Impacts of interpersonal conflict and occupational stress on the organizational commitment of vietnamese employees, and the role of social support

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOIVIETNAM JAPAN UNIVERSITY ---NGUYEN QUANG MINH IMPACTS OF INTERPERSONAL CONFLICT AND OCCUPATIONAL STRESS ON THE ORGANIZATIONAL COMMITMENT OF VIETNAMESE

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI

VIETNAM JAPAN UNIVERSITY

-NGUYEN QUANG MINH

IMPACTS OF INTERPERSONAL CONFLICT

AND OCCUPATIONAL STRESS ON

THE ORGANIZATIONAL COMMITMENT OF VIETNAMESE

EMPLOYEES, AND THE ROLE OF SOCIAL SUPPORT

MASTER’S THESIS BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

Hanoi, 2020

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI

VIETNAM JAPAN UNIVERSITY

-NGUYEN QUANG MINH

IMPACTS OF INTERPERSONAL CONFLICT

AND OCCUPATIONAL STRESS ON

THE ORGANIZATIONAL COMMITMENT OF VIETNAMESE

EMPLOYEES, AND THE ROLE OF SOCIAL SUPPORT

MAJOR: BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

In this part, I would like to express my deepest gratitude and massive thanks to

my supervisors Prof Motonari Tanabu and Assoc.Prof Nham Phong Tuan With yoursupport, guidance, comments, recommendations and encouragements, I have alreadyovercome troubles in doing the master thesis and finally completed it

I would like to share my thanks to all of respondents who helped me accomplishthe thesis with your provided data I also want to send my big thanks to Huong-san, anassistant of MBA Programs and all member of MBA-03 class Thank to them, I havethe memorable and meaningful time in Vietnam Japan University in two years and Iwill never forget it

Thank you Viet Nam Japan University for supporting me a lot as well as giving

me an memorable opportunity to experience the academic environment that I couldgain beneficial knowledge and assist me in expanding my perspective in life

Thank you so much for everything For me, that was unforgettable time in mylife and also the great motivation and inspiration for me to improve myself in the future.Nguyen Quang Minh

11/5/2020

Purpuse of the study: In the real time, the working context in Vietnam is recognized

with the high level of competitive pace, so the ratio of workers rotation is a crucialpoint for the development of busisses As a result, many Vietnamese employees have asense of changing their works because they tend to seek for the better workingenvironment in the new places where they can be treated with full of respective This is

a noticeable issue because it places a crucial task for Human Resource Managers incontrolling and managing the labour of the company My research concentrates on twomain parts that have already occured in the working environmenet in Vietnam Thefirst problem links to the impacts from interpersonal conflict with both supervisors andcoworkers on the commitment behaviors of Vietnamese employees In the second part,the issue of social support that employees can gain from outside of the company willdecides the level of organizational commitment of them Besides, the factoroccupational stress will also interfere in this relationship with the specific role as amediator Within this relationship between three factors, the study contribute exams theeffect from social support on engagement attitude of Vietnamese workers in both directand indirect effect

Research Methodology/Design: The research will be implemented through 217

responses of employees who are working in Vietnam After collecting data fromrespondents, the next process will be using the SPSS tool for the analyzing step

Findings: Conflict with supervisors is the important point to decide commitment behavior

of Vietnamese employees, but the conflict with colleagues seems to increase a weaksignificant on their commitment Besides, Social Support will strongly contribute for theorganizational commitment behavior, but it is lower when stress at work interferes Stressalso has the weak positive effect with social support and commitment,

and takes a role as mediator when receiving the effect from social support on the side

of family

Research Limitations: The way that employees produce the weak positive effect from

their conflict with coworkers to their commitment behavior has not been clear with itsreasons Another limitaition is the size of social support is only narrowed in the scalefrom Family and Friends And the final limitation is there is a shortage ofdetermination about the positive impact from Stress at work with social support andorganizational commitment

Contribution: Explore the factors affecting on Vietnamese workers‟ commitment

behavior

Keyword: interpersonal conflict, social support, occupational stress, organizational

commitment

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Background of the Study 1

1.1.1 Practical Issues 2

1.1.2 Theoretical Issues 4

1.2 Research Objective and Research Questions 7

1.3 Subject and Scope of the Study 7

1.4 Outline of the Thesis 8

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW AND HYPOTHESES DEVELOPMENT 9

2.1 Review of Conceptual Framework and Literature Background 9

2.1.1 Interpersonal Conflict 9

2.1.2 Social Support 16

2.1.3 Occupational Stress 20

2.1.4 Organizational Commitment 24

2.2 Review of Relevant Theoretical Model 26

2.3 Hypotheses Development and Conceptual Model 30

2.3.1 Interpersonal Conflict with Supervisors and Organizational Commitment 31

2.3.2 Interpersonal Conflict with Colleagues and Organizational Commitment 31

2.3.3 Social Support and Occupational Stress 32

2.3.4 Occupational Stress and Organizational Commitment 33

2.3.5 Social Support and Organizational Commitment 34

2.3.6 Interpersonal Conflict with Supervisors and Occupational Stress 34

2.3.7 Interpersonal Conflict with Colleagues and Occupational Stress 35

CHAPTER 3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 39

3.1 Sampling 39

3.2 Data Collection Procedures 40

3.3 Data Analysis 41

3.4 Measurements 41

3.5 The Development Processs of the Questionnaire 42

CHAPTER 4 RESEARCH ANALYSIS AND RESULTS 44

4.1 Demographic Analysis 45

4.1.1 Frequency Analysis 45

4.1.2 Descriptive Analysis 47

4.1.3 Reliability and EFA Analysis 51

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4.2 Analyzing results of the relationship between “Interpersonal Conflict” and

“Organizational Commitment” 64

4.3 Analyzing results of the relationship between “Interpersonal Conflict” and “Occupational Stress” 68

4.4 Analyzing results of the relationship between “Social Support”, “Occupational Stress” and “Organizational Commitment” 72

4.4.1 The result of the relationship among Social Support from Family, Occupational Stress and Organizational Commitment 72

4.4.2 Analyzing the relationship among Social Support from Friends, Occupational Stress and Organizational Commitment 76

4.5 Hypotheses Testing 79

4.6 The comparison of the research result between Robert Bosch Corporation and VietAbank 80

4.6.1 Robert Bosch Gmbh Company 80

4.6.2 VietAbank Company 82

CHAPTER 5: DISCUSSIONS, IMPLICATIONS AND LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY 84

5.1 Discussions of the Study 84

5.1.1 The relationship between “Interpersonal Conflict” and “Organizational Commitment” 84

5.1.2 The relationship between “Interpersonal Conflict” and “Occupational Stress” 87 5.1.3 The result of the relationship between “Social Support”, “Occupational Stress” and “Organizational Commitment” 88

5.1.4 The difference in these relationships between Robert Borsch Corporation and VietAbank 91

5.2 Implications of the Study 93

5.3 Limitations of the Study 96

CONCLUSION 99

REFERENCE 101 APENDIX

LIST OF TABLES

Table 2.1 The general definition of Interpersonal Conflict types in an organization 10

Table 2.2 The reviewed instruments for measuring Interpersonal Conflict 14

Table 2.3 All items of the measured instruments for Interpersonal Conflict with Supervisors and Colleagues ((Spector & Jex, 1998) (Belausteguigoitia et al., 2016) 15

Table 2.4 The reviewed instruments for measuring Social Support 18

Table 2.5 All items of the MSPSS instruments for measuring Social Support (Zimet et al., 1988) 20

Table 2.6 All items of the measured instrument for Occupational Stress (Cullen et al., 1985) 23

Table 2.7 All items of the measured instrument for Organizational Commitment (Allen & Meyer, 1990) 26

Table 3.1 Measured Instruments of all related variables in the study 42

Table 4.1.1 The Frequency Statistics Table 45

Table 4.1.2 The table of Frequency Analysis for Age, Gender and Education Level 46

Table 4.1.3 The codes of relevant variables 48

Table 4.1.4 The descriptive statistics table of “Interpersonal Conflict with Supervisors 48

Table 4.1.5 The descriptive statistics table of “Interpersonal Conflict with Colleagues 49

Table 4.1.6 The descriptive statistics table of Social Support 49

Table 4.1.7 The descriptive statistics table of Occupatoinal Stress 50

Table 4.1.8 The descriptive statistics table of Organizational Commitment 51

Table 4.1.9 The Reliability Table of Interpersonal Conflict with Supervisors 52

Table 4.1.10 The table of EFA Analyzing for Interpersonal Conflict with Supervisors 53

Table 4.1.11 The Reliability Table of Interpersonal Conflict with Colleagues 54

Table 4.1.12 The table of EFA Analyzing for Interpersonal Conflict with Colleagues 54 Table 4.1.13 The Reliability Table of Social Support 56

Table 4.1.14 KMO and Barlett‟s Test, and Total Variance tables of Social Support 57

Table 4.1.15 The table of Rotated Component Matrix for Social Support before removing items 57

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Table 4.1.16 The table of Rotated Component Matrix for Social Support after

removing items 58

Table 4.1.17 The Reliability Table of Occupational Stress 59

Table 4.1.18 The table of EFA Analyzing for Occupational Stress 60

Table 4.1.19 The Reliability Table of Organizational Commitment 62

Table 4.1.20 The table of EFA Analyzing for Organizational Commitment 63

Table 4.2.1 The correlations table of three variables ICC, ICS and OC 65

Table 4.2.2 The results of Regression Analysis for ICS, ICC and OC 67

Table 4.3.1 The correlations table of Interpersonal Conflict and Occupational Stress 69 Table 4.3.2 The regression analysis table of Interpersonal Conflict and Occupational Stress 70

Table 4.4.1 The outcome variables of the mediator relationship (with Social Support from Family) 73

Table 4.4.2 The description of effect of Social Support from Family on Organizational Commitment 75

Table 4.4.3 The outcome variables of the mediator relationship (with Social Support from Friends) 77

Table 4.4.4 The description of effect of Social Support from Friends on Organizational Commitment 78

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LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 2.1 The conceptual model of the effect of Interpersonal Conflict on

Organizational Commitment (Imanol Belausteguigoitia et al., 2016) 27

Figure 2.2 The general view of the Interpersonal Conflict‟s impacts (Frone, 2000) 28

Figure 2.3 The Model of the relationship between Interpersonal Conflict and Job Stress (Haq, 2011) 29

Figure 2.4 The conceptual research model of the study 37

Figure 4.1 The results of impacts from Interpersonal Conflict on Occupational Stress 71 Figure 4.2 The effect of mediation relationship between Social Support from Family, Occupational Stress and Organizational Commitment 76

Figure 4.3 The resuts of all variables in Robert Bosch Company 81

Figure 4.4 The resuts of all variables in VietAbank Company 82

Figure 5.1 The research model with final results 91

Organizational CommitmentSocial Support

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CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the Study

Observing deeper into Vietnam‟s society today, it is evident that Vietnam is adeveloping country with a high growth rate in the world The development of Vietnamcan be observed in many industries and fields of various activities Along with thisdevelopment, we can notice that Vietnam is also gradually expanding internationalcooperation with other territories around the world An example of Vietnam'sinternationalization can be found through some typical cooperation agreements such asFree Trade Agreement (FTA), Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) orTrans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) (General Statisitc Office of Vietnam,2019) Based on those international agreements, Vietnam is standing chances tocooperate with many other areas around the world

Having the opportunity to develop based on the current situation ofinternationalization, it is indispensable for many Vietnamese businesses to emerge,including domestic enterprises, startups, and international joint venture enterprises.This has made Vietnam become an ideal business environment with a high pace ofdynamic and competitiveness

Based on the data from the General Statistics Office of Vietnam in 2018, thepopulation of Vietnam is roughly 94.6 million that proves Vietnam is a relativelypopulous country in the world Thank the high population, combining with the strongpace of internationalization, there are many domestic and international corporationsthat have been formed and hold many opportunities to take advantage of the potentialfactor as a human resource in Vietnam

For Vietnamese companies, they will have the opportunity to recruit potentialworkers and turn around human resources so as to create the highest value for their

businesses As for foreign businesses, in addition to capturing high-quality humanresources in Vietnam, they also focus on hiring Vietnamese laborers with their lowbudget, which helps a lot in cost savings and increases business growth Facing manyopportunities, companies operating in Vietnam will always focus on the quality of theirhuman resources and also have their own policies to attract workers from one place toanother Besides the relatively competitive market economy in Vietnam, the rotation ofresources is stronger and the impact of businesses on employees will have a greatimpact within only by the smallest policies or decisions.

In contrast, for the Vietnamese workers, because the competitiveness betweenbusinesses is very large, they will have a lot of chances to see themselves in thebusiness, assess it and select the suitable places for them to continue their careers

Consequently, in the scope of the study, I want to focus deeply on the aspect oforganizational behaviors of employees in Vietnam, specifically the organizationalcommitment issue of Vietnamese employees in the current social context From thestudy of Organizational Commitment, I hope that my contributions to this research will

be beneficial for Vietnamese businesses in understanding its employees, as well asgiving an overview of factors influencing the "Organizational Commitment" In thenear future, the research can also assist businesses in retaining their human resourcesduring the current development period

As I mentioned about Organizational Commitment, this is a backlog issue inVietnamese businesses Therefore, to get specific evidence on this issue, I want topresent specific shreds of evidence of Organizational Commitment in both the

“Practical Issues” and "Theoretical Issues".

1.1.1 Practical Issues

In the current context, there is an emergent issue in Vietnam is the increasingrate of employee turnover In general, the problem of leaving employees so far is very

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common and based on many different factors leading to the employee's quittingdecision Once the employee resignation issue is raised, we need to ask a question that

"What has affected the employee's commitment to the organization" when making this

decision

To put this issue in Vietnam society, a reality that can be seen in the corporateenvironment is that the commitment to the organization in the workplace environment

in Vietnam is rapidly declining

This issue is currently concerned and much evidence has proved this fact.Researching on this issue, Anphabet, a pioneer company in Vietnam for acomprehensive employer brand solution, conducted a research on the job market,namely by conducting surveys of up to 75,418 employees The result was that theymeasured the employee turnover rates in Vietnam in 2017 and 2018 at 16% and 20%respectively, and Anphabe also forecasts this figure could reach 22% in 2019 (Anphabe,2018), and this figure will gradually increase from the year 2020 Due to theconcentration of internationalization with a high level of competitiveness, the level ofturnover is also high and it causes a huge loss for the company in terms of HumanResources For example, it makes the recruitment for replacement can account for 15-20% salary of a year, or the compensation is higher if the quitter is the excellentemployees because of the loss of knowledge, relationships and training costs

This is a heated topic and many authors have been focusing on this issue.Therefore, many authors stand on the manager's perspective and see this as a part ofHuman Resource Management Under the perspective of a researcher, I would like tomake this issue more obvious and contribute to conflict management for companies

In addition to the figures that Alphabe has researched on employee turnoverrates in Vietnam, some of the other sources also prove this alarming fact

In the report of Navigos Search, the retail sector faced a high rate of turnover.Specifically, 28% of employees lack their commitment to the organization, 49% ofemployees feel vulnerable to being approached by companies in the same industry and60% of employees think their average tenure with their job is only 2 to 3 years(Navigos Group, 2018) In the 2016 survey report of Talentnet and Mercer, besidesRetail with a high rate of turnover (39.2%), other fields also recognize these issuessuch as Medicine (17%), Technology (16.2%).

Through the data that organizations have researched on the labor market inVietnam, it can be realized that the lack of engagement to enterprises and the high rate

of leaving become more common, especially in specific industries

1.1.2 Theoretical Issues

Facing organizational commitment issue, this can be considered as a relativelycommon problem in many countries around the world, not only existing in Vietnam.Studying on this issue, Turunen (2014) concludes that commitment to an organization

is a crucial issue and this affects many related fields as well as the market of humanresources

In addition to the perspectives on the role of organizational commitment,organizational commitment affects employees, who tend to be more satisfied with theirwork and reduce the risk of leaving the organization if containing a high level ofcommitment Consequently, two elements deciding the success of an organization areOrganizational Commitment and Job Satisfaction (Mathur & Salunke, 2013) Besides,Organizational Commitment has the profound impact on Knowledge Management inboth direct and indirect ways (Rocha et al., 2008) accompanying with the implication

to employees‟ Job Performance (Rafiei et al., 2014)

Normally, studying the responsibility of organizational commitment, the authorsoften focus on measuring the low or high level of commitment behavior (Meyer &

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Allen, 1984) With high organizational commitment, the employee can enhance thequality of working pracice and working capacity (Arthur, 1994), besides commitment

of work with low pace places several negative consequences relating to leaving the joband behavior of defection (Blau & Boal, 1987)

The role of Organizational Commitment is very significant for the development

of the business However, achieving the commitment of employees in the company is achallenge because there are always many factors involved in the commitmentbehaviors of workers Jawaad et al (2019) toward the Human Resource Managementsector, the organizational behaviors embedded in the influence of factors such asenrolling, workplace concern, job estimation, rewards and acceptance, and instructionprocess

Relating to this aspect, many authors also focus on studying the relationshipbetween working pleasure and company engagement behavior, specifically throughcareer development, pride at work, or emolument payment (Ali et al., 2014)

According to Allen and Meyer (1990), Organizational Commitment is measuredbased on the nonphysical situations of attitude and thoughts toward the organization.Therefore, the working place is a business environment where the linking betweenemployees and their executives, or even coworkers is obvious (Subramanian, 2017) Inthis relationship among people, the interpersonal relationships will bring theconnection to individual behaviors (Frone, 2000), and one of the main factors existingamong them is called “Interpersonal Conflict”

Besides the factors mentioned above, within the scope of the study, it isessential to concentrate on the "Interpersonal Conflict" having impacts onOrganizational Commitment, as this factor will be related to the result of individualstudy of mental process (Frone, 2000) In the aspect of Human Resouce Management,workplace conflict at the workplace stems from many diverse factors such as salary,

appraisals, psychological motivation, or working environment, in addition to employeeconflict at work often Moreover, Interpersonal Conflict is recognized by the rootsfrom the distinction in different identiy and consciousness of life values (Isa, 2015).

When employees have a conflict with each other, its impact on the business isutterly clear, as the implications to firm operation which including cliens, workers,financial issues, or internal system (Eunice et al., 2015) and conflict can also mitigatethe efficiency of company operation leading to reduced capacity (Omisore & Abiodun,2014)

The consequences of Interpersonal Conflict can also be recognized in bothmisconduct and hatred attitude (Bibi et al., 2012) Interpersonal Conflict can also relate

to engagement practice of employees (Belausteguigoitia et al., 2016), and dominatesthe quality of managerial arrangement besides the pride at work and commitmentattitude (Medina et al., 2005) In the company, Interpersonal Conflict has been dividedinto 2 dimensions when moving to both bosses and coworker and releases differentoutcomes, which include the implications of commitment demeanour (Frone, 2000)

Relating to the factors that influence organizational commitment, within thisstudy, I also focus on the social aspects of an individual Specifically, the level ofcommitment to an organization is maintained or not only based on the effects of stress

at work, as well as social support from society, also known as Social Support

The main plan of the study will aim to two parts The first part is investigatingmore clearly the implications of interpersonal conflict towards the organizationalcommitment of Vietnamese employees Another part is clarifying directly the impacts

of Social Support to Organizational Commitment, but the Occupational Stress factor,also known as workplace stress, will act as the mediator, which is affected by socialsupport before indirectly influencing the commitment behaviors of Vietnameseworkers

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1.2 Research Objective and Research Questions

- Research Objectives: Investigating the impacts of Interpersonal Conflict,

Occupational Stress, and Social Support on the Organizational Commitment of Vietnameseemployees Meanwhile, the Occupational Stress takes the role of mediator, affected bySocial Support and mediated the relationship between Social Support and OrganizationalCommitment

- Research Questions:

Q1: How does Interpersonal Conflict with Supervisors impact on Organizational

Commitment of Vietnamese employees?

Q2: How does Interpersonal Conflict with Colleagues impact on Organizational

Commitment of Vietnamese employees?

Q3: How does Occupational Stress impact on Organizational Commitment of

- The subject of the study will be the Vietnamese employees working in Vietnamese

companies in a different type of job However, the number of companies they are workingwill be narrow in only 3 in this study, and they are in a similar field

- The Scope of the Study: The research is conducted in Vietnam and the data collection

time for this study from 5th April, 2020 to 15th April, 2020 All respondents in this researchare Vietnamese and they are working in Vietnam companies

1.4 Outline of the Thesis

Besides the parts of abstract, research content, reference, and appendix, thestudy includes five chapters as below

Chapter 1: Introduction: Mentioning the background of the research including both

practice issue and theoretical issue; research objective and research questions; subjectand scope of the study; and thesis outline

Chapter 2: Literature Review and Hypothesis development: introducing the literature

of former authors about “Interpersonal Conflict”, “Social Support”, “OccupationalStress”, and “Organizational Commitment

Chapter 3: Research Methodology: Describing the method of collecting data,

analyzing and forming the final results

Chapter 4: Research Analyzing and Results: Based on the data collected, the study

will extend to analyzing by using SPSS The final results will be displayed as thefrequency, descriptive, correlation, and regression before concluding the relevantinformation to the study

Chapter 5: Recommendation, Solution and Conclusion: After analyzing the final

results, there are recommendations and solutions for the issues relating to interpersonalconflict, social support, and occupational stress that having effect on OrganizationalCommitment This is based on the author knowledge and could improve theorganizational performance in reality

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CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW AND HYPOTHESES

DEVELOPMENT

2.1 Review of Conceptual Framework and Literature Background

In this chapter, the literature of the terms “Interpersonal Conflict”, “SocialSupport”, “Occupational Stress”, and “Organizational Commitment” will be presentedand made clear when being used in this study

2.1.1 Interpersonal Conflict

2.1.1.1 Interpersonal Conflict Definitions

Before going into the "Interpersonal Conflict", it is necessary to understand theprevious studies of "Conflict", which appeared in many the literature reviews bydifferent authors

Presently, there are many various definitions of "Conflict", Omisore andAbiodun (2014) cited that the ideal way to understand Conflict's definition should bedivided into three distinct approaches: a functional approach, situational approach, andinteractive approach As a result, in order to grasp the definition of conflict, we canrely on the definition in three kinds of approaching

In the book “Conflict resolved? A Critical Assessment of Conflict Resolution”

(Tidwell, 2001), as for the definition of conflict by author George Simmel in 1955, he

pointeds “conflict acts as the method with tackling divergent dualism to archive the

unity, even it may eliminate the benefit from another conflict parties” Meanwhile,

following the situation approach, the book also mentioned the conflict based on

Bercovitch‟s definition in 1984 as “a situation creates the unbreakable aims and

values among various parties” Finally, according to the interactive approach, conflict

was compared with “the interaction among people who has the dependent on each

other, and perceives the inappropriate purposes and the intervention from each other

to attain these targets” in the conclusion of the author Folger in 1993 According to

Thakore (2013), conflict is explained as the antipathy between two people or manydifferent individual or even various teams when they have effort to archive theagreement from the opposition sides

The object of this study is to target conflicts that occur within an enterprise.Conflict happens among individuals and group, specifically some people of one groupinteract with others in different groups, or it can also occur inside a specific group(Nicholson, 2009) Based on the motivation on the interpersonal conflict that happensinside employees and has a significant effect on their commitment to companies, thereare several former researches focusing on this issue in the past

Going deeply into conflict in the organization, in the book “Organizational

Behavior: Integrating Individuals, Groups, and Organizations” published in 2016, the

author Champoux pointed out that the conflict in the organization can be determinedunder six levels and various forms

Table 2.1 The general definition of Interpersonal Conflict types in an organization

of socialization

A form of conflict existing in the relationship between two

Interpersonal individuals, or among many people Interpersonal Conflict is the

basic contradictory behavior of an organization, and it can be derivedconflict

from Intrapersonal Conflict An individual may have discomfortinside as Intrapersonal Conflict and explode to other members of the

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organization, as Interpersonal Conflict.

Intragroup Conflict existing among representatives in a specific team These

conflicts may occur during the work process to achieve theConflict

organization's overall goals

Inter-Group Conflict happens between two or more groups within anConflict organization

Include all conflicts occurring within an organization These conflictsIntra- can be seen both vertically and horizontally within an organization.Organization The vertical level can be between managers and subordinates, whileConflict the horizontal level is among individuals, departments with working

groups

Inter- Conflict happens between two or more organizations, most of theseOrganization kinds of conflict result from the relationship between differentConflict organizations

Regarding the division of types of conflict, according to Simons and Peterson(2000), they researched the existence of two distinct types of conflict: Task Conflictand Relationship Conflict Specifically, with the definition of each type of conflict, theauthor Jehn (1995) clearly distinguished these two types as follows:

- Task Conflict: It is considered as the awareness of disagreements about ideas,

viewpoints, and opinions among the members in the decision making process when workingtogether and this causes a divergence between them

- Relationship Conflict: Also known as an emotional conflict This type of conflict

occurs between individuals, rooted on the contrary of personalities This leads to theemployees feel uncomfortable, creating large pressure on each other at work

Expanding on other types of Conflict, Fisher (2006) defined another three kinds

of conflict with the larger scale:

- Economic Conflict: This type of conflict relates to the economic aspect, in which two

conflicting parties are seeking for maximizing what they can implement to achieve economicgoals Usually, these two sides of the conflict will not have mutual goals

- Value Conflict: The difference occurs in the principles and practices in life Typically,

this type of conflict comes from the difference between individuals in factors related toculture, lifestyle, morality, religion, or politics

- Power Conflict: A conflict related to the attainment of a power element among

relevant parties Each part always looks for achieving and maintains maximum power, andthis will directly affect the other one

When placing conflict factor within the business area, many authors haveassessed the negative impact of conflict, but several authors still emphasized thebeneficial effect that conflict can bring to enterprises, especially the positive impactsviewed at Task Conflict at both individual level (Baron, 1991) and the group level (Fiol,1994)

Although the elements of conflict come from various sources and approaches inthis study, the influence of Interpersonal Conflict on Organizational Commitment will

be measured Besides implications of conflicts to specific benefits like salary or labourwages (Isa, 2015), the study only focus Interpersonal Conflict on the emotionalbehavior, which exists inside employees and that is indispensable at organization‟s life(Kumar et al., 2018) In addition to the implications of Interpersonal Conflict, manyauthors aim to study, for example, its impact on individual aberrance andorganizational deviation, or even leaving purpose, (Haq, 2011)

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2.1.1.2 Interpersonal Conflict Measured Instruments

When the relationship between interpersonal conflict and organizationalcommitment is determined, analyzing the objects which were targeted in theinterpersonal conflict variable including interpersonal conflict with colleagues(horizontal level) and interpersonal conflict with supervisors (vertical level) The nextstep to facilitate the measurement and evaluation of these two levels of interpersonalconflict is to find the specific scales for them The scales with defined items werefound, so I split the scale separately to evaluate these 2 levels

Briefly, to evaluate Interpersonal Conflict in the research, I summarized theassessments from various authors within specific dimensions

Table 2.2 The reviewed instruments for measuring Interpersonal Conflict

Conflict at Work Conflict Scales Interpersonal Conflict in the

(Spector & Jex, Belausteguigoitia, (WICS) (Wright, (ICW) (Schieman

Anxiety Agression Unfair Treatment AltercationDepression Tension Rudeness ViolationFrustration Interaction Irrresponsibility Injustice

Incompetence InequityWork Disagreement Unfairness

Thwarted aimsIncompetencePhysicalantagonismPersonal‟s VerbalAgressionThe instruments above are used to evaluate Interpersonal Conflict in anorganization with different scales Within the scope of this paper, ICAWS(Interpersonal Conflict at Work Scale) (Spector & Jex, 1998) and measurementperformance of author Belausteguigoitia et al., (2016) are appropriate compared to theremaining ones, so these two instruments will be used to assess the InterpersonalConflict variable

For the evaluation of Interpersonal Conflict with Colleagues, the scale was usedwith 4 items to assess the level of employees having a conflict with their colleagues(Belausteguigoitia et al., 2016) For instance, in this instrument, some of the questions

target tension among employees as “My colleagues and I often get angry while

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working together”, or “There often are tensions in the relationship between my colleagues and myself.”

To be convenient in evaluating the aspect of Interpersonal Conflict withSupervisors, the instrument that I use in this study is ICAWS (Interpersonal Conflict atWork Scale) In essence, ICAWS consists of 4 items to assess the goodness ofrespondents toward acceptable accord with other members in their company whenworking (Spector & Jex, 1998) While this study evaluates the relationship amongworkers and their managers, ICAWS is modified to be suitable for this assessment with

questions like “How often does your supervisor gets into arguments with others at

work”, or “How often are people rude to you at work” In this study, when evaluating

the relationship between employees and their managers, ICAWS was modified to fitthis assessment process, with suitable questions such as “How often does your

supervisor gets into arguments with others at work" or "How often are people rude to

you at work” The scale is based on the 5 levels of Likert-scale, which formulate the

ranging from 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 5 (Strongly Agree) The table below shows theinformation of the selected instruments to measure Interpersonal Conflict

Table 2.3 All items of the measured instruments for Interpersonal Conflict with Supervisors

and Colleagues ((Spector & Jex, 1998) (Belausteguigoitia et al., 2016)

My supervisor gets into

ICS1 arguments with others at

work

Interpersonal

(Spector & ICS2 My Supervisor yells at me 5-Point

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My colleagues and I often

ICC1 get angry while working

together.

There often are tensions

ICC2 in the relationship

ICC4 generally dislike

interacting with each other.

2.1.2 Social Support

2.1.2.1 Social Support Definition

When conducting the research, in addition to the influence of InterpersonalConflict on the Organizational Commitment of the employees in Vietnam, a factor thatinterferes with OC of employees is Social Support

The Social Support element has been studied in numerous academic researchesover 30 years and considered as a sociological issue (Lijun et al., 2011), the role ofSocial Support was recognized with its catalysis to protect the health for behaviors(Phelan et al., 2010)

Because Social Support is placed in academic research and considered as one ofthe new concepts, its definition is quite diverse by many different authors (Lijun et al.,2011) Besides the classification of Social Support based on the network size, and itsfunctions as the author of mention also discloses are specific forms such as emotionalsupport, instrumental support, informational support, and appraisal support (House,1981)

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Up to now, the term “Social Support” has been put in a lot of academicresearches Therefore, there are various forms of “Social Support” definition based onthe different ways which can fit the approaching ways of researchers.

According to Cobb (1976), Social Support is recognized as a source ofinformation that allows a person to have a faith that they are treated, cared, loved,respected Demonstrating this aspect causes them to connect to the conversationnetwork and accountability to each other

In 1980, Kahn and Antonucci (1980) assessed Social Support based on threefactors: affect, affirmation, and aid The effect includes respect or affection

Affirmative expresses proper behavior or personal attitude Finally, Aid is considered

to direct support, such as supporting people financially or assist them in completingtasks or works

As for the opinion of Sarason et al (1983), Social Support appears as an ability

of people toward others whom we can depend on People can tell us what they careabout, as well as their thoughts, the values they are chasing , and sentimental feelings

Regarding the interpersonal interaction, Social Support acts as an exchange ofresources between two different people, including both provider and receiver, but theyhave a final target as promoting the satisfaction of receivers (Shumaker & Brownell,1984) Deelstra et al (2003) suggested that Social Support is the actions of others,which may help or intend to be assisted

Relating to the concept, Gonzalet and Restrepo (2010) inserted Social Support is

a fact appearing in the disadvantageous cases that an individual can survive fromreceiving the support from others

Mentioning Perceived Social Support, Barrera (1986) defined perceived socialsupport as the explanation of the effect on individuals who faced negative issues In

this definition, he concentrated on the personal faith of each person about supportproviders from their social networks With support receivers, they will have thepositive and negative perspectives of their faith.

Through the literature reviews on social support that each author has defined,although these definitions are quite diverse, in general, Social Support is mentionedwith the interaction between at least two individuals Especially, it appears when oneside provides care, respect, and value to recipients, and this assists the recipients inovercoming disadvantageous situations and feeling satisfied

2.1.2.2 Social Support Measured Instruments

As for the measurement performance for Social Support, each author hasspecific instruments to measure Social Support The instruments that I want to mentionare MSPSS (Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support) (Zimet et al., 1988);NSSQ (Norbeck Social Support Questionnaire) (Norbeck, 1995); and Tardy‟s Scale(1985) (Tardy, 1985) To have a general perspective of these scales, the table belowwill show the dimensions of each instrument

Table 2.4 The reviewed instruments for measuring Social Support

MSPSS (Zimet et al., 1988) NSSQ (Norbeck, Tardy’s Scale (Tardy,

Anxiety Affirmation DispositionSocial Popularity Aid Description/EvaluationRespect Network Size Content (Type)Perceived Social Support Network (Source)

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Network Source (Family, Friends,

Significant Others)

Each instrument has different dimensions to measure the Social Support level ofemployees NSSQ focuses on three main functions of Social Support: Affect,Affirmation, Aid and network size of respondents Meanwhile, Tardy's Scale focuses

on other specific functions such as Direction or Content, besides also focusing onNetwork In this study, I chose the MSPSS (Multidimensional Scale of PerceivedSocial Support), because this measured instrument focuses on assessing not only thefunctions focusing on depression, respect or anxiety, but also the network ofrespondents, which are shown specifically in all three main subjects are Family,Friends, and Significant Others (Zimet et al., 1988) This could be proper andconvenient in collecting and evaluating "Social Support" through specific data

To introduce MSPSS, according to the author Zimet et al (1988), MSPSS solvesthe social support adequacy with its subjective assessment This assessment is aimed atall three objects such as family, friends and significant others, who play a crucial role

in providing social support to the surveyed employees For instance, through questions

like “I get the emotional help and support I need from my family”, “I have friends with

whom I can share my joys and sorrow”, or “I have a special person who is a real source of comfort to me” Generally, MSPSS will investigate directly the relationship

between perceived social support and the expression of anxiety, depression, and respect

of employees, when influenced by Social Support

The table below shows the selected instruments for Social Support in theresearch from Zimet et al (1988)

Table 2.5 All items of the MSPSS instruments for measuring Social Support (Zimet et

SS2 I get the emotional help and

support I need from my family.

SS7 I have friends with whom I can 5-Point LikertSupport share my joys and sorrows. Scale

SS8 I can talk about my problems

with my friends.

SS9 There is a special person who

is around when I am in need.

There is a special person with

SS10 whom I can share joys and

Special sorrows.

Person

SS11 I have a special person who is

a real source of comfort to me.

There is a special person in my

SS12 life who cares about my

feelings.

2.1.3 Occupational Stress

2.1.3.1 Occupational Stress Definition

The next variable identified in the study is Occupational Stress Before focusingthe Occupational Stress in this study, an overview of this factor through the analysis

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articles of the previous authors, including the concepts and assessing instruments will

be reviewed

Being similar to the factor of Social Support, Occupational Stress is approached

by a lot of authors According to the concept of Weiman (1977), “Occupational Stress

is a combination of factors related to psychosocial and physiological homeostasis of labours, in which stressors are recognized as individual circumstances and stress is the reaction reaching those stressors” Extending the research direction on Work

Stress, it is heavily researched in academic studies and various authors place it inbehavioral studies in the organization, with its psychosocial and physiological impact

on reducing workers' capacity (Babatunde, 2013)

Regarding National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, Stress at Work

(NIOSH) (1999), “Occupational Stress is the physical and mental reactions with

negative manner These stem from the job requirements that have a profound effect on resources, productivity or employees‟ demands” Similarly, Mustafa et al (2015)

asserted that “Occupational Stress is determined as the adjustment of physical andpsychological status of an individual to the workplace that has a role in countering anevaluation objection and threat to staffs”

Meanwhile, Work Stress links to negative concerns related to such as anxiety ornervousness and affect the psychological and physical energy of workers (Netemeyer,

et al., 2005)

Normally, when defining the Stress, many different researchers focus on Stress

as the negative stressors to interact with humans Nevertheless, to understand deeply

about the Stress definition, in the book “Stress with out distress” in 1974, the author

Selye (1974) mentioned Stress is the non-specific response of the body to any demand

He also inserted an important point that two kinds of stress were two stressorsincluding Distress (negative stress) and Eustress (positive stress)

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- Distress (negative stress): This kind of stress normally brings negative emotions such

as frustration, worry, anxiety, or even physical consequences such as headaches or rapidheartbeat

- Eustress (positive stress): Type of stress that brings the stimulation on individuals‟

feelings toward happiness or positive psychological response to stressor for prosperity

Stress ís normally mentioned as negative stressors by various researchers, butstress also itself contains positive influences In the following part, several measuredinstruments for work stress are reviewed

2.1.3.2 Occupational Stress Measured Instruments

Regarding the measurement instrument of Occupational Stress, because a lot ofresearchers focus on this issue, so there are various assessing scales based on thedifferent approaches ways of authors

Currently, instruments for measuring Occupational Stress are relatively common

in academic researches Take Parker's Scale as an example with dimensions focusing

on Time Stress, Anxiety and their relationship with Stressor Category (includingworking mechanism, working asmostphere, relationship among individuals, and career)with 15 separate items (Parker & DeCotiis, 1983)

In the Judge‟s scale for Job Stress, Judge et al (1994) inserted 16 items to usefor respondents and figure out the stress at workplace, with 5 levels of Likert Scale (1for “Produce no stress” and 5 for “Produce a great deal of stress”) In the 16 items ofthis measuring instrument, 4 of them from Michigan Diagnostic Survey (French &Kahn, 1962), 8 items from Stress Diagnostic Survey (Matteson & Ivancevich, 1987),and 4 items from Job Stress Index (Sandman, 1992)

In another assessing instrument for Work Stress, Wu et al (2018) concentrated

on an empirical study to develop a Job Stress Scale, which measured Job Stress and

researched its reaction to Safety Behaviors of Chinese employees In this research, theJob Stress was measured by the scale with 6 different dimensions as Job Itself, RoleManagement, Interpersonal Relationship, Organizational Style, and CareerDevelopment, Family-Work Conflict, with separated 20 items In general, theinstrument measures Job Stress through different dimensions.

On the other hand, in this study, to measure the Occupational Stress variables, Idecide to use the instruments of Cullen et al (1985), which includes 6 items to examinethe work stress of staff In the near research, Higgins et al (2012) have already retestedthe structure of this measure and identified that one item (W2) has a weak correlation

to other items Therefore, I will only use 5 items of this measure with a 5-Point type scale (1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree)

Likert-The table below will show the information of the selected instrument of Cullen

et al (1985) for assessing the factor “Occupational Stress”

Table 2.6 All items of the measured instrument for Occupational Stress (Cullen et al.,

OS2 A lot of the times, my job makes me

very frustrated or angry.

Occupational OS3 I am usually calm and at ease when I 5-Point Likert

am working.

OS4 I usually feel that I am under a lot of

pressure when I am at work.

There are a lot of aspects about my job

OS5 that can make me pretty upset about

things

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