Work life balance of agribank head office staff

From the statement of research problem, the researcher proposes some research objectives in this dissertation: - To determine the factors affecting work-life balance of Agribank‟s employ

ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA HÀ NỘI KHOA QUẢN TRỊ VÀ KINH DOANH

-

PHÙNG NGUYỄN MINH TÂM

CÂN BẰNG CÔNG VIỆC – CUỘC SỐNG CỦA NHÂN VIÊN TRỤ SỞ CHÍNH AGRIBANK

WORK-LIFE BALANCE

OF AGRIBANK HEAD OFFICE STAFF

LUẬN VĂN THẠC SĨ QUẢN TRỊ KINH DOANH

HÀ NỘI - 2020

ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA HÀ NỘI KHOA QUẢN TRỊ VÀ KINH DOANH

-

PHÙNG NGUYỄN MINH TÂM

CÂN BẰNG CÔNG VIỆC – CUỘC SỐNG CỦA NHÂN VIÊN TRỤ SỞ CHÍNH AGRIBANK

WORK-LIFE BALANCE

OF AGRIBANK HEAD OFFICE STAFF

Chuyên ngành: Quản trị kinh doanh

Mã số: 8340101.01

LUẬN VĂN THẠC SĨ QUẢN TRỊ KINH DOANH

NGƯỜI HƯỚNG DẪN KHOA HỌC: TS TRẦN HUY PHƯƠNG

HÀ NỘI - 2020

DECLARATION

The author confirms that the thesis's research outcomes result from the author's independent work during the study and research period, and it is not yet published in other's research and article

The other's research results and documentation (extraction, table, figure, formula, and another document) used in the thesis are correctly cited, and permission (if required) is given

The author is responsible for the Thesis Assessment Committee, Hanoi School of Business and Management, and the laws for the declaration mentioned above

CONTENT

INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale 1

2 Research problem, research objective, and research question 1

3 Scope of the study 4

4 Significance 4

5 Structure of the thesis statements 4

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL MODEL 6

1.1 Introduction 6

1.2 Work-life balance concept 6

1.2.1 Work-life balance definitions 6

1.2.2 Work-life balance benefits 7

1.2.3 Work-life balance measurement 8

1.2.4 Factors influencing work-life balance 9

1.3 Related empirical evidences 12

1.4 Overview of Vietnamese banking system and Agribank 14

1.4.1 Overview of Vietnamese banking system 14

1.4.2 Overview of Agribank 16

1.5 Research model and research hypothesis 16

1.5 Conclusion 19

CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 20

2.1 Research methodology 20

2.2 Research design process 22

2.2 1 Questionnaire design 22

2.2.2 Sample 25

2.2.3 Pilot study 26

2.2.4 Data analysis 26

2.3 Conclusion 28

CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDING 30

3.1 Introduction 30

3.2 Frequency analysis 30

3.3 Descriptive statistics 34

3.4 Reliability test 40

3.5 Explanatory factor analysis 42

3.6 Independent sample t-test 46

3.7 One-way ANOVA 48

3.8 Linear regression 49

CHAPTER 4: DISUCSSION 51

4.1 Summary of key findings 51

4.2 Discussion 52

4.3 Recommendation 54

CONCLUSION 57

REFERENCES 58

APPENDIX I: SURVEY OF QUESTIONNAIRE 1

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1: The benefits of work-life balance to the firms and the employees 8

Figure 2: Proposed research model 18

Figure 3: The research onion 20

Figure 4: Deductive approach applied in the study 21

Figure 5: Linear regression equation 28

Figure 6: Gender profile of the respondents 30

Figure 7: Age profile of the respondents 31

Figure 8: Education profile of the respondents 31

Figure 9: Marital status profile of the respondents 32

Figure 10: Job position profile of the respondents 32

Figure 11: Time of working profile of the respondents 33

Figure 12: Having children profile of the respondents 34

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: Overview of number of Agribank‟s employees and their salary 2

Table 2: Domestic credit provided by financial sector (% of GDP) 15

Table 3: The format of the first section of the questionnaire 23

Table 4: The format of the second section of the questionnaire 23

Table 5: Descriptive statistics 34

Table 6: Reliability test for work-life balance factor 40

Table 7: Reliability test for organizational support factor 40

Table 8: Reliability test for flexible working arrangement factor 41

Table 9: Reliability test for technology advancement factor 41

Table 10: Reliability test for job stress factor 42

Table 11: Reliability test for communication factor 42

Table 12: KMO and Bartlett‟s test for work-life balance‟s items 42

Table 13: Total variance explained for work-life balance‟s items 43

Table 14: Component matrix for work-life balance‟s items 43

Table 15: KMO and Bartlett‟s test for other items 43

Table 16: Total variance explained for work-life balance‟s items 44

Table 17: Component matrix for work-life balance‟s items 45

Table 18: Independent sample t-test for gender variable 46

Table 19: Independent sample t-test for education variable 46

Table 20: Independent sample t-test for marital status variable 47

Table 21: Independent sample t-test for job position variable 47

Table 22: Independent sample t-test for having children variable 48

Table 23: One-way ANOVA for age and time of working for the bank variable 48

Table 24: Linear regression 49

Table 25: Hypothesis test 52

INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

Ever since the economic renovation, Vietnam is turned from one of the poorest countries to lower middle income country (The World Bank, 2018) Vietnam is also official member of World Trade Organization with many trade agreements are signed with both of developed and emerging countries In this context, many Vietnamese firms are in the transformation process from old working style with heavily mono-state management into modern ones Today, the companies in Vietnam are doing business in intensive competitive environment where the winning scenario is obtained through the investment and the application into advanced technologies, innovative products, high service quality, and more customer-focus Consequently, the firms today put a lot more requirements to their employees such as higher processing time and competencies (Poulose and Sudarsan, 2014) Even that, the employees need to spend more time in the offices in order to fulfil the jobs and therefore they do not have sufficient times for their family The term of work-life balance is delivered in this context and it is the result of inter-relations between personal life, societal life, and organization life at individual level

Work-life balance is important aspect in the modern workplace (Brough et al., 2014) In academic sciences, organizational researchers provide respective assessment towards the employees‟ psychological items in the workplace and the assessment is based

on the evidences of work outcomes but non-work demands (Burke and Cooper, 2008) Recent empirical evidences indicate the importance of work-life balance with respective construction and measurement regarding to this studied topic (Greenhaus and Allen, 2011; Brough and O‟Driscoll, 2010) However, a concern is highlighted since there are lack of empirical evidences to propose specific measures for work-life balances (Brough et al., 2014)

2 Research problem, research objective, and research question

Agribank has highest number of employees compared to other banks in Vietnam banking system The bank has 36,682 employees in 2017 and this number is expected up to 38,149 in 2018 Average salary of an Agribank‟s employee in non-managerial role is about VND22.03 million in 2017 and it is expected increasing to VND22.89 million in 2018 In the contrast, average salary for a managerial position in Agribank is reduced in 2018, from VND65.2 million in 2017 With such reduction of average monthly salary in managerial group, the first problem is highlighted as higher turnover intention may happened in the coming years

Table 1: Overview of number of Agribank’s employees and their salary

Non-managerial

Average monthly salary VND million 22.03 22.89 Average monthly salary and

other compensations VND million 23.42 24.64

Managerial

Average monthly salary VND million 65.2 58.48 Average monthly salary and

other compensations VND million 73.89 65.79

Source: CafeF (2018)

The second problem related to this studied topic is that turnover rate is very high in Vietnam Faro Recruitment (2017) reports that current job turnover rate in the country is more than 10% and nearly 50% of unemployed people age 15 to 24 years old Talent Net (2016) publishes a report about remuneration survey in Vietnam during 2016 and banking

is among top 3 industries which are facing salary decrease rate of more than 6% Other while, high-tech, manufacturing, and life sciences and chemicals are the industries with salary increase rate more than 9% (Talent Net, 2016) According to Talent Net (2016), Vietnam has high staff turnover rate which is about 8.4% in which banking industry has staff turnover rate higher than the country‟s average and it is stood at 8.8% The main reason of high turnover rate in Vietnam banking system is the expansion of banking business recently and there are many joint-stock commercial banks in the market The competition among the banks are not only by products and services but also by human resource quality whether smaller banks are able to attract experienced and talent employees from larger banks

The third problem is highlighted as the lack of concentration about work-life balance for the employees in Vietnam In fact, work-life balance is critical factor in human resource management (Poelmans and Caligiuri, 2008; Billing et al., 2014) Work-life balance is even more important in the industries where the employees have to work for long hours, shift duties, and to deal with the customers‟ issues (Wong and Ko, 2009) Empirical evidences from previous researchers confirm the positive relation between work-life balance and employee turnover intention (Blomme et al., 2010; Chiang et al., 2010; Yamamoto and Matsuura, 2012) In Vietnam, work-life balance is considered as attentive

studied topic Some local researchers conduct their researches about work-life balances with the objectives of identifying the challenges of Vietnamese female entrepreneurs (Hoang, 2009), quantifying the relation between work-family conflict and employee job satisfaction in state-owned and foreign-invested enterprises (Nguyen et al., 2016), and evaluating the impact of work-life balance and employee performance in hospitality industry (Tran, 2015) These researchers provide good analyses about work-life balance in Vietnam but there are not any empirical evidences which are found in Vietnam banking industry

The fourth problem is highlighted as being an employee of Agribank It is denoted that the researcher has been working in the head quarter of Agribank since the university graduation During the time of working, the researcher perceives that Agribank does have the policies to directly address the conflicts between work and life related to its employees For example, the bank has vacation, sick leave policies to its employees The bank also establishes the policy in which women employees are able to go to the office late by 1 hour

or early by 1 hour in order to take care for her babies During the employees‟ birthday, the bank gives VND 300,000 to the employees as birthday gifts However, all these policies are being applied also in other banks and it is general policies for the employees In the contrast, there are no evaluation which is made in case of Agribank in order to evaluate other aspects of work-life balance such as how the bank‟s support mechanism is given to the employees In addition, human resource status report in Agribank shows that the percentage of staff turnover rate is increasing over the last 3 years The staff turnover rate

in 2015, 2016, and 2017 are 5.6%, 7.7%, and 9.1% It is the alert to human resource managers in Agribank since its staff turnover rate in 2017 is 9.1% and it is even higher than the average staff turnover rate in Vietnam‟s banking system which is about 8.8%

From the statement of research problem, the researcher proposes some research objectives in this dissertation:

- To determine the factors affecting work-life balance of Agribank‟s employees

- To propose managerial recommendations to effectively manage human resources in the way of maintaining the balance between personal life and working in Agribank

To fulfill these research objectives, some research questions must be answered:

- What is the current status of human resource management in Agribank?

- What are the quantified effects of the factors on work-life balance of Agribank‟s employees?

- Which factor has highest effect on work-life balance of Agribank‟s employees?

- What are the managerial recommendations to effectively manage human resources in the way of maintaining the balance between personal life and working in Agribank?

3 Scope of the study

Content: This dissertation is about work-life balance of the employees who are working in head office of Agribank in Hanoi and how it is influenced by the factors

Location: The employees who are participated into the survey process are now working in Agribank‟s headquarter in Hanoi

Time: The survey is conducted within November and December 2018

4 Significance

This dissertation is developed with expected outcomes The first expectation is that this dissertation employs mixed method with both quantitative and qualitative method to be adopted in order to evaluate current human resource management in Agribank and how its effectiveness in maintaining work-life balance for the employees It allows human resource managers in Agribank to shape their policies in more proficient way, to reduce the stress at workplace, and to boost the employees‟ productivity The second expectation of this dissertation is that it consolidates previous theories and empirical evidences related to the studied topic and therefore other researchers get the benefits from reading this dissertation Furthermore, other researchers can utilize this dissertation‟s quantitative outcome to compare with their studies and therefore generating empirical contrasts and differences

5 Structure of the thesis statements

This dissertation is developed with three chapters beside of introduction and conclusion section In the introduction section, the researcher provides some background information about Agribank which is a cases study of this dissertation Problem statement

is proposed along with respective research objectives and research questions The researcher also proposes what the scope of work and how expected values of this dissertation

In the first chapter, the researcher explores different concepts related to employee behavior and work-life balance Related theories and empirical evidences are both collected and put into theoretical reviews The most important part of Chapter 1 is to choose the factors affecting on work-life balance of the employees The researcher would also like to propose the right research methodology in this chapter It includes the measurement of chosen variables, how the questionnaire is designed and how the survey

process is implemented, what the target respondent and appropriate sample size is, and what the data analysis techniques that will be employed after primary data is collected

In the second chapter, the results which are obtained from data analysis process are put into the discussion The researcher firstly explores demographic characteristics of the respondents who are participated into the survey process Then, the respondents‟ attitudes towards each questionnaire‟s statement is analyzed through descriptive statistics Reliability test and explanatory factor analysis are both employed in this dissertation ANOVA analysis and multiple linear regression are utilized in order to understand deeply about causal relationship among variables

In the third chapter, the researcher consolidates key findings from previous chapters The empirical evidence which is obtained in Chapter 2 are compared with previous empirical evidences from other researchers

The last section is conclusion and it refers to managerial advices Limitations of the study are highlighted and how these limitations are addressed in future researches

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL MODEL 1.1 Introduction

In this chapter, the concept of work-life balance is explored It is addressed that different researchers do have different conceptualization about work-life balance; therefore, it posts the requirement of collecting some available definitions to better understand this key term The second part of this chapter is to highlight the factors influencing work-life balance Chosen factors are proposed in subsection and the relationship between each factor and work-life balance is put into a hypothesis

1.2 Work-life balance concept

1.2.1 Work-life balance definitions

Work-life balance is defined by many researchers before According to Greenbatt (2002), work-life balance is perceived as the absence of conflicts between work-related and non-work related demands Another definition for work-life balance is provided by Greenhaus and Powell (2003) whether it refers to the circumstance in which the employees satisfy with both family roles and work roles In the contrast, when the employees dissatisfy with these two roles, work-life imbalance is happened Grzywacz and Carlson (2007) define work-life balance as the level of the frequency in which the employees‟ works are interfered by their family works and vice versa Voydanoff (2005) indicates that work-life balance is obtained when the work resources fulfill family demands and family resources are fit with work demands The understanding of work-life balance is also done through the examination of work-life conflict Shelton (2006) asserts that work-life conflict

is formulated when the employees are struggling with the pressure from one role and such pressure dominates other roles Alam et al (2009) propose that work-life conflict is happened when the employees‟ demand of one domain is over other domains and such conflict decreases both work and life quality In this dissertation, work-life balance is defined as the less number of conflicts among the work-related and non-work related demands of the employees

Regarding to work-life balance, there is a related theory, namely the balance theory (Kumarasamy et al., 2015) Balance theory is developed and proposed by Heider (1946) and it highlights that when a person recognizes a set of benefits from a system, his or her behavior is to maintain a balance among the elements existed in this system According to Dundas (2008), work-life balance is explained well by balance theory in which the employees consider that their paid work and the important aspects of their life are

cognitive elements and therefore the employees target to maintain the balance state among these elements

1.2.2 Work-life balance benefits

It is asserted that the concentration and proper setup in work-life balance allows the firms to achieve some core benefits in human resource management and in business performance Lazar et al (2010) identify the benefits of work-life balances towards the firms and the employees and they summary these benefits as in the figure below In more detail, when the firms apply effective work-life balance policies, they gain the benefits of reducing absenteeism and lateness, improving productivity, enhancing organizational image, increasing employee loyalty and commitment, increasing retention of valuable employees, and reducing staff turnover rates In the employee position, work-life balance allows them to gain a greater sense of job security, higher job satisfaction level, reduction

of job stress, better physical and mental condition, and enhancement of control over life environment It is translated to the fact that better quality in work-life balance reduces stressful to the employees and it also reduces the probability of employees‟ absence or coming to the office later due to personal issues The employees who can balance between work and life contexts are able to perform better in workplace and they can increase job productivity Furthermore, when the employees receive better work-life balance, they do not need to find other jobs compared to the employees who cannot balance between work and life context It is associated with higher employee commitment towards the organization It is also identified that work-life balance helps the employees to reach higher job satisfaction In the contrast, job dissatisfaction happens when the employees cannot balance personal life and work life In addition, imbalance work-life balance decreases perceived job security of the employees since they are less performance in the eyes of the supervisors and it reduces their opportunities for higher job position or promotional context

Figure 1: The benefits of work-life balance to the firms and the employees

Source: Lazar et al (2010)

Empirical evidences from previous works confirm that work-life balance has significant relation with job satisfaction of the employees Empirical evidence from Malik

et al (2014) confirms that work-life balance has positive effect to job satisfaction of the employees who are working in business schools in Pakistan Moreover, Malik et al (2014) identify that when the employees are received higher job benefits, they are more balance between work and life perspectives Meenakshi et al (2013) highlight that when the employees face up with work-life imbalance, their ability to fulfill the job requirements is decreased and the job performance is not in expected level According to Garg and Yajurvedi (2016), poor work-life practices increase job turnover intention and it affects significantly to the employees‟ asterism

1.2.3 Work-life balance measurement

The measurement of work-life balance is important aspect to both of human resource manager and the researchers in this area (Poulose and Sudarsan, 2014) Generally ,previous researchers develop a measurement scale to measure work-life balance According to Greenhaus and Beautell (1985), work-life balance is measured through different types of conflicts and they are conflicts related to the employee behavior, time, and constraint Behavior constraint is generated when the employees‟ specific behavior is applicable for one job role but it is not suitable to another job role Time constraint refers

to the situation of the time to fulfill one job role is not suitable to fulfill other job roles Strain constraint is determined as psychological strain of the employees within on job role Greenhaus and Beautell (1985) assert the hypotheses of which any factors that affect to behavior, time, and constraint in specific job role lead to work-life conflict Marshall and Barnett (1993) propose another scale to measure work-life balance with four factors, including work-family gains, work-family strains, work-parenting gains, and work-parenting strains Among these factors, work-family gains and work-parenting gains are both considered as having positive effect to work-life balance of the employees while work-family strains and work-parenting strains have negative effect to work-life balance Clark (2001) provides five different scales to measure work-life balance, including satisfaction at work, satisfaction at home, employee citizenship, the conflicts between different roles, and family functioning Fisher (2001) develops a measurement scale with four items, namely time, the behavior at workplace of an individual, relevant energy to employee in order to fulfill assigned tasks, and the conflicts between inter-roles Based on the review of work-life balance measurement, the researcher concludes that work-life balance can be measured through its determinants in an linear equation as below:

The equation above shows that work-life balance is depended on its determinants such as work-family gains, work-family strains, work-parenting gains, work-parenting strains, satisfaction at work, satisfaction at home, employee citizenship, the conflicts between different roles, and family functioning, etc Different researchers may provide or identify different determinants of work-life balance and it is depended on the research circumstances

1.2.4 Factors influencing work-life balance

1.2.4.1 Organizational support

Organizational support gains much attention among the researchers in the studied field of psychology and human resource management (Eisenberger et al., 2004) It is defined as the level of which the employees perceive that their managers or their employers to recognize their contribution to the organizations (Aube et al., 2007) Organizational support also includes supervisor support Empirical evidence from Mas-Machuba et al (2016) confirms that when the supervisors decentralize their decision making process, their employees feel more comfortable at the workplace Russo et al (2015) acclaim that supervisor support positively influences on work-life balance of the employees throughout their action of implementing the regulations related to the

employees‟ roles However, there are also empirical evidences in which the relation between supervisor support and work-life balance is not supported Wu et al (2013) compare the impacts of two factors on work-life balance of the employees and these factors are supervisor support and pleasant working environment Wu et al (2013) identify that supervisor support does not influence on work-life balance of the employees but please working environment Another empirical evidence which is provided by Au and Ahmed (2016) also confirms that work-life balance is not influenced by supervisor support

Co-worker support is the second facet of organizational support and it influences on work-life balance of the employees In fact, co-worker support is different to supervisor support due to co-worker works laterally and no right to command (Wong et al., 2017) Empirical evidence from Valcour et al (2011) confirms that co-worker impacts positively

on work-life balance of the employees through the fact that co-worker provides work-life supports to each other Wong et al (2017) consider co-worker is the bridge to connect work and non-work domain and this factor strengthens of work-life balance of the employees Moreover, the impact of co-worker support on work-life balance is shown through instrumental and emotional form (Russo et al., 2015) The first form in co-worker support is instrumental and it is perceived as tangible supports from co-worker or the employees can provide job support to each other in case of personal issues The second form is emotional and it refers to the co-workers often exchange or share their opinions with others in order to get better solutions in both work and non-work domain According

to Ducharme and Martin (2000), co-worker plays prominent role in job outcome and it is key factor that explains job satisfaction of the employees

1.2.4.2 Flexible working arrangement

The influence of flexible working arrangement on work-life balance of the employees is put into the discussion It is notable that flexible working arrangement helps

to boost the employees‟ productivity as well as strengthening work-life balance status (Sivatte et al., 2015) Empirical evidence from Ariffin et al (2016) confirms two roles of different working arrangement The first arrangement is flexible working arrangement and

it contributes to work-life balance of the employees while the second arrangement refer to long working arrangement and it makes the employees feel satisfaction in self-esteem Subramaniam et al (2013) confirm that flexible working arrangement leads to higher job autonomy and job autonomy has positive influence on the reduction of work-life conflicts However, Baral and Bhargava (2010) obtain contradicted result in their empirical study in

which flexible working arrangement does not induce for the reduction of work-family issues

1.2.4.3 Technology advancement

Technology advancement refers to the application of new technologies into workplace and it is considered as one of the main factors that impacts significantly on both work and personal life of people (Kumarasamy et al., 2015) When the firms apply new technologies, the employees gain the benefit of more flexibility in term of when and where

to work (Lester, 1999) Furthermore, advanced technologies allow the employees to access

to work all times (Lester, 1999) In the contrast, Stephens et al (2007) identify that recent development in communication technologies reduce flexibility in personal life and it even create the difficulty to maintain work-life balance An empirical evidence which is provided by Stawarx et al (2013) confirms that electronic tablet reduces work-life balance

of users Waller and Ragsdell (2012) identify that email is advanced communication technology and it is widely used in entire businesses but downside of using this technology

is that it makes the employees harder to balance between work and personal life

1.2.4.4 Job stress

Job stress is defined as the combination of factors that cause the disturbance to the employees in workplace and the disturbance is happened in both of physical and psychological aspect (Sultan et al., 2016) Empirical evidence from Jamal (1984) highlights that high job stress leads to lower job performance from the employees Moreover, job stress also affects to work-life balance of the employees (Rizwan et al., 2013; Younas et al., 2013; Jamal and Baba, 2000) Hobfoll (2004) conducts the interviews with experienced employees and it is identified that stressful job is explained by the gap between the employees‟ expectations and the job requirements and higher gap leads to work-life imbalance Sale and Kerr (2001) indicate that job stress leads to higher job dissatisfaction and formulates work-life imbalance Moreover, job stress level is measured under specific working conditions, including working with high speed and working under tight deadline (Green and McIntosh, 2001) When the employees work under this conditions, they are likely to be stressed out and it could lead to work-life imbalance (Clutterbuck, 2003)

1.2.4.5 Communication with the employees on workplace’s issues

According to Lockwood (2003), communication with the employees about the issues in the workplace is important since the firms do not achieve desired results from work-life benefits if their employees are not communicate and informed about the

programs Empirical evidence from Walker (2012) highlights that when the employees are received good communication, they are likely motivated Therefore, the managers should open formal and information communication with their staffs Winkler (2010) identifies that a healthy work-life balance is obtained when there is cooperation in the firms It is noted that good cooperation is achieved through proper communication and it helps to further improve employee relations and employee loyalty (Winkler, 2010)

1.3 Related empirical evidences

Rathee and Bhuntel (2018) explored factors affecting work-life balance of women in education sector They applied quantitative research method with primary data to be collected from questionnaire with 213 female respondents They identified that 9 main factors related to work-life balance level, including stress level, challenges which hinder the work life balance, work life balance, satisfaction, health problems, environment, problems of work life balance, attitude towards work, time management

Agha et al (2016) identified the relationship between work life balance, teaching satisfaction and job satisfaction Questionnaire was distributed for the collection of data in the public and private higher education institutions for teacher

in Oman Structured equation modelling was used A research model was conceptualized based on the finding, work life balance affects organization commitment, employee loyalty and job satisfaction Also, found that teaching satisfaction had a positive relationship with job satisfaction

Zaheer et al (2016) investigated the level of the occupational stress among females, work life balance and assess the relationship between occupational stress and work life balance amid female faculties in the central university Delhi 120 respondents were selected for the sample size Questionnaire was given to the respondent for the data collection Correlation analysis techniques was used to understand the relationship between occupational stress and work life balance The study found that correlation analysis identified a strong positive relationship between occupational stress and work life imbalance of female faculty in central universities of Delhi

Tressa and Manisha (2016) explored the work life balance and stress level of

KV school female‟s teachers Questionnaire was distributed to the female teachers

of primary school The study found that there was a stress-free environment, obligations and responsibilities of work life balance for the teaching professionals Also, found that the employers of the institution to flexible working strategies and better working conditions

Samuel and Mahalingam (2016) identified individual factors demographic and level of work life balance and how it influences the overall work life balance of female facilities A sample size of 200 was chosen for the data collection Statistical tools were used like the Chisquare test and ANOVA for the data analysis and interpretation The findings of the study reveal that in the engineering colleges female faculties were in stress due to the continuous work and they face problems in balancing with their personal life and professional life Also found that female faculties face lots of problem in the engineering college as compared to arts and science faculties in other colleges

Smith and Gardner (2007) examined work-life balance using a sample of 153 employees in a large New Zealand organization Analysis of company policies identified sixteen WLB initiatives currently being offered Employees were surveyed to determine the extent of their awareness and use of currently offered initiatives Factors influencing WLB initiative use and employee outcomes for initiative use were investigated Female employees and younger employees used more WLB initiatives while employees reporting higher levels of management support and supervisor support, and perceiving fewer career damage and time demands also used more WLB initiatives No support was found for the role of coworker support on WLB initiative use Initiative use was related to reduced work-to-family conflict Work-to-family conflict, family-to-work conflict, and commitment to the organization were related to intention to turnover The results highlight the importance of workplace culture in enabling an environment that is supportive of WLB and consequently use of initiatives that are offered by the organization

Kaushik et al (2014) iscussed various issues like gender stereotype, gender discrimination and sexual harassment in the context of Indian environment A structured questionnaire was developed to collect primary data from 500 firms in

India The respondents in present study have been taken mainly from service sector, manufacturing sector and education sector The data collected through questionnaire was coded and tabulated keeping in context with the objective of the study and was analyzed by calculating frequencies, factor analysis and one-way analysis of variance Analysis indicated that though age and level of management has no significant effect on these factors but male and female respondents differ significantly on their opinion regarding these issues

Sigroha (2014) ompared the employee‟s perception regarding impact and measures how to improve the work life balance facility of working women A sample size of 400 respondents was collected for the data collection One-way ANOVA was used for the data analysis and interpretation The study found that there was a significant difference in the employees‟ perception regarding the impact

of the child care facility, flexible working hours Also, found that imbalance of the health issues of the women

Saranya and Gokulakrishan (2013) contributed the depression, psychological stress, imbalance and importance of female work life balance Empirical study was conducted through questionnaire method for the data analysis The study found a positive association between work life balance, imbalance in the contexts of depression and psychological stress

Santhi & Sundar (2012) identified the level of satisfaction, factors and overall work life balance of women employees A Sample size of the study was

350 The study found that work life balance programs implemented satisfaction level on the employees Also, found that the ranking of the dimensions influencing work life are as follows: child care, support system, benefits, recreation, work environment factors in attaining the professional and personal life of the employees

1.4 Overview of Vietnamese banking system and Agribank

1.4.1 Overview of Vietnamese banking system

The banking industry in Vietnam has been transformed from old banking model to modern model with the development and the operations of different banking businesses (Tran et al., 2015) Currently, the system of credit institutions of Vietnam consists of banks, non-bank credit institutions, micro-

mono-finance institutions, the branches of foreign banks, and representative offices Banks play the most important role in Vietnam banking system in which commercial banks plays the prominent role of mobilizing funds and issuing loans to different economic entities Currently, there are 4 state-owned commercial banks, 31 joint-stock commercial banks, and 9 wholly foreign-owned banks (State Bank of Vietnam, 2018)

Vietnam banking system gains tremendous development The World Bank (2018) indicates that Vietnam is among ASEAN‟s countries having high domestic credit provided by financial sector as share of GDP From 2013 to 2017, domestic credit provided by financial sector is increased from 104.91% to 140.06% Vietnam

is only after Thailand (167.35%) and higher than Singapore (129.55%) Moreover, Vietnam has highest domestic credit to private sector by banks as share of GDP and

it is stood at 130.67% in 2017 and this number is higher than Singapore (128.21%) and Thailand (11.62%) Credit growth rate in overall banking system of the country

is about 18% in 2017 (The Reuter, 2018)

Table 2: Domestic credit provided by financial sector (% of GDP)

Source: The World Bank (2018)

Given to the development of Vietnam banking system, it is notable that the market is still being dominated by state-owned commercial banks According to Vietcombank Securities (2017), the market shares of state-owned commercial banks

in saving and lending market are 49.3% and 47.7% respectively Currently, there are 4 state-owned commercial banks, including Vietnam Bank for Agriculture and

Rural Development (Agribank), Global Petro Sole Member Limited Commercial Bank, Ocean Commercial One Member Limited Liability Bank, and Construction Commercial One Member Limited Liability Bank Among these 4 banks, Agribank has largest charter capital which is stood at VND 30,377 billion and this bank has

942 branches and transaction offices Other state-owned commercial banks are very small business scale and they are joint-stock commercial banks but are transformed and being managed by State Bank of Vietnam due to poor business performance

1.4.2 Overview of Agribank

Agribank is established in 1988 with the objective of providing credit to facilitate agriculture development of the country The bank also provides lending products and services to household sector in 1991 and it also provides the support to poor people As of now, Agribank is ranked as one of 10 largest enterprises in Vietnam (Agribank, 2018) Total outstanding loans of the bank is nearly VND 900 trillion in which 74% of total outstanding loans is to agriculture and rural areas The profit of the bank is recorded at VND 5,081 billion in 2017 and it is increased nearly 17% compared to 2016 Agribank is also one of the first bank in Vietnam which has banking activities outside of Vietnam, showing through the fact that the bank establishes its branch in Cambodia in 2010 There are also 837 banks that have correspondent relationships with Agribank and cross-border payment is opened between Agribank and other banks from China, Laos, and Cambodia

1.5 Research model and research hypothesis

The previous section provides empirical discussion about the factors influencing on work-life balance of the employees It helps the researcher to reveal 5 factors that could impact on work-life balance of Agribank‟s employees, including organizational support, flexible working arrangement, technology advancement, job stress, and communication with the employees on workplace issues In this context, a research model is proposed in which work-life balance plays the role of dependent variable while those factors are independent variables It is asserted that there are many research models which are developed to address the key determinants of work-life balance

There are some research models which are developed and proposed by other researchers However, these models do not reflect all important factors affecting to work-life balance in the banks For example, Giorgi et al (2017) provide a research model to

measure the effects of factors on work-life balance in banking sector but these researchers only focus on job stress factors Oludayo et al (2015) develop a study of multiple work-life balance initiatives in banking industry in Nigeria and they propose two factors affecting to work-life balance, including work arrangement and leave initiatives but these two factors do not have significant effect to work-life balance in regression analysis result Hafiz (2017) examines work-life balance among female employees in banking industry and this researcher only focuses on the difference of demographic characteristics that cause the different perception of work-life balance Obiageli et al (2015) provide a study about work-life balance and employee performance in banking sector and they focus only on leave policy and related factors which are not sufficient for full aspect of work-life balance Doshi (2014) provides a research model in which work-life balance is affected by working hours, working pressure, flexible working arrangements, job nature, career opportunity, and productivity but they do not measure the effect of these factors to work-life balance itself It is concluded that previous researcher do not provide a comprehensive research model to measure the effects of factors to work-life balance

In the case study of Agribank, it is asserted that organizational support, flexible working arrangement, technology advancement, job stress, and communication with the employees on workplace issues are chosen factors and they are relevant to the bank‟s current situation The researcher does not grab compensation factor because of the bank employees receive good salary package Organizational support is chosen because of Agribank is formulated from state-owned management and therefore the gap between the managers and the staffs is high with old management model in which the employees are fear to ask the managers and wish for their supports Flexible working environment is chosen since it is a new trend in modern working environment The global survey from EY (2018) shows that flexible working environment is one of the top concern about work-life balance Agribank‟s employees are now working for 8 hours per day, from 8am to 5pm and there is no special policy to be applied in the bank However, when the employees are busy with their family-related tasks, they may come to the office late and therefore it is proper to setup flexible working arrangement Technology advancement is the third factor and it is reasonable since Vietnamese banking industry is now being explored by modern banking model from fintech companies Moreover, the application of technologies allow the employees to reduce the time spent at specific task and therefore they can finish the task and leave the office on time The fourth factor is job stress and it is the factor that is in the focus of previous researchers Obviously, when job stress level is high, it affects to the

employees in both physical and mental way The last factor is the communication about workplace issues In fact, the communication in Agribank is poor since the employees are still following the culture of silent and they are rarely to speak out the truth

The relationship between work-life balance and 5 factors (organizational support, flexible working arrangement, technology advancement, job stress, and communication with the employees on workplace issues) is direct as below:

Figure 2: Proposed research model Source: Developed and proposed by the researcher (2018)

From proposed research model, there are 3 research hypotheses:

H1: Organizational support influences positively on work-life balance of Agribank‟s employees

H2: Flexible working arrangement influences positively on work-life balance of Agribank‟s employees

H3: Technology advancement influences positively on work-life balance of Agribank‟s employees

H4: Job stress influences positively on work-life balance of Agribank‟s employees

H5: Communication with the employees on workplace‟s issues influences positively on work-life balance of Agribank‟s employees

1.5 Conclusion

In this chapter, the researcher identifies the definitions for work-life balance Moreover, the researcher points out work-life balance is depended on how organizational support, flexible working arrangement, and technology advancement A research model is developed with respective research hypotheses

CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 2.1 Research methodology

Research methodology is important component of academic researches and the researchers often apply onion research framework (Saunders et al., 2016) The research onion framework is a research structure in which it consists of many layers, including research philosophy, research approach, research strategy, research method, and data collection (Saunders et al., 2016)

Figure 3: The research onion

Source: Saunders et al (2016) The first layer of research onion framework is research philosophy and it refers to the researchers‟ belief in which their studies to be developed and social phenomenon are analyzed (Li, 2015) There are four research philosophies, including positivism, interpretivism, realism, and pragmatism (Saunders et al., 2016) Among these research philosophies, positivism reflects the researchers‟ belief in which social phenomenon is studied by value-free way and researched outcomes are obtained through objective stances (Aliyu et al., 2015) Positivism research philosophy is chosen due to some reasons The first reason is that it is applied in the studies to which causal relationship among variables

is measured The second reason is that positivism provides objective viewpoints about social phenomenon and the conclusion is less biased by personal point of view from interpretivism, realism, and pragmatism

The second layer of research onion framework is research approach which is characterized by deductive and inductive (Saunders et al., 2016) Research approach is defined as a studying workflow and deductive has different workflow compared to inductive According to Walliman (2017), deductive approach is a process of mapping research problems with existing theories and concepts and the researchers validate applied theories in certain circumstances In the contrast, inductive research approach is developed without existing theories and the researchers aim to develop a new theory based on their actual observation (Walliman, 2017) In this study, deductive approach is chosen due to some reasons The first reason is that the researcher would like to adopt existing theories related to work-life balance in order to identify key influent factors and then measuring the effects of these factors to work-life balance of the employees in Agribank The process of applying and validating existing theory is associated with deductive approach The second reason is that inductive approach is utilized when there is small sample of the subject The subject of the study is Agribank‟s employees and this bank has high number of workforce

in Vietnam banking system To achieve desired outcome, work-life balance of Agribank‟s employees should be convey in adequate sample size in which deductive approach is better compared to inductive approach

Figure 4: Deductive approach applied in the study

Source: Conducted by the researcher (2018)

The third layer of research onion framework is research strategy There are many research strategies such as experiment, survey, case study, action research, grounded theory, ethnography, and archival research (Saunders et al., 2016) In this study, survey is chosen as research strategy Survey strategy is defined as the process of collecting relevant data from the subjects that are linked with the researched fields (Reis and Judd, 2014) The reason of choosing survey strategy is that it allows the researcher to collect the information from large sample Survey strategy is also utilized in the studies with hypothesis validation

The fourth layer of research onion framework is research method According to Saunders et al (2016), there are three research methods, namely qualitative and quantitative and mixed method Quantitative method is adopted in this study and it is perceived as the process of collecting and analyzing numerical data through statistical treatments (Biggam, 2018) The reason of not selecting qualitative method is that it creates the biases in the researched outcomes due to qualitative method requires subjective assessment from the researcher Moreover, the key part of this study is to reveal causal relationship between work-life balance of Agribank‟s employees and its antecedents, including organizational support, flexible working arrangement, and technology advancement Causal relationship is revealed through multiple linear regression which is part of quantitative assessment

The last layer of research onion framework refers to what the data to be collected

In academic studies, the researchers collect either primary data or secondary data or both (Saunders et al., 2016) Primary data refers to the information which is not prepared and collected by anyone before while secondary data is appeared in published reports and documents (Srivastava and Rego, 2016) In this study, primary data is collected from a survey process in which the questionnaire is developed, piloted, and sent to Agribank‟s employees Beside of primary data, secondary data is also collected and it is the contents which are taken from books and journals about work-life balance in social sciences Another secondary data is taken from the internal reports of Agribank and it helps the researcher to validate key findings which are extracted from primary data

2.2 Research design process

2.2 1 Questionnaire design

A questionnaire is designed to collect primary data The structure of the questionnaire includes two sections The first section is developed to collect general

information of Agribank‟s employees, including gender, age, education level, marital status, job position level, time of working for Agribank, and having children or not

Table 3: The format of the first section of the questionnaire

 31-40

 41-50

 More than 50 Education Level  Post graduate  Graduate

Job Position Level  Managerial position  Non-managerial

position Time of Working for

Source: Conducted by the researcher (2018)

The second section is developed to collect the respondents‟ evaluation towards predetermined statements Each statement is represented for each factor used in the research model The researcher expects to collect numerical data from the questionnaire and therefore, a Likert scale is utilized Likert scale includes five points with the value is ranged from 1 to 5 and the lower value means the lower agreement or the disagreement of the respondents In more detail, 1 is indicated for „Strongly Disagree‟, 2 is indicated for

„Disagree‟, 3 is indicated for „Neutral‟, 4 is indicated for „Agree‟, and 5 is indicated for

„Strongly Agree‟

Table 4: The format of the second section of the questionnaire

The organization provides family – friendly policies that help me to fulfill family commitments

Various unique programs are offered by the organization to the employees for maintaining WLB

Employees are expected to attend training programs for

Factor Item Source

WLB conducted inside and outside the organization

My organization really cares about my well-being

My organization is willing to help me if I need a special favor at work

My organization is willing to help me if I need a special favor in daily life

My organization allows me work at home on family problems

Flexible work options do not suit me because they tend

to make me feel disconnected from the workplace Working shorter hours would negatively impact on my career progress within the organization

Working more flexible hours is essential for me in order to attend to family responsibilities

Flexible working arrangements are essential for me in order to be able to deal with other interests and responsibilities outside work

Flexible working arrangements enable me to focus more on the job when I am at the workplace People using flexible working arrangements often miss important work events or communications, such as staff meetings, training sessions, important notices, etc

Supervisors at my workplace react negatively to people using flexible working arrangements

Other people at my workplace react negatively to people using flexible working arrangements Technology

advancement

Because of technology, I find it hard to switch off from work when I am at home or out with friends/family

First Technology Scotland (2015)

Factor Item Source

Using technology to stay connected to work out with

my working hours has a negative impact on my life Technology allows me to work more flexibly which has

a positive effect on my stress levels

I feel anxious when I cannot access technology to check messages for work purposes

Using technology for social contact during the working day helps me cope better with pressures at work

I find it difficult to control the amount of time I spend using technology for work purposes out with my working hours

I would like my employer to take measures to prevent the overuse of technology for work purposes

Job stress

I am overworked and have neglected my family responsibilities due to inability to reject my co-workers and managers

Maurya et al (2015)

I believe that if my work was less complex I would do

concerns on work-life balance Detailed management explanation of work assignments and non-work assignments

Source: Conducted by the researcher (2018)

2.2.2 Sample

Sample size for the survey is decided upon on what sampling technique is It is perceived that adequate sample size allows the researchers to obtain more meaningful findings (Saunders et al., 2016) There are two different sampling techniques, including probability sampling and non-probability sampling (Alvi, 2016) In this dissertation,

probability sampling is chosen due to the population is clearly defined as total workforces

of Agribank When selecting probability sampling technique, each employee in Agribank receives equal selection and it helps the researcher to avoid systematic errors or biases in the results due to wrong selection It is notable that probability sampling technique is conducted with random selection

There are several ways to determine appropriate sample size In the first hand, the sample size is determined upon on rule of sampling Rule of 100 indicates that the sample size must be from 100 respondents (Kline, 1979) and there are rule of 150 (Hutcheson and Sofroniou, 1999), rule of 200 (Guilford, 1954), rule of 250 (Cattell, 1978), rule of 300 (Garson, 2008), and rule of 500 (Comrey and Lee, 1992) According to Hair et al (2010), a sample size of 100-400 is suggested Comrey and Lee (1992) assert that 100 is poor sample size, 200 is fair sample size, and more than 300 is good sample size In this context, the researcher decides the sample size at 300 respondents The respondents are Agribank‟s employees and the researcher only selects those who have more than 12 months of working for the bank

2.2.3 Pilot study

Pilot study is conducted to ensure that developed measurement scale is understandable, the wordings are correct, the instruction to fulfill the questionnaire is easy, and the possibility of adding more items and/or removing existing items (Kumar et al., 2013) In this dissertation, developed measurement items are put into pilot study with the participation of five volunteers who are Agribank‟s employees They are asked to evaluate the questionnaire in order to ensure that the questionnaire is good before officially sending

to respective respondents

2.2.4 Data analysis

After quantitative method is selected and primary data is collected, the researcher applies some data analysis techniques, including frequency analysis, descriptive statistics, reliability test, explanatory factor analysis, ANOVA analysis, and multiple linear regression

Frequency analysis helps the researcher to understand demographic characteristics

of the respondents This data analysis technique is fundamental and it counts how many respondents each aspect of a demographic variable as well as calculating the share of this group in total sample size

Descriptive statistics provides two important statistical indexes, including mean value and standard deviation Mean value provides central tendency in the respondents‟

answers while standard deviation provides how the trustfulness in their answers Using mean value, the researcher understands what the respondents‟ attitudes by comparing mean value with two thresholds in which if mean value is less than 2.5, the respondents disagree with a statement; if mean value is higher than 3.5, the respondents agree with a statement; and if mean value is between 2.5 and 3.5, the respondents are neither agreeing nor disagreeing with a statement The researcher compares standard deviation with 1.0 and if the value of standard deviation is less than 1.0, the respondents provide true answer and vice versa

Reliability test is conducted to measure the reliability level of the survey‟s scale Overall reliability level is measured through Cronbach‟s alpha and it is calculated by following equation:

̅ ̅Where:

Explanatory factor analysis is applied to verify the proposed research model in previous section EFA is a statistical data analysis and it is applied when KMO value higher than 0.5 and Bartlett‟s Test is statistically significant at 95% of confidence level In case of both meeting the requirements of KMO and Bartlett‟s Test, the new components are extracted and the number of new components is decided through initial eigenvalue of each component If one component has initial eigenvalue higher than 1.0, this component

is selected and vice versa All selected components must have total variance explained level from 50% In addition, the researcher obtains the structure of each component in the component matrix and this matrix is optimized through Varimax rotation technique It is denoted that each item in the component matrix or the rotated component matrix must have factor loading value higher than 0.5

ANOVA analysis is adopted in this study in order to evaluate how the demographical differences lead to different evaluation of the respondents towards work-life balance, organizational support, flexible working arrangement, and technology advancement For demographic variable with two dimensions, Independent Sample T-Test

is applied For demographic variable with more than two dimensions, One-Way ANOVA

is utilized In both case, of statistical test returns p-value less than 0.05, the respondents who have different demographic characteristics do have different evaluation towards selected factors

Figure 5: Linear regression equation

Multiple linear regression is the last data analysis technique It is developed to measure causal relationship between dependent and independent variable In this dissertation, dependent variable is work-life balance of Agribank‟s employees and independent variables are organizational support, flexible working arrangement, and technology advancement Overall explanation of independent variables to work-life balance Agribank‟s employees is expressed through Adjusted R-Square Moreover, each independent variable affects to work-life balance and it is quantified through Beta value T-Test is utilized to ensure that Beta value is significant

2.3 Conclusion

In this chapter, The researcher also proposes research methodology through research onion framework in which positivism research philosophy, deductive research approach, survey strategy, and quantitative research method are adopted The questionnaire

is also proposed along with the scale items The next step is to officially roll out the questionnaire to 300 Agribank‟s‟ employees and to collect their answers successfully Obtained data is subjected to quantitative data analysis process and key findings are obtained and discussed in the next chapter