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

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI VIETNAM JAPAN UNIVERSITY ------------------------- NGUYEN QUANG MINH IMPACTS OF INTERPERSONAL CONFLICT AND OCCUPATIONAL STRESS ON THE ORGANIZATIONAL COMMITMENT OF VIETNAMESE EMPLOYEES, AND THE ROLE OF SOCIAL SUPPORT MASTER’S THESIS BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION Hanoi, 2020 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI VIETNAM JAPAN UNIVERSITY -------------------------------- NGUYEN QUANG MINH IMPACTS OF INTERPERSONAL CONFLICT AND OCCUPATIONAL STRESS ON THE ORGANIZATIONAL COMMITMENT OF VIETNAMESE EMPLOYEES, AND THE ROLE OF SOCIAL SUPPORT MAJOR: BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION CODE: 8340101.01 RESEARCH SUPERVISORS: Prof. Dr. MOTONARI TANABU Assoc.Prof. Dr. NHAM PHONG TUAN Hanoi, 2020 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT In this part, I would like to express my deepest gratitude and massive thanks to my supervisors Prof. Motonari Tanabu and Assoc.Prof. Nham Phong Tuan. With your support, guidance, comments, recommendations and encouragements, I have already overcome troubles in doing the master thesis and finally completed it. I would like to share my thanks to all of respondents who helped me accomplish the thesis with your provided data. I also want to send my big thanks to Huong-san, an assistant of MBA Programs and all member of MBA-03 class. Thank to them, I have the memorable and meaningful time in Vietnam Japan University in two years and I will never forget it. Thank you Viet Nam Japan University for supporting me a lot as well as giving me an memorable opportunity to experience the academic environment that I could gain beneficial knowledge and assist me in expanding my perspective in life. Thank you so much for everything. For me, that was unforgettable time in my life and also the great motivation and inspiration for me to improve myself in the future. Nguyen Quang Minh 11/5/2020 ABSTRACT Purpuse of the study: In the real time, the working context in Vietnam is recognized with the high level of competitive pace, so the ratio of workers rotation is a crucial point for the development of busisses. As a result, many Vietnamese employees have a sense of changing their works because they tend to seek for the better working environment in the new places where they can be treated with full of respective. This is a noticeable issue because it places a crucial task for Human Resource Managers in controlling and managing the labour of the company. My research concentrates on two main parts that have already occured in the working environmenet in Vietnam. The first problem links to the impacts from interpersonal conflict with both supervisors and coworkers on the commitment behaviors of Vietnamese employees. In the second part, the issue of social support that employees can gain from outside of the company will decides the level of organizational commitment of them. Besides, the factor occupational stress will also interfere in this relationship with the specific role as a mediator. Within this relationship between three factors, the study contribute exams the effect from social support on engagement attitude of Vietnamese workers in both direct and indirect effect. Research Methodology/Design: The research will be implemented through 217 responses of employees who are working in Vietnam. After collecting data from respondents, the next process will be using the SPSS tool for the analyzing step. Findings: Conflict with supervisors is the important point to decide commitment behavior of Vietnamese employees, but the conflict with colleagues seems to increase a weak significant on their commitment. Besides, Social Support will strongly contribute for the organizational commitment behavior, but it is lower when stress at work interferes. Stress also has the weak positive effect with social support and commitment, and takes a role as mediator when receiving the effect from social support on the side of family. Research Limitations: The way that employees produce the weak positive effect from their conflict with coworkers to their commitment behavior has not been clear with its reasons. Another limitaition is the size of social support is only narrowed in the scale from Family and Friends. And the final limitation is there is a shortage of determination about the positive impact from Stress at work with social support and organizational commitment. Contribution: Explore the factors affecting on Vietnamese workers‟ commitment behavior. Keyword: interpersonal conflict, social support, occupational stress, organizational commitment. TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................... 1 1.1 Background of the Study ........................................................................................... 1 1.1.1 Practical Issues .................................................................................................... 2 1.1.2 Theoretical Issues ................................................................................................ 4 1.2 Research Objective and Research Questions............................................................. 7 1.3 Subject and Scope of the Study ................................................................................. 7 1.4 Outline of the Thesis .................................................................................................. 8 CHAPTER 2. LITERATURE REVIEW AND HYPOTHESES DEVELOPMENT ......... 9 2.1 Review of Conceptual Framework and Literature Background ................................ 9 2.1.1 Interpersonal Conflict .......................................................................................... 9 2.1.2 Social Support ................................................................................................... 16 2.1.3 Occupational Stress ........................................................................................... 20 2.1.4 Organizational Commitment ............................................................................. 24 2.2 Review of Relevant Theoretical Model ................................................................... 26 2.3 Hypotheses Development and Conceptual Model................................................... 30 2.3.1 Interpersonal Conflict with Supervisors and Organizational Commitment ...... 31 2.3.2 Interpersonal Conflict with Colleagues and Organizational Commitment ....... 31 2.3.3 Social Support and Occupational Stress ........................................................... 32 2.3.4 Occupational Stress and Organizational Commitment ..................................... 33 2.3.5 Social Support and Organizational Commitment ............................................. 34 2.3.6 Interpersonal Conflict with Supervisors and Occupational Stress .................... 34 2.3.7 Interpersonal Conflict with Colleagues and Occupational Stress ..................... 35 CHAPTER 3. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY .............................................................. 39 3.1 Sampling .................................................................................................................. 39 3.2 Data Collection Procedures ..................................................................................... 40 3.3 Data Analysis ........................................................................................................... 41 3.4 Measurements .......................................................................................................... 41 3.5 The Development Processs of the Questionnaire .................................................... 42 CHAPTER 4. RESEARCH ANALYSIS AND RESULTS .............................................. 44 4.1 Demographic Analysis............................................................................................. 45 4.1.1 Frequency Analysis ........................................................................................... 45 4.1.2 Descriptive Analysis ......................................................................................... 47 4.1.3 Reliability and EFA Analysis ............................................................................ 51 i 4.2 Analyzing results of the relationship between “Interpersonal Conflict” and “Organizational Commitment” ...................................................................................... 64 4.3 Analyzing results of the relationship between “Interpersonal Conflict” and “Occupational Stress” .................................................................................................... 68 4.4 Analyzing results of the relationship between “Social Support”, “Occupational Stress” and “Organizational Commitment” ................................................................... 72 4.4.1 The result of the relationship among Social Support from Family, Occupational Stress and Organizational Commitment .............................................. 72 4.4.2 Analyzing the relationship among Social Support from Friends, Occupational Stress and Organizational Commitment ..................................................................... 76 4.5 Hypotheses Testing .................................................................................................. 79 4.6 The comparison of the research result between Robert Bosch Corporation and VietAbank. ..................................................................................................................... 80 4.6.1 Robert Bosch Gmbh Company ......................................................................... 80 4.6.2 VietAbank Company ......................................................................................... 82 CHAPTER 5: DISCUSSIONS, IMPLICATIONS AND LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY.............................................................................................................................. 84 5.1 Discussions of the Study .......................................................................................... 84 5.1.1 The relationship between “Interpersonal Conflict” and “Organizational Commitment” ............................................................................................................. 84 5.1.2 The relationship between “Interpersonal Conflict” and “Occupational Stress” 87 5.1.3. The result of the relationship between “Social Support”, “Occupational Stress” and “Organizational Commitment” ............................................................... 88 5.1.4 The difference in these relationships between Robert Borsch Corporation and VietAbank .................................................................................................................. 91 5.2 Implications of the Study ......................................................................................... 93 5.3 Limitations of the Study .......................................................................................... 96 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................................. 99 REFERENCE .................................................................................................................. 101 APENDIX ii LIST OF TABLES Table 2.1 The general definition of Interpersonal Conflict types in an organization .... 10 Table 2.2 The reviewed instruments for measuring Interpersonal Conflict .................. 14 Table 2.3 All items of the measured instruments for Interpersonal Conflict with Supervisors and Colleagues ((Spector & Jex, 1998) (Belausteguigoitia et al., 2016) ... 15 Table 2.4 The reviewed instruments for measuring Social Support .............................. 18 Table 2.5 All items of the MSPSS instruments for measuring Social Support (Zimet et al., 1988) ......................................................................................................................... 20 Table 2.6 All items of the measured instrument for Occupational Stress (Cullen et al., 1985)............................................................................................................................... 23 Table 2.7 All items of the measured instrument for Organizational Commitment (Allen & Meyer, 1990) .............................................................................................................. 26 Table 3.1 Measured Instruments of all related variables in the study ........................... 42 Table 4.1.1 The Frequency Statistics Table ................................................................... 45 Table 4.1.2 The table of Frequency Analysis for Age, Gender and Education Level ... 46 Table 4.1.3 The codes of relevant variables ................................................................... 48 Table 4.1.4 The descriptive statistics table of “Interpersonal Conflict with Supervisors ........................................................................................................................................ 48 Table 4.1.5 The descriptive statistics table of “Interpersonal Conflict with Colleagues ........................................................................................................................................ 49 Table 4.1.6 The descriptive statistics table of Social Support ....................................... 49 Table 4.1.7 The descriptive statistics table of Occupatoinal Stress ............................... 50 Table 4.1.8 The descriptive statistics table of Organizational Commitment ................. 51 Table 4.1.9 The Reliability Table of Interpersonal Conflict with Supervisors .............. 52 Table 4.1.10 The table of EFA Analyzing for Interpersonal Conflict with Supervisors ........................................................................................................................................ 53 Table 4.1.11 The Reliability Table of Interpersonal Conflict with Colleagues ............. 54 Table 4.1.12 The table of EFA Analyzing for Interpersonal Conflict with Colleagues 54 Table 4.1.13 The Reliability Table of Social Support ................................................... 56 Table 4.1.14 KMO and Barlett‟s Test, and Total Variance tables of Social Support .... 57 Table 4.1.15 The table of Rotated Component Matrix for Social Support before removing items ............................................................................................................... 57 iii Table 4.1.16 The table of Rotated Component Matrix for Social Support after removing items ............................................................................................................... 58 Table 4.1.17 The Reliability Table of Occupational Stress ........................................... 59 Table 4.1.18 The table of EFA Analyzing for Occupational Stress .............................. 60 Table 4.1.19 The Reliability Table of Organizational Commitment ............................. 62 Table 4.1.20 The table of EFA Analyzing for Organizational Commitment ................ 63 Table 4.2.1 The correlations table of three variables ICC, ICS and OC........................ 65 Table 4.2.2 The results of Regression Analysis for ICS, ICC and OC .......................... 67 Table 4.3.1 The correlations table of Interpersonal Conflict and Occupational Stress . 69 Table 4.3.2 The regression analysis table of Interpersonal Conflict and Occupational Stress .............................................................................................................................. 70 Table 4.4.1 The outcome variables of the mediator relationship (with Social Support from Family) .................................................................................................................. 73 Table 4.4.2 The description of effect of Social Support from Family on Organizational Commitment ................................................................................................................... 75 Table 4.4.3 The outcome variables of the mediator relationship (with Social Support from Friends) .................................................................................................................. 77 Table 4.4.4 The description of effect of Social Support from Friends on Organizational Commitment ................................................................................................................... 78 iv LIST OF FIGURES Figure 2.1 The conceptual model of the effect of Interpersonal Conflict on Organizational Commitment (Imanol Belausteguigoitia et al., 2016) ........................... 27 Figure 2.2 The general view of the Interpersonal Conflict‟s impacts (Frone, 2000) .... 28 Figure 2.3 The Model of the relationship between Interpersonal Conflict and Job Stress (Haq, 2011) .................................................................................................................... 29 Figure 2.4 The conceptual research model of the study ................................................ 37 Figure 4.1 The results of impacts from Interpersonal Conflict on Occupational Stress 71 Figure 4.2 The effect of mediation relationship between Social Support from Family, Occupational Stress and Organizational Commitment .................................................. 76 Figure 4.3 The resuts of all variables in Robert Bosch Company ................................. 81 Figure 4.4 The resuts of all variables in VietAbank Company...................................... 82 Figure 5.1 The research model with final results ........................................................... 91 v LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ICS ICC OS OC SS Interpersonal Conflict with Supervisors Interpersonal Conflict with Colleagues Occupational Stress Organizational Commitment Social Support vi CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background of the Study Observing deeper into Vietnam‟s society today, it is evident that Vietnam is a developing country with a high growth rate in the world. The development of Vietnam can be observed in many industries and fields of various activities. Along with this development, we can notice that Vietnam is also gradually expanding international cooperation with other territories around the world. An example of Vietnam's internationalization can be found through some typical cooperation agreements such as Free Trade Agreement (FTA), Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) or Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) (General Statisitc Office of Vietnam, 2019). Based on those international agreements, Vietnam is standing chances to cooperate with many other areas around the world. Having the opportunity to develop based on the current situation of internationalization, it is indispensable for many Vietnamese businesses to emerge, including domestic enterprises, startups, and international joint venture enterprises. This has made Vietnam become an ideal business environment with a high pace of dynamic and competitiveness. Based on the data from the General Statistics Office of Vietnam in 2018, the population of Vietnam is roughly 94.6 million that proves Vietnam is a relatively populous country in the world. Thank the high population, combining with the strong pace of internationalization, there are many domestic and international corporations that have been formed and hold many opportunities to take advantage of the potential factor as a human resource in Vietnam. For Vietnamese companies, they will have the opportunity to recruit potential workers and turn around human resources so as to create the highest value for their 1 businesses. As for foreign businesses, in addition to capturing high-quality human resources in Vietnam, they also focus on hiring Vietnamese laborers with their low budget, which helps a lot in cost savings and increases business growth. Facing many opportunities, companies operating in Vietnam will always focus on the quality of their human resources and also have their own policies to attract workers from one place to another. Besides the relatively competitive market economy in Vietnam, the rotation of resources is stronger and the impact of businesses on employees will have a great impact within only by the smallest policies or decisions. In contrast, for the Vietnamese workers, because the competitiveness between businesses is very large, they will have a lot of chances to see themselves in the business, assess it and select the suitable places for them to continue their careers. Consequently, in the scope of the study, I want to focus deeply on the aspect of organizational behaviors of employees in Vietnam, specifically the organizational commitment issue of Vietnamese employees in the current social context. From the study of Organizational Commitment, I hope that my contributions to this research will be beneficial for Vietnamese businesses in understanding its employees, as well as giving an overview of factors influencing the "Organizational Commitment". In the near future, the research can also assist businesses in retaining their human resources during the current development period. As I mentioned about Organizational Commitment, this is a backlog issue in Vietnamese businesses. Therefore, to get specific evidence on this issue, I want to present specific shreds of evidence of Organizational Commitment in both the “Practical Issues” and "Theoretical Issues". 1.1.1 Practical Issues In the current context, there is an emergent issue in Vietnam is the increasing rate of employee turnover. In general, the problem of leaving employees so far is very 2 common and based on many different factors leading to the employee's quitting decision. Once the employee resignation issue is raised, we need to ask a question that "What has affected the employee's commitment to the organization" when making this decision. To put this issue in Vietnam society, a reality that can be seen in the corporate environment is that the commitment to the organization in the workplace environment in Vietnam is rapidly declining. This issue is currently concerned and much evidence has proved this fact. Researching on this issue, Anphabet, a pioneer company in Vietnam for a comprehensive employer brand solution, conducted a research on the job market, namely by conducting surveys of up to 75,418 employees. The result was that they measured the employee turnover rates in Vietnam in 2017 and 2018 at 16% and 20% respectively, and Anphabe also forecasts this figure could reach 22% in 2019 (Anphabe, 2018), and this figure will gradually increase from the year 2020. Due to the concentration of internationalization with a high level of competitiveness, the level of turnover is also high and it causes a huge loss for the company in terms of Human Resources. For example, it makes the recruitment for replacement can account for 1520% salary of a year, or the compensation is higher if the quitter is the excellent employees because of the loss of knowledge, relationships and training costs. This is a heated topic and many authors have been focusing on this issue. Therefore, many authors stand on the manager's perspective and see this as a part of Human Resource Management. Under the perspective of a researcher, I would like to make this issue more obvious and contribute to conflict management for companies. In addition to the figures that Alphabe has researched on employee turnover rates in Vietnam, some of the other sources also prove this alarming fact. 3 In the report of Navigos Search, the retail sector faced a high rate of turnover. Specifically, 28% of employees lack their commitment to the organization, 49% of employees feel vulnerable to being approached by companies in the same industry and 60% of employees think their average tenure with their job is only 2 to 3 years (Navigos Group, 2018). In the 2016 survey report of Talentnet and Mercer, besides Retail with a high rate of turnover (39.2%), other fields also recognize these issues such as Medicine (17%), Technology (16.2%). Through the data that organizations have researched on the labor market in Vietnam, it can be realized that the lack of engagement to enterprises and the high rate of leaving become more common, especially in specific industries. 1.1.2 Theoretical Issues Facing organizational commitment issue, this can be considered as a relatively common problem in many countries around the world, not only existing in Vietnam. Studying on this issue, Turunen (2014) concludes that commitment to an organization is a crucial issue and this affects many related fields as well as the market of human resources. In addition to the perspectives on the role of organizational commitment, organizational commitment affects employees, who tend to be more satisfied with their work and reduce the risk of leaving the organization if containing a high level of commitment. Consequently, two elements deciding the success of an organization are Organizational Commitment and Job Satisfaction (Mathur & Salunke, 2013). Besides, Organizational Commitment has the profound impact on Knowledge Management in both direct and indirect ways (Rocha et al., 2008) accompanying with the implication to employees‟ Job Performance (Rafiei et al., 2014). Normally, studying the responsibility of organizational commitment, the authors often focus on measuring the low or high level of commitment behavior (Meyer & 4 Allen, 1984). With high organizational commitment, the employee can enhance the quality of working pracice and working capacity (Arthur, 1994), besides commitment of work with low pace places several negative consequences relating to leaving the job and behavior of defection (Blau & Boal, 1987). The role of Organizational Commitment is very significant for the development of the business. However, achieving the commitment of employees in the company is a challenge because there are always many factors involved in the commitment behaviors of workers. Jawaad et al (2019) toward the Human Resource Management sector, the organizational behaviors embedded in the influence of factors such as enrolling, workplace concern, job estimation, rewards and acceptance, and instruction process. Relating to this aspect, many authors also focus on studying the relationship between working pleasure and company engagement behavior, specifically through career development, pride at work, or emolument payment (Ali et al., 2014). According to Allen and Meyer (1990), Organizational Commitment is measured based on the nonphysical situations of attitude and thoughts toward the organization. Therefore, the working place is a business environment where the linking between employees and their executives, or even coworkers is obvious (Subramanian, 2017). In this relationship among people, the interpersonal relationships will bring the connection to individual behaviors (Frone, 2000), and one of the main factors existing among them is called “Interpersonal Conflict”. Besides the factors mentioned above, within the scope of the study, it is essential to concentrate on the "Interpersonal Conflict" having impacts on Organizational Commitment, as this factor will be related to the result of individual study of mental process (Frone, 2000). In the aspect of Human Resouce Management, workplace conflict at the workplace stems from many diverse factors such as salary, 5 appraisals, psychological motivation, or working environment, in addition to employee conflict at work often. Moreover, Interpersonal Conflict is recognized by the roots from the distinction in different identiy and consciousness of life values (Isa, 2015). When employees have a conflict with each other, its impact on the business is utterly clear, as the implications to firm operation which including cliens, workers, financial issues, or internal system (Eunice et al., 2015) and conflict can also mitigate the efficiency of company operation leading to reduced capacity (Omisore & Abiodun, 2014). The consequences of Interpersonal Conflict can also be recognized in both misconduct and hatred attitude (Bibi et al., 2012). Interpersonal Conflict can also relate to engagement practice of employees (Belausteguigoitia et al., 2016), and dominates the quality of managerial arrangement besides the pride at work and commitment attitude (Medina et al., 2005). In the company, Interpersonal Conflict has been divided into 2 dimensions when moving to both bosses and coworker and releases different outcomes, which include the implications of commitment demeanour (Frone, 2000). Relating to the factors that influence organizational commitment, within this study, I also focus on the social aspects of an individual. Specifically, the level of commitment to an organization is maintained or not only based on the effects of stress at work, as well as social support from society, also known as Social Support. The main plan of the study will aim to two parts. The first part is investigating more clearly the implications of interpersonal conflict towards the organizational commitment of Vietnamese employees. Another part is clarifying directly the impacts of Social Support to Organizational Commitment, but the Occupational Stress factor, also known as workplace stress, will act as the mediator, which is affected by social support before indirectly influencing the commitment behaviors of Vietnamese workers. 6 1.2 Research Objective and Research Questions - Research Objectives: Investigating the impacts of Interpersonal Conflict, Occupational Stress, and Social Support on the Organizational Commitment of Vietnamese employees. Meanwhile, the Occupational Stress takes the role of mediator, affected by Social Support and mediated the relationship between Social Support and Organizational Commitment. - Research Questions: Q1: How does Interpersonal Conflict with Supervisors impact on Organizational Commitment of Vietnamese employees? Q2: How does Interpersonal Conflict with Colleagues impact on Organizational Commitment of Vietnamese employees? Q3: How does Occupational Stress impact on Organizational Commitment of Vietnamese employees? Q4: How does Social Support impact on Organizational Commitment of Vietnamese employees? Q5: How does Social Support affect Occupational Stress of Vietnamese employees? 1.3 Subject and Scope of the Study - The subject of the study will be the Vietnamese employees working in Vietnamese companies in a different type of job. However, the number of companies they are working will be narrow in only 3 in this study, and they are in a similar field. - The Scope of the Study: The research is conducted in Vietnam and the data collection time for this study from 5th April, 2020 to 15th April, 2020. All respondents in this research are Vietnamese and they are working in Vietnam companies. 7 1.4 Outline of the Thesis Besides the parts of abstract, research content, reference, and appendix, the study includes five chapters as below. Chapter 1: Introduction: Mentioning the background of the research including both practice issue and theoretical issue; research objective and research questions; subject and scope of the study; and thesis outline. Chapter 2: Literature Review and Hypothesis development: introducing the literature of former authors about “Interpersonal Conflict”, “Social Support”, “Occupational Stress”, and “Organizational Commitment. Chapter 3: Research Methodology: Describing the method of collecting data, analyzing and forming the final results. Chapter 4: Research Analyzing and Results: Based on the data collected, the study will extend to analyzing by using SPSS. The final results will be displayed as the frequency, descriptive, correlation, and regression before concluding the relevant information to the study. Chapter 5: Recommendation, Solution and Conclusion: After analyzing the final results, there are recommendations and solutions for the issues relating to interpersonal conflict, social support, and occupational stress that having effect on Organizational Commitment. This is based on the author knowledge and could improve the organizational performance in reality. 8 CHAPTER 2. LITERATURE REVIEW AND HYPOTHESES DEVELOPMENT 2.1 Review of Conceptual Framework and Literature Background In this chapter, the literature of the terms “Interpersonal Conflict”, “Social Support”, “Occupational Stress”, and “Organizational Commitment” will be presented and made clear when being used in this study. 2.1.1 Interpersonal Conflict 2.1.1.1 Interpersonal Conflict Definitions Before going into the "Interpersonal Conflict", it is necessary to understand the previous studies of "Conflict", which appeared in many the literature reviews by different authors. Presently, there are many various definitions of "Conflict", Omisore and Abiodun (2014) cited that the ideal way to understand Conflict's definition should be divided into three distinct approaches: a functional approach, situational approach, and interactive approach. As a result, in order to grasp the definition of conflict, we can rely on the definition in three kinds of approaching. In the book “Conflict resolved? A Critical Assessment of Conflict Resolution” (Tidwell, 2001), as for the definition of conflict by author George Simmel in 1955, he pointeds “conflict acts as the method with tackling divergent dualism to archive the unity, even it may eliminate the benefit from another conflict parties”. Meanwhile, following the situation approach, the book also mentioned the conflict based on Bercovitch‟s definition in 1984 as “a situation creates the unbreakable aims and values among various parties”. Finally, according to the interactive approach, conflict was compared with “the interaction among people who has the dependent on each other, and perceives the inappropriate purposes and the intervention from each other 9