(Luận văn thạc sĩ) the ongoing decrease of job satisfaction amongst the corporate credit officers in bank for investment and development of vietnam jsc – ho chi minh city branch causes, impacts, and solutions

The thesis will then discuss some feasible alternative solutions regarding to the improvement of some management skills and the promotion of a more democracy working environment to incli

UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY

International School of Business -

NGUYEN TRAN NGOC ANH

THE ONGOING DECREASE OF JOB

SATISFACTION AMONGST THE CORPORATE CREDIT OFFICERS IN BANK FOR INVESTMENT AND DEVELOPMENT OF

VIETNAM JSC – HO CHI MINH CITY

BRANCH: CAUSES, IMPACTS, AND

SOLUTIONS

MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

Ho Chi Minh City – Year 2018

UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY

International School of Business -

NGUYEN TRAN NGOC ANH

THE ONGOING DECREASE OF JOB

SATISFACTION AMONGST THE

CORPORATE CREDIT OFFICERS IN BANK FOR INVESTMENT AND DEVELOPMENT

OF VIETNAM JSC – HO CHI MINH CITY BRANCH: CAUSES, IMPACTS, AND

SOLUTIONS

MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

SUPERVISOR: LE THI THANH XUAN

Ho Chi Minh City – Year 2018

Executive summary

Nowadays, in the fourth industrial revolution (Industry 4.0), although there are an increasing number of professional fields gradually replaced by technology (i.e banking, production, transportation, etc.), the intellectual capital of human resource is still considered as the indispensable asset of all organizations in operating and maintaining organizations’ operations Therefore, to build and maintain the effective human resource as a competitive advantage requires the management to put forward suitable strategies in which creating a more convenient work place is one of prerequisites The failure of the managers on understanding and adjusting appropriately could gradually lead to the decrease of job satisfactions More concernedly, the low levels of job satisfactions are supposed to provoke other severe consequences such as the increase levels of burnout, the high turnover rate, the smoulder deterioration of employee involvement and organizational commitment, and the decline of organizational outcomes

Indeed, from Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam JSC – Ho Chi Minh City Branch (hereinafter called BIDV.HCMC) perspectives, as a matter of fact, there stand an increasingly high turnover rate amongst the corporate credit officers and the decreasing business outcomes Although there are a variety of internal and external causes that are to blame for these results, it is popularly believed that the decreasingly low level of job satisfaction is probably the main internal underlying cause

Therefore, the thesis first aims to identify the underlying causes of low satisfaction amongst the corporate credit officers at BIDV.HCMC According to several deeply interviews derived from the current and former employees, the findings of the thesis point out that the uncertainty and power distance appear to be the main causes that lead to an emerge in the turnover intention The thesis will then discuss some feasible alternative solutions regarding to the improvement of some management skills and the promotion of a more democracy working environment to incline the level of satisfaction and relieve the turnover intention amongst the BIDV.HCMC workers

I also would like to show my gratitude to my colleagues at work and classmates at ISB for their constant supports and motivations I also send my sincere thankfulness to my parents and friends for their support and encouragement

Table of contents

Executive summary 1

List of figures 4

List of tables 5

I Introduction 6

1.1 Company Background 6

1.2 The branch’s structure and general goals 7

II Problem context 8

III The classification of initial causes leading to the decrease of job satisfaction 14

3.1 The theoretical initial cause and effect map 14

3.2 The factual cause and effect map 15

IV The literatures for the elements affecting to the job satisfaction and the connections of these literatures with the BIDV.HCMC contexts 17

4.1 Working environment 17

4.1.1 Physical working conditions 17

4.1.2 Human resource element 18

4.1.3 Organizational element 19

a Remuneration 20

b Corporate culture 25

4.2 Work – life balance 31

4.2.1 Time – based conflict 32

4.2.2 Strain – based conflict 34

V Cause validation 35

VI Alternative solutions 40

6.1 The first alternative solution: training the management skills for the managers at all levels .40

6.2 The second alternative solution: the team – building/extracurricular activities .42

6.3 The third alternative solution: developing a democracy working environment 44

VII Organization of actions 46

VIII Conclusions 48

IX Supporting information 49

INTERVIEW GUIDE 50

IN-DEPTH INTERVIEW 51

Transcipt 52

Reference 59

List of figures

Figure 1: BIDV.HCMC organizational structure

Figure 2: The conceptual cause – effect model of the thesis

Figure 3: The initial cause – effect map

Figure 4: The general process of promotion in BIDV.HCMC

Figure 5: The cause and effect map

Figure 6: The final cause and effect map

List of tables

Table 1: The size of debt and deposit from 2014 to 2016

Table 2: The income of credit, deposit and other services from 2014 – 2016

Table 3: The total number of employee at all levels in BIDV.HCMC in 2018

Table 4: The income of debt, deposit and other services of BIDV.HCM by category of CCM and ICM departments from 2014 to 2016 (BIL VND)

Table 5: The growth of net income of loan, deposit and other services classified by departments from 2014 to 2016

Table 6: The market share of credits amongst banks in 30/6/2018

Table 7: The growth rate of credits amongst the selected banks in 30/6/2018

Table 8: The development of BIDV branches in the period of 2010 – 2017

Table 9: The number of BIDV.HCMC officers leaving job in 2014 – 2017

Table 10: The number of staff leaving their CCM duties from 2014 – 2017

Table 11: A variety of reasons acquired through the interviews

Table 12: The average income per head of several surveyed banks in 2016 – 2017 Table 13: The average salaries of some positions at BIDV.HCMC in 2018

Table 14: The costs for private courses of training in leadership skills

Table 15: The cost of holding several team – building/extracurricular activities

Table 16: The cost of developing a democracy working environment

Table 17: An action plan timeline which consumes 12 months from December 2018 to December 2019

I Introduction

1.1 Company Background

Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam JSC – Ho Chi Minh City Branch (hereinafter called “BIDV.HCMC”), founded in 1976, is one of the longest established branches of BIDV Over 40 years of development, BIDV.HCMC nowadays becomes one of the largest units of BIDV with the total asset of approximately VND 20,000 billion and contributes roughly 10% to the general profit after tax of BIDV (Source: the financial statements of BIDV in 2017) The market network of BIDV.HCMC mainly concentrates on individual customers and a number of large corporate customers specializing in construction, high technology industries, building materials, agriculture, commerce etc Moreover, in the field of human resources development, BIDV Head office considers BIDV.HCMC as an ideal place to train and educate many leadership generations of BIDV at all levels The following tables illustrate some typical acquired goals in business operations in 2014 – 2016: (VND Billion)

Table 1: The size of debt and deposit from 2014 to 2016

SIZE 2014 2015 2016 2015/2014 2016/2015 2016/2014 DEBT BALANCE (BIL VND) 13,943 16,542 19,054 19% 15% 37%

DEPOSIT BALANCE (BIL VND) 17,856 23,536 22,937 32% -3% 28%

Table 2: The income of credit, deposit and other services from 2014 – 2016

(Source: Financing – Planning Department)

Due to the broadly domestic and international business networks and the quality management systems reviewed periodically by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO 9001: 2015), BIDV.HCMC is one of the experimental branches

to be selected for applying a number of international standards (i.e Basel, etc.) and testing banking products before launching into the entire system Moreover, BIDV.HCMC is selected as an important payment intermediary of many domestic and international organizations (i.e Foreign Direct Investment, etc.)

1.2 The branch’s structure and general goals

Figure 1: BIDV.HCMC organizational structure

(Source: Financing– Planning Department)

In accordance with the BIDV policy of standard organizational model in branch, the organizational structure of BIDV.HCMC includes Board of Directors and five main divisions of business operations: Customer Management including Departments of corporate customer management and individual customer management (hereinafter called CCM and ICM), Risk Management (Department of Risk Management), Operation (Department of Credit Administration, Department of Customer Service and Department of Vault Service), Internal Management (Department of financing and planning, Organization Department, and Human Resources Department) and the subsidiary units (or Transaction Offices, in other words) The following table illustrates the current total number of employee at all levels in BIDV.HCMC:

Table 3: The total number of employee at all levels in BIDV.HCMC in 2018

Risk management

Operation

Customer Service

Vault Service

Credit Administration

Customer management

Corporate banking

Individual banking

Transaction offices

Divisions Department Number Percentage

Source: Department of human resource management

According to the general goals of BIDV in 2017 – 2020 including maintaining the top position in market share, scale, and the ability of regulating the domestic financial market, the entire BIDV system in general and BIDV.HCMC in particular mainly concentrate on the traditional banking areas including credit, guarantee issuance, deposit, international payment, trade finance, and other banking products (i.e internet banking, card products, etc.) In other words, it is obvious that the traditional banking field (i.e credit, guarantee issuance, etc.) is still in the highest priority of BIDV in

2017 – 2020 For example, according to the speech of Mr Van Dinh Hai – Director of

BIDV.HCMC – in Corporate Banking Meeting in March, 2017, he stated that: “Even

though the development of retail banking and other related products will be the trend

of modern banking in the future, the contribution of corporate banking still plays an important role of our current performance We have already attracted a number of large and SME (small and medium enterprise) corporate customers and these customer resources are our competitive advantage Most of our income comes from them, about 80%, thus, maintaining the group of customers is still necessary for our performance in long term” This shows that corporate customer resources have the

most significant impact to BIDV.HCMC performance and the labour force in this front – office division plays a key role in the business operations

II Problem context

In fact, the CCM departments have three main responsibilities of: developing and maintaining customer relationships, (ii) appraising and submitting to the higher levels having jurisdiction over all credit proposals, and (iii) collaborating to other departments to develop and retain the business operations in BIDV.HCMC Due to being a key role in income – generating activities, the CCM departments are allocated the largest number of employees – accounting for approximately 20 percent of the entire branch staff Moreover, due to the credit activities regarding a great deal of internal and external issues (i.e laws, finance, communication, business characteristics

of various customers, business strategies of BIDV, internal rules and procedures, etc.) Therefore, in spite of the offered competitive remuneration, to be in charge of a great deal of complex tasks in customer management division requires the employees at all levels to be skilful, well – regulated, and be able to lifelong learning

As commented above, it is undeniable that the CCM departments play a pivotal role in running the branch’s business operations Particularly, the CCM departments contribute approximately 76 percent of the entire branch income in 2016 (see table 4)

Table 4: The income of debt, deposit and other services of BIDV.HCM by category of CCM and ICM departments from 2014 to 2016 (BIL VND)

2014 2015 2016 2014 2015 2016 2014 2015 2016 2014 2015 2016 CCM 166 214 222 266 239 202 140 135 132 573 587 556

TOTAL 278 349 335 282 265 230 164 165 165 725 777 731 CCM (%) 60% 61% 66% 94% 90% 88% 85% 82% 80% 79% 76% 76%

ICM (%) 40% 39% 34% 6% 10% 12% 15% 18% 20% 21% 24% 24%

(Source: Financing – Planning Department)

As commented above, the performance of BIDV.HCM concentrates on three main

groups of service which are deposit service, credit service and other services

including domestic and international payment, trade finance, internet banking, insurance etc The performance is evaluated on two main elements: size (balance of debt and deposit) and the efficiency (income from main groups of service) According

to the figure in Table 1, both debt balance and deposit balance increase with 37% and 28% respectively throughout period 2014 – 2016 and this shows that the size of balance is expanded year by year However, the efficiency element seems not to be consistent with the increasing balance Particular, the figures in table 2 show that the growth rate of income generally decreases from 2014 to 2016, especially the income from credit services significantly decreases by 6% and 13% in 2015 and 2016 in that order, and decreases by 18% throughout the entire surveyed period

More importantly, according to the analysis of total income classified by categories including CCM and ICM departments (see table 5, table 2), table 2 and table 5 indicate that the decreases in income throughout period 2014 – 2016 focuses on corporate

customer area with: 10% (2015/2014) and 15% (2016/2015) in credit services; and 4% (2015/2014) and 2% (2016/2015) for other services Therefore, it is noticeable that the decreases on total income the surveyed period mainly derived from CCM departments

Table 5: The growth of net income of loan, deposit and other services classified by departments from 2014 to 2016

2015/2014 2016/2015 2015/2014 2016/2015 2015/2014 2016/2015

(Source: Financing – Planning Department)

Beside the decrease of income from corporate customers, based on the observation, the author also found several underlying subjective and objective reasons causing the

decreasing performance of BIDV.HCMC They are:

- In relation to objectives reasons, one of the challenges of BIDV performance is the increasing high competition from other commercial banks Nowadays, there are many commercial banks, especially some banks invested by the foreign direct investment (i.e HSBC, ANZ, Hong Leong Bank, etc.) in Ho Chi Minh City which not only provide diversified bank services like those in BIDV, but they also have some specific products than BIDV to meet the changing needs of customers The big competitors of BIDV.HCMC can be listed: Vietcombank, Vietinbank or foreign banks such as ANZ, HSBC, etc Catching the demand of using services with cheap expense of corporate customers is one of the popular competitive strategies that the competitors follow to attract more and more customers This leads to the difficulty for BIDV.HCMC’s officers in negotiating and maintaining the existing customers, and approaching new customers Indeed, the following tables illustrating the market share of credits and the growth rates of credits amongst banks in 30/6/1018 would be an obvious evidence that show a highly

increasing competition that BIDV in general, and BIDV.HCMC encounter with

Table 6: The market share of credits amongst banks in 30/6/2018

Table 7: The growth rate of credits amongst the selected banks in 30/6/2018

(Source: The mid – annual reports of banks in 30/6/2018)

- Another objective reason could be derived from the internal competitions between

BIDV branches as a result of the expansion of new branches (See table 8)

Table 8: The development of BIDV branches in the period of 2010 – 2017

(Source: the BIDV annual reports)

ACB

3%

BIDV 13%

VIETINBANK 12%

EXIMBANK 2%

MBBANK 3%

SHB 3%

SACOMBANK 4%

VIETCOMBANK 9%

VPBANK 2%

HDBANK 2%

TECHCOMBANK

2%

LIENVIETPOSTB

ANK 1%

OTHERS 44%

Market share of credits

113 118 117 126 136

182 190 190

9 12 12 15 19 27 36 36 0

50 100

150

200

2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017

No of domestic branchs

of the entire BIDV

No of branches in HCMC

Particularly, BIDV.HCMC is one of the main branches that are responsible for expanding the network of BIDV in Ho Chi Minh City In the period of 2014 –

2017, BIDV.HCMC supported to open 05 new branches by sharing its customers, debt and deposit balances as well as human resources The expansion not only influences the size and income of BIDV.HCMC, but also creates the internal competitions between BIDV branches in Ho Chi Minh City Especially, this leads

to the shortage of experienced labor force of BIDV.HCMC in recent years because the experienced staff are chosen to undertake the new positions in their new branches Although the BIDV networks are expanded and the brand of BIDV is more well – known, these expansions have a certain significant impact to the

performance of BIDV.HCMC

- One of the noticeable subjective reasons is high turnover rate of BIDV.HCMC officers, especially in CCM departments (see table 9 and 10) Theoretically, according to Price and Mueller (1981) with Causal Model of Turnover, the turnover rate is referred as the percentage of staff resigning from their firms within

a certain period of time Specifically, table 9 shows a comparison of number officers leaving job amongst departments, and obviously indicates that the high turnover mainly happens in the CCM departments

Table 9: The number of BIDV.HCMC officers leaving job in 2014 – 2017

No The number of officers leaving their jobs 2014 2015 2016 2017

(Source: the BIDV.HCMC annual reports)

In fact, there stand a great deal of underlying subjective and objective causes (i.e the expectation of workers on their organizations, company culture, promotion opportunities, professionalism, individual development, internal communication, etc.) influencing on job satisfaction, organization commitment, and turnover intention in further Indeed, from BIDV.HCMC perspectives, due to a number of recent specific causes that would be deeply analysed later on in this thesis, a noticeable problem of employee turnover has been emerged since 2014 The rise

of this problem pose a concern to the managers at all levels in maintaining the human resource as a competitive advantage and accomplishing the branch business goals in further Particularly, according to the following statistics, the number of CCM staff resignation has substantially inclined in the past four years (2014 – 2017), as below:

Table 10: The number of staff leaving their CCM duties from 2014 – 2017

(Source: the BIDV.HCMC annual reports)

Theoretically, the alarming turnover rate is considered as an essential contributor

to the lack of workers and the decline of organizational operations in further (Borda & Norman, 1997) In other words, from managers’ perspectives, in fact, alarming increasing turnover rate can be costly to their organizations Particularly, the shortfall of performance and productivity on part of the leavers in advance of departure is not only described as a significant sign of resignation, but it also negatively influences on the general work of their teams/departments Furthermore, these resignations then have the effect of increasing working pressure/work – life imbalance on remaining employees because they have to share the job duties left by the leavers and diminishing spirits of the remaining staff, lead to the possibility of further turnover (Borda & Norman, 1997; Coomber

& Barriball, 2007) In the long term, filling the available positions could be a time – consuming and resource – consuming tasks More concernedly, the lack of critical positions for too long is supposed to have significantly negative effects on organization outcomes Therefore, the striving to avoid increasing turnover rate should be considered as a matter of considerable management concern

As shown in this section, there are a variety of potential causes that explain for the decrease of the BIDV.HCMC outcomes Particularly, in a more objective field, the high competition of other banks and other BIDV branches are supposed to be the systematic and unavoidable risks On the other hand, the increasing turnover rate

amongst CCM departments is considered as a non – systematic/subjective cause In relation to the increasing turnover rate, as a deficiency ensues and the unfavourable outcomes of BIDV.HCMC are emerged, it follows that the reasons CCM staff vacate from their job duties must be clearly analysed In fact, it is popular that turnover intention is one of the typical consequences derived from the fluctuation of job satisfaction at working practices Therefore, it has long been believed that job satisfaction has been cited as an indispensable contributory factor to organizational commitment in the international human resource literature (Strachota, Normandin, O’brien, Clary, and Krukow, 2003; Cavanagh, 1992; Borda and Norman, 1997) In other words, the status of job satisfaction is described as an primary predictor of intent

to stay, and thus many authors consistently concluded that an increase in turnover are supposed to occur if a workforce is dissatisfied (Saleh, Lee, and Prien, 1965; Blegen, 1993; Irvine & Evans, 1995; Hellman, 1997) Whilst there exist a variety of definitions

of job satisfaction across related literatures, job satisfaction generally has been considered as an individual point of view in the manner of personal expectations at work correspond to outcomes (McKenna, 2000) Additionally, job satisfaction is a complex phenomenon with many various affecting elements Generally speaking, in order to minimize thoroughly the alarming turnover rate and other unfavourable symptoms as well due to the dissatisfaction requires managers first to identify the underlying issues, and then put forward the suitable strategies/solutions to improve the current working situations Therefore, in the next section, the thesis will first theoretically examine the affecting elements Then, based on the findings gathered from the in – depth interviews and the commented theoretical examinations, the thesis will aim to classify several surveyed elements affecting to the status of job satisfaction amongst CCM staff in BIDV.HCMC

III The classification of initial causes leading to the decrease of job satisfaction 3.1 The theoretical initial cause and effect map

According to Longo & Mura (2011), intellectual capital has been interpreted as the asset that organizations employ for their competitive advantages including human capital, structural capital, and relational capital Particularly, relational capital

indicates the networks of relations that the corporate, by means of its workers, creates internally and externally (i.e the collaboration between staff, and suppliers, customers,

or other stakeholders, etc.) Besides, human capitals refer to the sum of employees’ capacities (i.e skill, knowledge, experience, expertise, etc.) to create the tangible and intangible assets and the values for their organization and give it a competitive edge in the marketplace (Hejazi, Ghanbari, & Alipour, 2016) Moreover, structural capital consists of the knowledge residing in and is employed through databases, patents, procedures, systems, and routines From organizational perspective, several scholars state that intellectual capital drives corporate performance, impacts corporate innovative capacities, and positively relates to organizational skill and knowledge transfer (Chen, Shih, & Yang, 2011; Kang & Snell, 2009; Reed, Lubatkin, Srinivasan, 2006; Subramaniam & Youndt, 2005) Therefore, based on the findings of Longo & Mura (2011), there stands a significantly positive connection between the adequateness of intellectual capitals on employee’ satisfaction that itself creates many potential consequences in further (i.e career achievement, attitudes, turnover intention, etc.) (See figure 2)

Figure 2: The conceptual cause – effect model of the thesis

3.2 The factual cause and effect map

From BIDV.HCMC perspective, based on the findings derived from the thorough interviews, there are many different explanations for the decrease of CCM employees’ job satisfaction More systematically, the thesis classifies these reasons into three

groups including human capital, structural capital and relational capital (see table

11), then lists them into the initial cause – effect map (see figure 3), as below:

Table 11: A variety of reasons acquired through the interviews

- The structural capital

- The relational capital

- The human capital

The employees' satisfaction

The employees' attitudes and spirits fluctuate from low to high (i.e

turnover, neglect, aspiration, etc.)

No Group Reason

Figure 3: The initial cause – effect map

As shown in this section, the thesis works out the cause and effect map based on the practices gathered from the interviews Each of these practices alone or together has a negatively certain influence/significant on the CCM officers’ satisfaction and causes further consequences (i.e discouragement, turnover intention, etc.) In other words, these commented external expressions are the further consequences that very much depend on the fluctuation of job satisfaction Obviously, the job satisfaction is the central problem and itself is dependent on a variety of independent variables, typically called intellectual capitals According to the built map, the shortage of intellectual capitals is expressed implicitly through the unfavourable practices (i.e the ineffective internal communications, unfair promotions, etc.) in the working environment Therefore, in the next section, based on the findings from the interviews, the thesis

The inefficient feedbacks and knowledge sharing The personal

relationships and the feeling - based judgments

Unfair promotions

The incapability of time arrangement and balancing between work and life

Work - life imbalance

The shortage of structural capital

The high uncertainty and the overlapped rules and procedures

The responsibility shifting

The low empowerment and the conplicated working procedures

The delayed and late working processes

The shortage of relational

The lack of internal democracy at work The inefficient internal communications

will aim to analyse the shortage of these intellectual capitals and its impacts thorough approaching the related literatures and linking these literatures to the practical elements affecting to the job satisfactions including working environment and work – life balance

IV The literatures for the elements affecting to the job satisfaction and the connections of these literatures with the BIDV.HCMC contexts

4.1 Working environment

Job satisfaction is the principle of the staffs’ behaviors in the work place and based on the awareness and faith that they have about their current duties Due to the various internal and external impacts, the degree of job satisfaction fluctuates from high to low levels Workers have their own views about different aspects of their duties such as the nature of functions, colleagues, supervisors, remuneration, etc These aspects are the parts of a work environment surrounding and deeply influencing on individuals’ job activities, attitudes, and satisfaction

Indeed, an abundance of evidence derived from empirical studies in human resource management conducted in different industries hitherto point out the view that there could be a significantly positive correlation between working environment and job satisfaction (Leiter and Laschinger, 2006; Aiken, Clarke, Sloane, Sochalski, Busse, Clarke, & Shamian, 2001; Anitha, 2014; Raziq and Maulabakhsh, 2015) In other words, a motivated work environment intrinsically approves employees’ performance, and job satisfaction in further (Marin – García, Bonavia, and Losilla, 2011), especially

in some human capital – intensive industries (e.g financial services, health care, education, etc.) There stand a number of different definitions of the term “working environment”, and its factors influencing on employees’ morale and performance Particularly, working environment could be theoretically defined as a combination of three pivotal elements: technical element, human resource element, and organizational element (Kohun, 1992; Opperman, 2002) The match between these elements and the context of BIDV.HCMC will be particularly discussed in several following subsections below:

4.1.1 Physical working conditions

Firstly, physical working conditions, or technical element stands for the physical or technical facilities that firms invest to facilitate their staff to perform their respective responsibilities and activities, such as tools, equipment, office layout, ventilation, lighting, noiselessness, technological infrastructure, etc (Raziq & Maulabakhsh, 2015) In theory, there stands a positive psychological influence of the workstation on job satisfaction (Newsham, Brand, Donnelly, Veitch, Aries, & Charles, 2009; Tomovska – Misoska, Stefanovska – Petkovska, Ralev, & Krliu – Handjiski, 2014; Brill & Weidemann, 2001; Wineman & Adhya, 2007) From the banking perspectives, employees probably spend most of their time doing indoor activities, thus a well – equipped workplace play as one of key determinants in creating the staff’ comfortableness, providing pleasant condition that ultimately improve productivity, and other advantages (cost savings, time savings, health protection, etc.) In the context of BIDV.HCMC, the impact of this element on job satisfaction appears to be insignificant because of the following motives Firstly, the convenient location of BIDV.HCMC (located in Nguyen Cong Tru St., District 1, HCMC – generally called

“Wall Street of Saigon”) considerably facilitates the staff in their income – generating activities (i.e transactions, notary – related activities, etc.) Secondly, from Vietnam perspective, it is popular that investing in the physical appearance of the branch is supposed to be an effective strategy to build the trust and attract more customers, thus the board of directors consider creating a more convenient work place as one of prerequisites For example, the tools/equipment, or the infrastructure of internal computer network are periodically/suddenly tested and maintained to ensure their high quality of services Finally, in fact, the perceptions of the branch’s physical factors discussed above amongst the employees appear to be positive Moreover, according to the findings derived from several in – depth interviews, there is no empirical evidence that technical element influences on the BIDV.HCMC staff’ satisfaction

4.1.2 Human resource element

Secondly, in relation to the human resource element, this element is concerned with the interactional justice to ensure sound social relationships and efficient supports at job contexts between employees and their peers, others with whom the employees relate (Colquitt, 2001) Basically, interactional justice is divided into two components:

interpersonal and informational justice Specifically, interpersonal justice reflects the level to which employees are treated with politeness, fairness, dignity, and respect by their managers at all levels in executing working procedures and other working activities (i.e performance appraisals, determining outcomes, making decisions, etc.) The informational, in the other hand, concentrates on reasons supplied to staff that disclose information about why procedures were employed in a determined way or why the results were distributed in a specific fashion To achieve and retain cohesive, loyal, and dedicated labor forces requires the management to consider interactional justice for personnel at every level as a vital condition in operations In other words, the failure of managers on acting the role of facilitators to promote the justice probably triggers some severe problems, especially in job satisfaction, productivity and the company outcomes in further (Amabile and Kramer, 2011) In the context of BIDV, there has long been an official code of conduct that provides staff with clear standards and expectations of how to do their job functions Ideally, the BIDV.HCMC employees at all levels are expected to use these standards in their working activities and interpersonal relationships/communications between them and their colleagues and higher managers to ensure the fairness and democracy at work In fact, in the context of BIDV.HCMC, due to the certain factors regarding to organizational element including power distance and uncertainty avoidance that would be analyzed in the following subsection, there probably exists an interactional injustice between the managers at all levels and their subordinates, especially in internal communication and making decision relating to promotion and determined business goals Consequently, according to the findings from the interviews, it is evident that this injustice significantly impacts on the satisfaction amongst the CCM staff and the increase of turnover rate

4.1.3 Organizational element

Finally, organizational element refers to: (1) internal systems, policies, procedures, and (2) organizational cultures, and other philosophies Particularly, the internal systems, policies, and procedures are ideally expected to build and maintain the distributive justice and procedural justice Theoretically, according to Adam (1965), distributive justice is defined as the impartiality combined with decision consequences and

allocation of resources The consequences or resources allocated may be in different forms including tangible/short – term forms (i.e salaries, bonus, etc.) and intangible/long – term forms (i.e promotion, etc.) Adam (1965) also believes that the equality in distributing these outcomes would foster the perceptions of distributive amongst staff Besides, according to Leventhal (1980), procedural justice is conceptualized as the justice and explicitness of the working procedures that produce outcomes This justice is expected to be in evidence and promoted when workers have their voice in the process or the features of process ensure consistency, accuracy, obviousness, ethicality, and the lack of bias In the context of BIDV.HCMC, on the findings of the interviews, the distributive and procedural justice will be examined via the staff perceptions of prevailing remuneration status Moreover, the procedural justice will be revised in the discussion of organizational culture in regarding to the uncertainty avoidance

As a matter of the fact, the term “remuneration” expresses the policies of compensation and promotion provided in exchange for the services accomplished Regarding to the compensation – a type of short – term remuneration, from BIDV.HCMC perspectives, based on the findings that most of CCM staff seem to be satisfied with the level of compensation for their current positions in BIDV.HCMC, it

is evident that the compensation is not the underlying cause of the deterioration of satisfaction amongst CCM staff

Mr Tran Hoai Nam shares: “For a 3 – year experience staff, my average income per month is nearly about 30 million dong, which is quite competitive to my friends’ ones

in the other banks.”

Mrs Ha Ngoc Giang also approves: “I am totally satisfied with the compensation I receive from my bank I fairly think that it is deserved and quite higher than most banks in Ho Chi Minh City”

An empirical research conducted and largely published by Navigos Group – a firm specializing in human resource services in Vietnam reveals that the average income of

a BIDV employee stand at the third position compared with those in other banks

Table 12: the average income per head (in VND million) of several surveyed

banks in 2016 – 2017

(Source: Navigos Group)

In relation to the remaining term, promotion refers to the major strides that are on the employee’ career paths to higher hierarchical levels with higher responsibilities in their organizations and typically always accompanies with more attractive remuneration packages (Malik, Danish, and Munir, 2012) In BIDV.HCMC contexts, the average salaries of higher levels seem to be approximately doubled over those of lower higher levels statistically Particularly, the following table will illustrate the average salaries of some positions (from substitute to head of department, salaries of deputy directors and director are not allowed to be shown in this thesis) at BIDV.HCMC in 2018

Table 13: The average salaries of some positions at BIDV.HCMC in 2018

Substitute 5 20 22 24 26 A new officer would receive an average

salaries about 20 million VND/month in accordance with Level 5 class 1 After each three – year of work, his/her salaries will be enhanced to a higher rank (i.e Level 5 class 2,

3, and 4)

6 23 25 27 29 The employee must have at least 1 – year

experience and undertake more complicated works than level – five colleagues

Position Level Class Notes

department 10 65 68 71 74 – department positions

(Source: the department of human resource management)

As a matter of the fact, due to the concerns of scarceness of managerial positions, practitioners thus find it critical to advance the most appropriate decisions to guarantee the procedural justice in promotion:

- Individuals who are selected will be well – qualified for the required adaptation and response flexibly to their changing environment, and

- The perception of impartiality of managerial promotion procedures amongst employee (De Pater, Van Vianen, Bechtoldt, and KLEHE, 2009)

Mrs Le Thi Kim Nhan, Head of Department of human resource, points out the view that: “Ideally, to ensure the procedural justice in promotion, we would like to choose the most appropriate candidates for higher positions on the basis of their past performance, their managerial capacity, other communication skills, etc Moreover, the right candidates not only gain the approval from board of directors, they also have

to express their capacities during working practices to persuade other colleagues from their departments In fact, there are, however, some unfavorable situations mainly derived from unexplained commands of the Director of our branch, we must promote some candidates who may not be the best ones we expect, especially in deputy head positions These firstly emerges a split amongst the HRM Department and Board of directors, then we would find it uncomfortable to work with these biased managers as

we require higher abilities than they actually can Moreover, we admit that these practices would raise the perception of unfairness in promotion, and performance appraisal in further amongst our staff, especially in some ignored candidates Consequently, this discontent likely causes the decline of job motivation, and satisfaction.”

Indeed, there obviously stands a direct and positive relationship between promotional opportunities and job satisfaction, and this relationship also plays a prerequisite in maximizing return on human resource and overall company outcomes More importantly, Malik, et al., (2012) emphasize that the reliance of the positive

relationship between promotional opportunities and job satisfaction is on perceived justice by staff Conversely, the staff perceptions of bias may cause negative impacts

on organizations (Lemons and Jones, 2001) For example, several researchers believe that unfairness dilemmas probably accompany with other financial and psychological costs such as turnover intention, job discontentment, and pay discontentment (Daileyl and Kirk, 1992; McFarlin and Sweeney, 1992) Sashkin and Williams (1990) even find out a positive connection between perceptions of organizational injustice and physiological stress and sickness amongst workers, and the incline of absenteeism and other industrial accidents

Therefore, these issues are not only of concern to employers, but also to the researchers who have long been identifying decisive criteria in order to ensure the fairness in the context of advancement (García – Izquierdo, Moscoso, and Ramos – Villagrasa, 2012) Particularly, based on the works of McEnrue (1989), García – Izquierdo, et al., (2012), Beehr and Juntunen (1990), Kaplan and Ferris (2001), there stand at least three procedural and informational issues that need to be considered including:

- The availability of a structured scheme with clearly – defined promotion directions for employees For example, absolute merit – based system refers the eligibility of promotion to the comparison between the employees’ actual performance and a determined cut – off level In the relative merit – based system, the promotion is rewarded to the candidate with highest – ranked performance in compared with those of others Another popular system is seniority – based system which dignifies candidates with the most experience in specific duties, or their organizations/industries (Phelan and Lin, 2001)

- The transparency and the adequateness of information relating to chances, preconditions, qualifications, and the procedure required to be examined

- The cognition of the competency – based standards of managerial selections amongst staff

Since BIDV.HCMC is one of largest branches of BIDV, and its scale is equal to those

of mid – size banks, thus the board of directors expect to select carefully the most well

– qualified candidates for the leadership positions, especially in head of front – office departments Most of them are likely well – acquainted with the new positions and proceed with the determined business targets.

Mrs Kim Nhan also stated: “Because getting higher positions in BIDV would bring

more benefits and remuneration for our employees, this practice will motivate them to delicate and contribute more to accomplish the business targets of our branch” Generally, the process of promotion in BIDV includes:

experience, and be nominated by their head of department for deputy head position to be in the leadership planning list of our branch (standby list);

will choose the well – deserved candidates for these positions The board of directors and the head of each department will decide whether the chosen employees deserve to be in the standby list or not

Although we have an official category of prerequisite conditions to examine (i.e minimum two years of experience, excellence in accomplishment of past business targets, etc.), the selection of standby list and making decision of promotion appear to

Figure 4: The general process of promotion in BIDV.HCMC

(Source: the rules of promotion in department levels of BIDV)

- Minnimum two year of

head of their departments

- The head of departments

must persuade the board

of directors about their

- There remains about 3 - 5 selected nominations

- The board of directors, the labor Union, the Youth group, the head and deputy head of departments (about

100 attendances) will biennially vote for the potential candidates amongst selected

nominations

- Each nomination must gain at least 75% of the attendances' votes

- Finish and pass the short - term course of training

in mangement skills

- Pass (at least 60/100) the examination of management capacity

- If the employee pass step 4, they will officially become the candidate for the promotion

- The board of directors will deliberately select the candidates from the standby list for the available mangement positions

According to the figure 3 – the general process of promotion in BIDV.HCMC, it is obvious that the general process satisfy most of the theoretical procedural and informational justice requirements commented above There, however, stand a variety

of underlying practical and unforeseen reasons that several deserved employees are not chosen to become candidates and gain the promotion in further For example, the board of directors may be unintentionally vexed by a few of deserved employees in working contexts, this leads to a low approval for these employees Others may not be familiar with post – work booze – up where they can build the close personal relationship with their managers and find the supports from them, etc Consequently, some employees who are well – suited for the leadership positions have left our branch

to find better chances in other organizations Besides, although some ignored employees have still worked for BIDV until now, they tend to be gradually disobedient and dissatisfied with the organization, especially in working with new managers

Mr Nguyen Le Ngoc Luan, former head of one of CM departments, had worked in BIDV since 2006 and vacated his position in Sep, 2018 He shares: “I have worked in BIDV for about 12 years I achieved the head of department position in 2015 Since that time, my department has successfully completed most assigned business targets However, maybe because my character is not only quite straight and democratic, but I

am also not acquainted with post – work booze – up, I gradually realize that it is impossible to receive the complete cognition and supports from the board of directors.”

In this subsection, the main purpose of the thesis aims to examine the relationship between the perceived corporate culture and job satisfaction experienced by employee Firstly, the notion of organizational culture, according to Lewis (2002) and Schelin (2007), is universally considered to be the shared values, faiths, and standards expressed in reality and in staff’ behaviors within an organization These patterns that have long been historically determined and socially built from the ongoing negotiation and practices among employees are considered as a source of reference for which behaviors are deemed acceptable or unacceptable (Hofstede, Neuijen, Ohayv, and

Sanders, 1990; Kusluvan and Karamustafa, 2003) It has long been widely accepted that organizational culture has a direct impact on employees’ satisfaction and commitment, and company outcomes in further (MacIntosh and Doherty, 2010) Therefore, whether organizational culture could generates positive effects on individual attitudes and behaviors or not very much depends on the policies that conform to the variations of culture in different organizations (Goolaup and Ismayilov, 2012) For example, a discrepancy between remuneration plans and cultural nature are supposed to cause abundance of dysfunctional results such as the challenges in drawing and retaining employees, the increasing labor costs, the violation of personal criterions leading to resentment, the failure of achieving corporates’ strategic objectives, and the negative public image (Gomez – Mejia and Welbourne, 1991) Beginning with the premise that national culture is an important implication for the study of culture at organization, a variety of studies conducted to develop cultural frameworks describe different cultural styles of organizations based on the various cultures of the nations and the societies in which these organizations operate in (Hofstede, 1980; Values, 1987; Trompenaars and Hampden – Turner, 2011; Schwartz, 1994) Particularly, Hofstede (1980), in his study of culture, identifies four cultural features within which different countries can be labeled: individualism – collectivism, masculinity – femininity, uncertainty avoidance and power distance Because the democracy at work and working procedures are supposed to directly relate to the job satisfaction in BIDV.HCM, thus the thesis uses two out of four dimensions to examine the culture in BIDV.HCM context, including uncertainty avoidance and power distance:

reflects the degree of uncomfortableness to which individuals feel in ambiguous circumstances Consequently, this kind of feeling that eventually results in job stress and satisfaction calls for employers to adopt proper policies to different cultural contexts (Latack, 1986) Particularly, the firms scoring high on uncertainty avoidance typically prioritize to establish formal and transparent rules, guidance, and procedures to reject deviant ideas and behaviors, and provide

members with greater job security and employment stability (Gomez – Mejia and Welbourne, 1991; Goolaup and Ismayilov, 2012) Moreover, the employees in these societies tend to be low tolerance of ambiguity, high risk aversion, less willingness to take risks and slowly react to random, ambiguous, or unknown events (Frucot and Shearon, 1991) On the contrary, the corporates scoring low

on uncertainty avoidance are portrayed by high prominence placed on challenges

to seek opportunities and innovations, high risk propensity, low value placed on stability and routine Staff may not only thrive on the unanticipated tasks and circumstances, they also have freedom to take more risks and cross predetermined boundaries These characteristics require employers to pursue a more organic organization style, few written rules and processes, external equity approach in remuneration programs

From Vietnamese banking perspective, especially in 2016 – 2018, there has been recently an increasing number of prosecutions of economical criminals Although the underlying causes are not discussed deeply in this thesis, the shortage of procedural justice (i.e overlapped/ambiguous rules, injustice in identifying personal responsibility, etc.) has been popularly considered as a general cause in fact More importantly, these unfavorable events have significantly impacted on the spirit of BIDV.HCMC employees and their perceptions of work

Mrs Kim Nhan advocates the view that: “Due to the recent economical cases, especially some of them relate to BIDV, the legal risk aversion has been substantially emerging amongst not only the employees in HCM Branch, but also the entire employees in BIDV This fact first leads to the drop of the employees’ risk appetite then provokes several different corollaries such as the fall of our branch outcomes and job satisfaction.”

Mrs Pham Thanh Hien, the deputy head of risk management department, says:

“once you sign your name into the credit files, you have to be responsible for any inner content even you may no longer work in the banking area Moreover, because HCMC Branch is one of the largest branches of BIDV, there are annual inspections of State bank of Vietnam, State audit office of Vietnam, Government

Inspectorate, and others Many issues of credit quality are detected and the decision makers have to explain for these issues Some of them will be disciplined

in different forms (i.e warning, dismiss, fire, etc.) unless they could resolve the questions of the inspectors These discipline forms had a major impact on their career paths

Therefore, in the context of BIDV rules that have a number of overlapped procedures needed to be adjusted, the employees, especially in the higher ranks, tend to avoid the uncertainty (i.e legal risks, the files of high risk debts, etc.) by evading responsibility by passing it on to someone else In other words, they delegate their authorities to their same – level others, or substitutes to sign the credit files Some of lower – level employees reluctantly obey the orders, some others refuse to follow This phenomenon causes the stressful working atmosphere because of the domestic contradictions amongst the departments, the members of directors Finally, the employees, especially the lower levels, are in a dilemma and feel desolate and unprotected.”

measure of the extent to which cultures favor either a more paternalistic structure

or a more democratic one In an organizational context, according to Frucot and Shearon (1991), Goolaup and Ismayilov (2012), these structures are manifested through the degree of subordinates’ participation in decision making process and empowerment

Particularly, the distinguishing features of companies preferring a more paternalistic structure (high power distance) generally include top – down communications, authoritarian decision making mechanism, centralized authority, and low job autonomy Consequently, the high power distance in association with the directive leadership style is proved to be only effective in some firms with a significant number of inexperienced/low – level staff (i.e new graduates, common industry workers, etc.) or in some ambiguous/or unstructured tasks that the organizational procedures, rules and policies seem to be unintelligible (Dorfman and Howell, 1988; House and Mitchell, 1975; Goolaup

and Ismayilov, 2012; Hmieleski and Ensley, 2007) Reversely, directive leadership can be considered as a hindrance in some other firms having a crowded experienced/high – level labor force or when task demands are unambiguous to staff and it does not encourage multiform perspectives (Hmieleski and Ensley, 2007; House and Mitchell, 1975)

Mr Nguyen Minh Hoang, a one – year experienced CCM officier, affirms: “I graduated from University of Economics, HCMC in 2017 Since then, I have worked here as a credit officer When I was an apprentice, I was likely inexperienced in solving all job related functions, in other words Particularly, in relation to some specific skills (i.e telesales, registration for secured transactions, loan management, etc.), I had not studied these duties when I was

in my school For example, most of customers who I called refused to hear me introducing the banking products As a result, I was hardly to achieve my business targets and had a depressed mood all day My managers said the telesales – related skills are not written in any BIDV’s official introductions, so I had to practice more and gain my personal experience More importantly, they gave me some basic rules in communication to create good impression and asked

me to practice and follow these unwritten rules Consequently, my works went better, and my mood was more improved than that in the beginning time I really admire my managers’ leadership style that my managers instruct and supervise

my works.”

In contrast, employees who work in a lower power distance/more democratic firms or who are experienced and have high level of qualifications commonly dignify the interactional justice and expect to work for more supportive/participative managers Furthermore, they also believe that unfairness amongst ranks of the hierarchy within organizations should be minimized (Paulus, Bichelmeyer, Malopinsky, Pereira, and Rastogi, 2005) They, for example, expect to be more involved in the decision making process and believe that power should be more decentralized (Paulus et al., 2005) Kornhauser (1962) founds workers having well – developed skills appear to be more interested in their mental well – being than those limited to repetitive and low value – added

job functions (i.e common workers, inexperienced/lower – educated staff, etc.) The well – being is implicitly expressed in the forms of self – automation and democracy at work Therefore, there stands a positive relationship between the interactional justice (i.e empowerment, the consultation of employees’ voice, etc.) and job satisfaction (Brockner, Ackerman, Greenberg, Gelfand, Francesco, Chen, and Shapiro, 2001; Eylon and Au, 1999; Morgan and Zeffane, 2003) Particularly, a supportive supervisor expresses concern for, and respects his employees’ necessities and preferences when making decisions (Rafferty and Griffin, 2006) In other words, having a supportive/participative working atmosphere positively influences on effective internal communication, staff’ self – confidence, self – automation, higher job autonomy/satisfaction, and company outcomes in further (Goolaup and Ismayilov, 2012) London, Larsen, and Thisted (1999), for instance, posit that supportive leadership encourages followers to voice their own considerations, provides constructive and informational responses, and facilitates their followers’ skill enhancement when participating in increasingly complex and challenging duties and leading them to perceive their achievements as fruitful, stimulating, and building an awareness of coherence From Vietnamese perspectives, it is popular that the managers at all levels, especially in state – owned organizations, appear to be prefer the directive leadership style due to the impact of traditional national culture of high power distance (i.e Quang, Swierczek, and Thi Kim Chi, 1998; Rowley, Quang, and Warner, 2007) Therefore, it is evident that there could be a conflict between the high – educated employees’ expectations and the directive leadership style

Indeed, in BIDV.HCMC context, on the basis of one of the standards of recruitment in customer management positions, all the candidates must have a bachelor degree or higher in finance or accounting and the qualifications must be come from several certain university listed in the BIDV standards of recruitment (i.e University of Economics, Ho Chi Minh City; University of Banking, Ho Chi Minh City; Foreign Trade University, etc.) Moreover, according to several interviews, there emerges an expectation of a more democratic working environment, especially in making decision, amongst BIDV.HCMC employees

Mr Tran Hoai Nam, a current CCM officer, said that: “Raising capital is one of the most important fields of our branch, thus my assigned business targets are increased annually by 10% the last ones However, to impress the head office with the significantly high business outcomes, at the beginning of this year, my director demands our departments to grow the business targets by 20% without considering the current resources, especially in the context of decreasing human resources Eventually, it is impossible for us to meet the requirements in the first two quarters of 2018 In quarter meetings, we suggest him for decreasing the targets We are not only refused, but we are also criticized (by him) because he supposes that we lack the attempt to accomplish our missions Now we start to feel tired of meeting his personal ambitions.”

Mr Tran Vo Thanh Binh, a former credit officer in BIDV HCMC, shared that: “I prefer the different point of views and creativity to the managers’ commands in solving some working issues In reality, many times I must follow the commands from my managers and few of them are eventually not effective at all For example, last year, when I noticed an important customer that its financial status tended to be worse, I suggested declining gradually its current financial obligations in BIDV by collecting some loans before maturities and declining working capital loan My managers did not agree with me as they witnessed that many times in the past, this customer got in trouble, and they could recover successfully Finally, the customer could not recover and all the loans in BIDV became bad debts This has not only negatively influenced on the business targets, but it also decreased our income due to provision for bad debts The manager blamed to me for the lack of strict management on the loans I was so disappointed about the managers’ responsibilities that it became one of key reasons motivating me to resign my work in BIDV.”

4.2 Work – life balance

Nowadays people are jammed full of different responsibilities and commitments, in other words, there are conflicting role pressures between work and personal interests (e.g health and well – being, family, leisure time, etc.) that are mutually so