Factors impact on employee career satisfaction at international education institiute vietnam national university ho chiminh city

DECLARATION I declare that the research: Factors Impact On Employee Career Satisfaction At International Education Institute, Vietnam National University, Ho Chi Minh City, is submitted

AT INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION INSTITIUTE,

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HO CHI MINH CITY

ADVISOR’S ASSESSMENT

Advisor’s signature

DECLARATION

I declare that the research: Factors Impact On Employee Career Satisfaction At

International Education Institute, Vietnam National University, Ho Chi Minh City, is

submitted solely for degree of Master of Science in Business Administration at OUM and has not been previously submitted for degree purpose to any other educational institute

Nguyen Huynh Cam Nhu

CHAPTER 3: HYPOTHESIS DEVELOPMENT cccsscsssssccsssssssessesassessesnesssssecternesses 16

2 QUESTIONNAIRE AND MEASUREMENT

CHAPTER 5: RESULTS .ccssssssssssssssssasssscessesssssescessesscesersecunssossssecessssesenssassesesesesasars 23

1 RELIABILITY ANALYSIS THROUGH CRONBACH’S COEFFICIENT ALPHA ccccssscsssos cosevecavsveee 23

ABSTRACT

The study entiled “Factors impact on the employee career satisfaction at International Education Institute, Vietnam National University, Ho Chi Minh City” aims to identify the relationship between career satisfaction and the components that have an effect on the career satisfaction among staffs who are working at International Education Institute, Vietnam National University, Ho Chi Minh City (IEI-VNUHCM) In addition, this study also examines employees’ views on the different factors contributing to their satisfaction toward their current organization Those factors include (1) empowerment at work; (2) developmental experiences; (3) work-related expectancies; and (4) satisfaction with supervisor

In order to verify the effect mentioned in this research, these factors are measured by 48 observed variables Quantitative approach is the major method used to collect the primary data through structured questionnaires of 260 current staffs at IEI-VNUHCM

The findings of the study indicate that (1) empowerment at work; (2) developmental experiences; (3) work-related expectancies; and (4) satisfaction with supervisor were positively associated with career satisfaction The factor of work-related expectancies plays a crucial role and significantly affects employee’s career satisfaction at IEI The study recommends that IEI should pay attention to the HR policies for staffs in which a fit between the good reward and the well performance are created in order to ensure their motivations and satisfactions with their jobs Furthermore, the factor analysis for impacts on career satisfaction aims at contributing to the human resource planning at the research site and creating further satisfaction at work for the staffs at International Education Institute

Keywords: - Employee Career Satisfaction, Empowerment at workplace, Developmental Experiences, Work-related Expectancies, Satisfaction with supervisor

CHAPTERI: INTRODUCTION

1 Background of the study

Human Resource Management is getting more important to all managers in today's business for several reasons First, having a command of this knowledge will help the managers avoid the sorts of personnel mistakes they don’t want to make during managing process For example, no managers wants to hire the unsuitable person for the job; to experience high

turnover; to have the staffs not doing their best; to waste time with useless interviews; to

allow a lack of training to undermine department's effectiveness and to commit any unfair labor practices Second, effective human resource management can help ensure that the managers get results, through people Many managers, presidents, generals, governors and even supervisors have been successful even with inadequate plans, organizations, or controls because they had the knack of hiring the right people for the right jobs and motivating, appraising, and developing them Totally, people and their knowledge are the most important aspects affecting the productivity of the company In other words, the development of human resources is the most important issue in the development strategy in all organizations, especially in the current harsh competitiveness It is said that one of the key aspects of human resource management is to measure career satisfaction Companies must ensure that employers highly meet employees’ satisfaction, which is a prerequisite to increase productivity, responsiveness, quality and customer service

International Education Institute, Vietnam National University, Ho Chi Minh City was

establish in May 2012 through the merger of its three educational centers: Centre for International Education, Foreign Language Centre and Centre for Human Resource Development in order to meet the urgent need for qualified human resources and show the serious commitment of Vietnam National University Ho Chi Minh City (VNU-HCM) to the

Improvement of Vietnamese education In recent years, [ElI has made great advances and achieved the success in operation Also, IEI provided quality human resources for the society

in order to contribute in promoting the economic development and ensuring political

stability

However, IEI is facing the challenge of high employee turnover which may be harmful to its effective performance That was known as the unsolvable problem that made IEI face a difficult situation in order to remain its daily operation and cost management since it has to recruit new staffs many times Most of the IEI staffs are young labors with the educational background from university degree at least Additionally, the staffs with high educational level have more and more choices for their career path And the situation now is by far different from that of many years ago when the international integration is high and quick Therefore, it is easily considered that they are the most likely group of having intention to change job Most of them are willing to quit their current job if they don’t satisfy with their organization or if they have a better job’s offer from other organizations Thus, their decision

of long-term commitment with IEI-VNUHCM would depend on the Human resource policy and Human resource practices at this organization

3 Objective of the study

In this research, the real expectations of the staffs from IEI will be verified in order to satisfy them, motivate them and retain them by the suitable policies Also, this study is conducted to

identify which are important factors that have effect significantly on employee career satisfaction Based on the empirical findings, the improvement suggestions will be provided

as practical guidelines to enhance employees’ career satisfaction

4 Limitation of the study

Because of the time limitation, the scope of the research solely targets on the staffs of IEI with the limited sample-size About more than 250 staffs working for IEI will be taken for making survey and delivering questionnaires This means that the result of this study might not be applicable to the career satisfaction of other organization

5 Structure of the study

The research will be structured by the following concrete order in which the introduction is first mentioned with the background, objectives of the problem, limitation, structure and significance of the research to the organization; then a review of important concepts and previous results of other authors in the field which the author narrows down the appropriate concepts in the framework of the research proposal; finally, the method used to determine the relationship between the factors mentioned in the review and the objective of the research

CHAPTER2: LITERATURE REVIEW

1 Career satisfaction:

In business, employee career satisfaction or employee job satisfaction is not a new concept The concept was first mentioned and developed by Landsberger (1958) with the Hawthorne

effect Although he did not mention about job satisfaction in his studies, it is still be

considered the basic for the development of the job satisfaction concept Hawthorne effect had pointed out that employee works for purposes other than payment Since that time, several researches and studies had examined this concept

Job satisfaction is generally defined as an employee’s affective reactions to a job based on comparing actual outcomes with desired outcomes (Crenny, Smith, & Stone, 1992) It is generally recognized as a multifaceted construct that includes employee feelings about a variety of both intrinsic and extrinsic job elements (Howard &Frink, 1996) Porter and Steers (1973) argued that the extent of employee job satisfaction reflected the cumulative level of met worker expectations That is, employees expect their job to provide a mix of features (e.g., pay, promotion, autonomy) for which the employee has certain preferential values The range and importance of these preferences vary across individuals, but when the accumulation of unmet expectation becomes sufficiently large there is less job satisfaction and greater probability of withdrawal behavior (Pearson, 1991)

Career satisfaction is an important topic in career research because subjective feelings of success are related to many facets of work behavior and well-being (e.g., Abele &Spurk,

2009, Ng Eby, Sorensen, & Feldman, 2005) Career satisfaction as individuals’ idiosyncratic evaluations of their own careers is often seen as one central indicator of subjective career success (Abele, Spurk, &Volmer, 2011; Boudreau, Boswell, & Judge,

2001; Judge, Cable, Boudreau, &Bretz, 1995; Ng et al., 2005) It is the evaluation of an

individual's progress towards meeting difẨferent career-related goals (¢.g., income, achievement, development) and career-related successes

According to Greenhaus, Parasuraman, and Wormley (1990), career satisfaction measure the satisfaction with career success, an internally generated and defined career outcome Besides general satisfaction with career progress, the measure assesses the extent to which an employee has made satisfactory progress toward goals for income level, advancement, and

development of skill The Career Satisfaction Scale (CSS; Greenhaus, Parasuraman,

&Wormley, 1990; Hofmans et al., 2008) is a widely accepted measure of career satisfaction Career satisfaction correlated positively with having a job in general management, salary level, number of promotions received, perceptions of upward mobility, sponsorship within

an organization, acceptance, job discretion, supervisory support, career strategies, perceived personal-organization value congruence, presence of an internal labor market, and job performance

The earliest and well-known study about factors that affect job satisfaction was the studies of Herzberg (1968) In his study Herzberg found out two important factors that affect job satisfaction: motivation and hygiene factors Motivation-hygiene theory factors pointed out that factors creating of job satisfaction were separate and distinct from factors that led to job

dissatisfaction Factors that led to job satisfaction are call motivators, include of

achievement, recognition, the work itself, responsibility and advancement Factors that prevent job satisfaction and lead to job dissatisfaction are call hygiene factors and include administrative policies, supervision, salary, interpersonal relations and working conditions His study had put a strong foundation for later research on factors affect job satisfactions From the beginning of the 20th century, several researches were conduct to find out the set

of factors that has greater affect on job satisfaction In addition, together with the popularity

of the concept of TQM practices, the set of factors expand rapidly More factors are examined and proven to have critical effect on employee job satisfaction Arsi et al (2012) use the elements of TQM practice to investigate their effects on employee job satisfaction and loyalty They suggested that top management commitment, employee empowerment, teamwork, job evaluation, employee compensation are critical factors of TQM practice that would positively impact employee job satisfaction Jun et al (2006) also investigated effects

of TQM practice on employee job satisfaction They found that employee empowerment, teamwork, and employee compensation have a significant and positive influence on employee job satisfaction, also the improved employee job satisfaction leads to a higher level of employee’s organizational loyalty Another study that also used the concept of TQM practice is the study of Chang et al (2010), according to the study, employee job satisfaction can be improved through the inclusion of TQM practices associated with human resources These practices are employee empowerment, employee compensation, team-work and management leadership

2 Empowerment at work:

Empowerment at work has its roots in early work on employee alienation and quality of work life Rather than focusing on managerial practices that share power with employees at all levels, the psychological perspective is focused on how employees experience empowerment at work This perspective refers to empowerment as the personal beliefs that employees have about their role in relation to the organization And, psychological empowerment is conceptualized as an experienced psychological state or set of cognitions Notions of empowerment have been implicit in research on alienation (Seeman, 1959), participation (Lawler, 1992), and job enrichment (Hackman&Oldham, 1980), the construct has received rigorous conceptualization and measurement until now Conger and Kanungo (1988) defined psychological empowerment as a process of heightening feelings of

employee self-efficacy “through the identification of conditions that foster powerlessness and through their removal by both formal organizational practices and informal techniques

of providing efficacy information” Thomas and Velthouse (1990) extended this approach by specifying a more complete set of task assessments (meaningfulness, competence, choice, and impact) that determine intrinsic task motivation in workers and the individual’s orientation to his or her work role Meaning involves a fit between the requirement of a work role and a person’s beliefs values and behaviors (Brief & Nord, 1990; Hackman & Oldham, 1980) Competence refers to self-efficacy specific to work — a belief in one’s capability to perform work activities with skill (Gist, 1987) — and is analogous to agency beliefs, personal mastery, or effort-performance expectancy (Bandura, 1989) Self-determination is a sense of choice in initiating and regulating actions (Deci, Connell, & Ryan, 1989) Self-determination reflects autonomy over the initiation and continuation of work behavior and processes; making decisions about work methods, pace and effort are examples (Bell &Staw, 1989) Finally, impact is the degree to which a person can influence strategic, administrative, or operating outcomes at work (Ashforth, 1989) Together, these four cognitions reflect an active, rather than a passive, orientation to work role Thomas and Velthouse (1990) argued that the four dimensions combine additively

Spreitzer (1995) defined empowerment as a process or psychological state manifested in four cognitions: meaning, competence, self-determination, and impact According Spreitzer (1995), empowerment at work has been measured as the intrinsic motivation to describe the extent to which employees believe they are empowered in their jobs The four cognitions are meaning, competence, self-determination, and impact Meaning involves a fit between the requirements of a work role and a person’s beliefs, values, and behaviors Competence refers

to self-efficacy specific to work, a belief in one’s capability to perform work activities with skill, analogous to personal mastery Self-determination reflects autonomy over the initiation

and continuation of work processes and making decisions about work methods, pace and effort Impact is the degree to which a person can influence strategic, administrative, or operating outcomes at work A factor analysis showed that the 12 items all loaded on four factors corresponding to the dimensions of meaning, competence, self-determination, and impact (Gagne et al., 1997) In Kraimer, Seibert, and Liden (1999), confirmatory factor analysis in two samples collected at different points in time showed that the four empowerment dimensions were distinct from one another The meaning, competence, self- determination, and impact dimensions all correlated positively with job satisfaction (Spreitzer et al., 1997) Additional analysis in Spreitzer (1995) showed that self-esteem and information about an organization’s mission were both antecedents of empowerment In addition, both perceived managerial effectiveness and innovative behaviors were consequences of empowerment

3 Developmental Experiences:

Employee training provides opportunities to employees widen their experiences and ability

to express higher performance at an organization When workers receive self development training, the level of their job satisfaction is higher than those without such training (Chang

et al., 2010) Also, Herzberg (1968) found that employee job satisfaction is influenced when they have an opportunity for advancement of individual competencies through various training programs When employees attended to training programs, they gain self-confidence

of making their jobs, they perceive career development opportunities and they think that

their companies make investment in them (Jun et al., 2006) As result of this positive

situations, employee job satisfaction increases

Human capital theory stipulates that people gain experiences by working in different job assignments (Becker, 1964) Work experiences and continuous learning play an important

role in staff development Work experiences contribute to development and career advancement involving supervisors, mentors and peers acting together, and they usually occur spontaneously and informally on the job (McCall et al., 1988) Developmental experience should be regarded as an institutionalized investment in employees

According Wayne, Shore, and Liden (1997), Developmental experiences was described the formal and informal developmental experiences a job affords employees The measure focuses on the extent to which an organization makes discretionary investments in formal and informal training and development of an employee In a factor analysis of the items used

to measure developmental experiences, perceived organizational support, leader-member exchange, affective commitment, intentions to quit and employee favor-doing, the four items measuring development experiences loaded on a single factor by themselves Development experiences were correlated positively with the number of promotions an employee has received, perceived organizational support, affective commitment to the organization, and organizational citizenship behavior (Wayne, Shore, & Liden, 1997)

4 Work-related Expectancies

Expectancy is the extent of the individual‘s perception or belief that a particular act will produce a particular outcome Instrumentality is the extent to which the individual perceives that effective performance will lead to desired rewards Expectancy theory by Vroom (1964) suggests that individuals are more likely to strive for improvement in their work due to the anticipation of a reward that is valued According to Vroom (1964), people are motivated to work if they expect increased effort to lead to desired outcomes or rewards The rewards may be intrinsic or extrinsic Intrinsic rewards are those that are primarily internal and intangible such as pride in work, feelings of accomplishment or achieving a sense of

efficacy, and are gained by fulfilling higher level personal needs, such as self - esteem and personal growth, and the individual can exercise a degree of personal control over these Expectancies related to work is defined as the extent to which employees believe that higher levels of job performance will be rewarded (Eisenberger, Fasolo, and Davis-LaMastro, 1990) The measure assesses employee expectancies about the relationship of better performance with increased pay, promotions, and job security It also assesses employee expectancies that better performance will lead to increased influence, supervisory approval, and recognition Factor analysis of the nine items found two factors for work-related expectancies One dimension captures expectancies about pay and promotion rewards The other dimension describes expectancies about approval and recognition The two factors were consistent across samples of hourly workers and managers (Eisenberger et al., 1990) Expectancies for pay, promotion rewards and approval, recognition, influence both correlated positively with perceived organizational support, job satisfaction, participation in decisions and job involvement

5 Satisfaction with supervisor

According to Kottke and Sharafinski (1988) just as employees form global perceptions conceming their valuation by the organization, they develop general views concerning the degree to which supervisors value their contributions and care about their well-being Supervisor support plays a significance role in creating employee motivation and autonomy The relationship between supervisor support and job satisfaction has received a great deal of attention in past research Previous research has examined the relationships between supervisor support and job satisfaction and reported a positive relationship between supervisor support and job satisfaction (Chang et al 2010) As supervisor take care to help and support the contact employees and are concerned about their needs, these employees will feel more satisfied (Griffin, Patterson and West, 2001) Such supervisor supportive behavior

has been found to be related to employee job satisfaction

Currently, available job satisfaction questionnaires are also inadequate for measuring the satisfaction with the supervisor construct For one, they are intended to assess satisfaction with multiple job facets, only one of which is supervision Locke’s (1976) Value-Percept Theory of Job Satisfaction, for example, holds that job satisfaction is influenced by events (ie., pay, benefits, working condition, promotion and recognition) and agents (i.e., coworkers, immediate supervisors, and the management structure as a whole)

Supervisory satisfaction relates to satisfaction with supervision rather than other conditions

or agents in the work place (Scarpello and Vandenberg, 1987) Exploration of supervisory satisfaction was undertaken with the study of job satisfaction, however, several major criticisms examining supervisory satisfaction in this manner were presented by Scarpello and Vandenberg (1987) They described satisfaction with supervisor as an employee's satisfaction with his or her immediate supervisor

CHAPTER3: HYPOTHESIS DEVELOPMENT

Upon the literature review, there is not enough theoretical background that can cover all factors affecting the employees’ satisfaction on their career And, although different research brings out different sets, there are still some main elements considered to be crucial factors that appeared on most of the researches Based on the previous researches about career satisfaction or job satisfaction and the current situation at IEI, the model will be featured in order to obtain the objective and further analyses by the variables such as empowerment at work, developmental experiences, work-related expectancies and satisfaction with supervisor which are believed to have impact on the career satisfaction of staffs working at International Education Institute, Vietnam National University, Hochiminh City

This study hypothesizes that:

- H1: Empowerment at work positively affects employee career satisfaction

- H2: Developmental Experiences positively affects employee career satisfaction

- H3: Work-related expectancies positively affects employee career satisfaction

- H4: Satisfaction with supervisor positively affects employee career satisfaction

The following framework shows the relationship between the independent and the dependent variables of the study The dependent variable is career satisfaction while the independent variables are empowerment at work, developmental experiences, work-related expectancies and satisfaction with supervisor

Fig 1: Hypothesized model of the study

CHAPTER 4; RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

1 Sample and data collection

The hypothesized framework of this study was tested by collecting data from the employees who are working at IEI-VNUHCM The structured questionnaires were directly and conveniently delivered to 260 full time employees under the assistance of the Board of director and the administration department

Quantitative method aims to provide reliable and hard statistics It “uses closed-ended questions, enabling the researcher to determine the exact percentage of people who answered yes or no to a question or who selected answer a, b, c, or d on a questionnaire One of the most common quantitative research techniques is the survey in which researchers sample the opinions of a large group of people” (Advertising & Marketing Tips, 2008) While the research is on employees” satisfaction on the career, this method proves to be absolutely suitable The most important point here is how to have a sample which can represent a particular group and how to design a reasonable questionnaire As long as these two mentioned things are satisfied, the research will produce the precise results as expected

2 Questionnaire and measurement

The questionnaire was designed basing on measured variables derived from the literature reviews for four independent variables and one dependent variable with total of 48 questions Most questions were set as statements on 5-point Likert scale In order to measure the relationship between variables (dependent and independent), the statistical package social sciences program (SPSS) was used for the analyses Reliability analysis, Descriptive statistics, Correlation and Multiple regressions are applied for analysis in this study The following describes how variables in this study are measured

Career satisfaction was measured with 5 items adapted from Greenhaus, Parasuraman, and

Wormley (1990), which assessed the degree to which the individual has progressed toward income, advancement, and skill development goals as well as general satisfaction with career progress Reported coefficient alpha values range from 83 to 89 (Aryee, Chay, & Tan,

1994; Greenhaus et al., 1990; Seibert, Crant, &Kraimer, 1990)

I am satisfied with the progress I have made toward meeting my goals for the

Empowerment at work was measured with the 12 items adapted from Spreitzer (1995) which describes the extent to which employees believe they are empowered in their jobs, basing on four cognitions of meaning, competence, self-determination and impact The reported coefficient alpha values range from 76 to 88 among factors

No Items(rated from | = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree)

In the positions that I have held at IEI, I have often been assigned projects that

19 have enabled me to develop and strengthen new skills

No Items(rated from 1= a very small extend to 5 = a very large extent)

Besides formal training and development opportunities, to what extent have your

20 | managers helped to develop your skills by providing you with challenging job assignments?

Regardless of your company’s policy on training and development, to what extent

21 | have your managers made a substantial investment in you by providing formal

Work-related expectancies was measured with 9 items adapted from Eisenberger, Fasolo, and Davis-LaMastro (1990) to describe the extent to which employees believe that higher levels of job performance will be rewarded through the subscales for pay/promotion reward

expectancies and approval/recognition expectancies Reported coefficient alpha values ranged between 77 and 89 (Eisenberger et al., 1990; Smith & Brannick, 1990)

No | Items(rated from I = definitely not part of my job to 5 = extremely true of my job)

It is more likely that I will be given a pay raise or promotion at my company if I

40 finish a large amount of work

No Items(rated from 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree)

25 | My supervisor’s fairness in appraising my job performance

26 | The way my supervisor is consistent in his/her behavior toward subordinates

27 | The way my supervisor helps me to get the job done

28 | The way my supervisor gives me credit for my ideas

29 | The way my supervisor gives me clear instruction

30 | The way my supervisor informs me about work changes ahead of time

31 | The way my supervisor follows through to get problems solved

32 | The way my supervisor understands the problems I might run into doing the job

33 | The way my supervisor shows concern for my career progress

34 | My supervisor’s backing me up with other management

35 | The frequency with which I get a pat on the back for doing a good job

36 | The technical competence of my supervisor

37 | The amount of time I get to learn a task before I’m moved to another task

38 | The time I have to do the job right

39 | The way my job responsibilities are clearly defined