulfilled and happy with their job tend to have the better performance The research model found out the relationship of five constructs included: role conflict, role ambiguity, work family, emotional exhaustion All above, the results has revealed that the perceived organizational has no direct relationship on emotional exhaustion

It means that even the salesperson feels comfortable with their firm working support, there is also the nature of job position and personal experiences which creating personal motivation Yaghoubi, Pourghaz and Toomaj (2014) discussed the relationship of perceived organizational support with job burnout In this research, the concept of burnout has been determined by three components: emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, individual failure This research comes to the conclusion as the more increase the perceived organizational supports is, the more reduce the organization burnout is Hence, it comes to the conclusion that perceived organizational supports has the relative relationship between perceived organizational supports and emotinal exhaustion In aviation section, Moon, Hur and Jun (2013) also examined whether and how the perceived organizational support influences emotional labor and the relationship between emotional labor and flight attendants’ outcomes The research results approve that perception of organizational supports influence

on the negative relationship of emotional labor This statement, surely, contributes the deep understanding for manager of hospitality sector are under strict requirements to emotional regulation strategies to control over behavior and private emotions in order to maintain positive interactions with customers

All these evidences, as mentioned above, has reinforced for the first hypothesis and, on the other side, come to conclusion for the connections of perception of organization support with the emotional exhaustion At the same attitude in many studies, with the front-line staff, the intrinsic motivation lessens the emotional exhaustion (Tizabi, as cited in Karatepe, 2015) And the perception of organizational support, which is mediated by the light of personal resources as manifested by intrinsic motivation, has negative strongly influenced on emotional exhaustion (Karetepe, 2015) These are hypothesized that:

H2a: Intrinsic motivation has a negative impact on emotional exhaustion of frontline staffs

Rhoades and Eisenberger (2002) has affirmed that with the policies of caring, welfare, promote from the POS, the employees obviously reach the socio-emotional needs, enhance the competence of cooperate with the colleagues and role status into their social identity This research also explores “strengthen employee’s beliefs that the organization recognizes and rewards increases the performance” (Rhoades and Eisenberger, 2002) It turns, the

consideration in the main antecedent of extra role services should be POS According to George and Brief (as cited in Rhoades and Eisenberger, 2002), “POS increase performance of standard job activities and actions favorable to the organization that go beyond assigned responsibilities” With regard to this concern, study of Karatepe (2015) has emphasized that there is a positive indirect relationship between POS and extra role customer services As also mentioned in this study, extra role performance also is a outcomes of intrinsic motivation

(Babakus et al., Finkelstein, Walumbwa et al., as cited in Karatepe, 2015) With all

demonstration above, it comes to the hypothesis that:

H2b: Intrinsic motivation has a positive impact on extra-role customer service of frontline staffs

Model and hypotheses

2.7.

2.7.1 Research model

Taking consideration in the literature reviews, the conceptual framework is presented in Figure 1 This suggested model was developed from the result of Karatape’s study which examines personal resources of the effect of perceived organizational support on emotional exhaustion, extra-role customer service and turnover intentions

This model consists of eight hypotheses from H1 to H5

Figure 2.1 The conceptual model

2.7.2 Hypotheses

There are total eight hypotheses developed for this research:

H1a: Perceived organizational support has a positive impact on intrinsic motivation

H1b: Perceived organizational support has a positive impact on quality of work life

H1c: Perceived organizational support has a positive impact on servicescape

H2a: Intrinsic motivation has a negative impact on emotional exhaustion of frontline staffs H2b: Intrinsic motivation has a positive impact on extra-role customer service of frontline staffs

Emotional Exhaustion

Extra-role customer service

Quality of working life

H3: Emotional exhaustion has a negative impact on quality of working life

H4: Extra-role customer service has a positive impact on quality of working life

H5: Servicescape has a positive impact on quality of working life

In summary, this chapter presents theoretical background of each concept in the model Based on literature review, the research model clarifies intrinsic motivation as a intermediate concept in the relationship between perceived organizational support and emotional exhaustion and extra role customer services Then, the influences of emotional exhaustion, extra role customer services and perceived organizational support on quality of working life are also considered The influence of servicescape on quality of working life is also explored as well as the impact of perceived organizational support on servicescape Such factors are selected to build the model because their relationship has already tested by many previous scholars through their studies

Hence, there are eight hypotheses proposed for this research The next chapter will discuss about methodology that used to analyze the data and test hypotheses of the research model

Chapter 3 Research Methodology

Chapter two presents the detailed definitions and relationships for each research construct

A theoretical research model has been built in associated with the research hypotheses Chapter three aims to present a detailed account of a research methodology First, it starts with the research design followed by data collection method and research process Then, measurement scales are presented to develop questionnaire After that, the preliminary evaluation of research scales is conducted to help measurement scales clearer and understandable Beside, this chapter also introduces the official method of research

The research design

3.1.1 Qualitative research

Concerning to the qualitative research, the Vietnamese version of the survey questionnaire was pre-tested using in-depth interviews during two weeks with eight people included four executives in aviation management field and four front-line staffs of aviation sector to check whether they understood clearly about the scales or not

This phase aimed to consider the suitable of the contents of questionnaire with features of

VN airport system and ensure the final questionnaire would be well understood The procedure of conducting in-depth interviews started with specifying the objectives of the research in terms of what information was needed to be collected Then the detailed questionnaire was shown to the respondents for checking their understanding During the interview, the author also wanted to find out if the chosen measurement scale was suitable for

conducting the research in Viet Nam All the comments from the interviewees were gathered with the aim to modify the measurement scale

Based on the feedback of respondents, the survey questionnaire was slightly modified to make it clearer and more understandable (see Appendix 2)

3.1.2 Main survey method

The main survey was conducted in the large scale with the attendants in Vietnamese airports who were in charges with the front-line job positions such as check in staffs, security staffs, boarding staffs; sellers and other positions

The methods of collecting information were personal interviews, directly filling out the paper form and, also, indirectly filling via online version of questionnaire

To assess the degree of respondent’s answer, Likert scale was used in the answer sheet (from 1- strongly disagree to 5-strongly agree) The questionnaire firstly prepared in English, then was translated into Vietnamese to make sure the respondents could understand clearly those mentioned constructs

3.1.3 Research procedure

Research process was shown in the Figure 3.1

Figure 3.1 Research procedure

Literature

Final scale

Main survey – quantitative research (n=220)

Measurement scale building

3.2.

From the literature reviews and the research model as referred above, measurement carefully given out to make sure the appropriation of research scope

All the constructs in the model were measured with multiple items, which were developed

by other researchers and also based on the results of qualitative study to adequately capture the domain of the constructs

• Perceived of organizational supports was measured by six items (Karatape, 2015;

Moon, Hur and Jun, 2013; Hamwi, , Rutherford and Boles, 2011)

• Intrinsic motivation was measured by six items of Coelho, Augusto and Lages (2011),

also, Leat and El-Kot (2009)

• Seven items that developed by Moon, Hur and Jun (2013) as well as Hamwi,

Rutherford and Boles (2011) were used to measure the construct of emotional exhaustion

• The extra role of customer services was measured by five items of Karatape (2015)

• Servicescape was measured by eight items as Bitner (1992) Rosenbaum & Massiah

(2011)

• Finally, quality of working life concept was measured by eight items of Nguyen and

Nguyen (2012) via three specific needs includes: survival needs, belonging needs, knowledge needs

In the research measurement scale, POS, IM, EE, ECS and SE all was the first – order constructs while QWL was the second – order constructs To avoid response bias, all concepts names were eliminated from the questionnaire; total 44 questions were presented in the appendix no 1

The main survey

3.3.

3.3.1 Objects of main survey

In association with the theoretical literature, other researches and the results of qualitative phase, the final questionnaire was given out to implicating the main survey (see Appendix 3 – Final questionnaire)

To adapt the research objectives as mentioned above, there were several airports to be chosen due to the convenience such as Tan Son Nhat airport, Da Nang airport, Lien Khuong airport (Lam Dong), Buon Me Thuoc airport (Kontum)

The respondents were all the employees working in the air services as a front- line workforce at those chosen airports Check-in staffs, security staffs, immigration staffs, ticket sellers, airline representatives, airport representatives, etc…are all target positions for interviewing

3.3.2 Sample size

As Hair et al (2009) mentioned that the minimum sample size needs to be equal or greater than five times of the number of variables However, it shouldn’t be less than 100 to guarantee the correct analysis result As the formula is below:

• n >= 100 and n >= 5k (k: number of variables)

In this research, k = 44 questions Therefore, the minimum needed for the research is 220 answers To conduct Structural Equation Modeling (SEM), Garver & Mentser and Hoelter (as cited in Mohamad and Mohamed, 2012) proposed a ‘critical sample size’ of 200 Hence, in this research, 220 questionnaires were essential for the required sample size

To make sure the quantity of respondents enough for the research, this research was distributed 280 questionnaires Because the objectives of this research aimed to analysis from the view of Vietnamese airports system, questionnaires were sent random without priority for any chosen airports After collecting the answering, 260 questionnaires were collected (as similar with the response rate was approximate 92.8 percent) The questionnaires collection included 48 eliminated questionnaires due to the same answers for all asking items as well as the blank items Finally, 212 questionnaires were used as valid data for this research In

comparison with minimum sample size, this value was satisfactory Then, data entry was done and made clear by SPSS software

Table 3.1 Sources of data collection

3.3.3 Research sample description

The results of the demographics analysis were summarized in table 4.1 Initial analysis of data indicated that gender was not equally between female and male Male was dominant with 58.5% of respondents and female sized 41.5% of respondents

More than half of the respondents who took part in this study were young people from 23

to 30 years old with 54.9% of total sample Age ranged from 18 to 40 years old, with 10.4% respondents were between 18 and 22 years old, 13.2% people were from 30 to 40 years old, 9.0% of the respondents older than 40 years old It also implicated as the common features of front-line staffs at airports were that all the employees were so young because of direct customer contacting Although that, their work experience mostly was above one working year with total 74.9% of the respondents Most of them were graduated from college or university showing the high education degree of airport front-line staffs

The main survey was done by interviewing most of the front-line working positions at the airport The respondents came from many sections of air transport services such as airlines, aviation security, immigration, ground services company as well as even the airport authorities Hence, the respondents took in charge with many kind of front-line positions such as: check-in staff, airlines representatives, security staff, immigration staff… Most of those companies were as stake holders, coordinating in harmony with the airport to provide the air services

Moreover, the research aimed to explore the model in the Vietnamese aviation section, so the respondents come from many aviation companies from airlines to ground-services company

Table 3.2 Description of sample

Demographic profile Category Frequency Percentage (%)

Company name

Chapter 4 Data analysis and results

Chapter 3 presented research methodology to examine scale validation and analyze the collected data In chapter 4, results of study would be shown and analyzed with sample n=212 First, the data of this research was evaluated through using Cronbach’s Alpha to examine reliability and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) to check validity value of the scale measurement as well as determine the adequacy of model fit to the data In step 2, researcher employed Structure Equation Modeling (SEM) to test the proposed hypothesis Finally, results of hypotheses testing were discussed

Reliability analysis

4.1.

A crucial step in data analysis was to make sure all the items in one scale were reliable

in measuring the research concept that they belonged to Therefore, it was required to do the reliability test for each construct in the measurement scale

To ensure the reliability of the instrument developed for this research, Cronbach’s Alpha had been conducted as an indicator for internal consistency of scales The Cronbach’s Alpha test helped to remove unstandardized scale items

It was required the value of Cronbach’s Alpha should be above or at least equal 0.6 to guarantee internal reliability (Nunnally & Burnstein, as cited in Nguyen, 2011) Beside Cronbach’s Alpha, the Corrected Item – Total Correlation was also very important Normally, if the correlation of each specific item with total of the other items in the scale was quite high or higher than 0.3 (Nunnally & Burnstein, as cited in Nguyen, 2011), such item was assumed that most likely correlated with most of other scale items and would become a good part of this total rating rate On the other hand, if the Corrected item – Total correlation

of any item was negative or too low (less than 0.3), it was necessary to re-consider the item in terms of wording problems and conceptual appropriateness (Leech et al., 2005)

A modification or deletion for such items in this case was essential The results of reliability test for each construct in the model were summarized in the table below

At this point, there were six measurement scale for six research constructs as shown: perceived organizational support (POS), intrinsic motivation (IM), emotional exhaustion

(EE), extra role customer services (ECS), servicescape (SE) and quality of working life (QWL) Each of these constructs was preliminarily checked by Cronbach’s Alpha

Table 4.1 Reliable test result Observed

Variable

Scale Mean if Item Deleted

Scale Mean if Item Deleted

Corrected Total Correlation

Item-Cronbach's Alpha

if Item Deleted Perceived organizational support – POS