Psychological capital, job attitudes and job performance of employee

eferring to situations in which job-related factors interact with employees to change their psychological and/or physiological status. Job stress is the feeling of a person being asked to do something different from the normal or desirable activities in the workplace, caused by opportunities, difficulties, or requirements related to important work results (Parker & DeCotiis, 1983). 2.1.3.5. Employee’s turnover intention Turnover intention is the best prediction of job transfer (Mobley et al., 1979). An employee's resignation intention is an employee's decision or behavioral 12 intention to leave his / her current job in the the coming year (Epstein, 2005). Turnover intention is an intention of which an employee develops an attitude of leaving his or her organization (Sahoo et al, 2015). Turnover intention refers to the attitude of employees leaving an organization (Lu et al., 2016). Turnover intention is the basic stage prior tothe actual resignation (Rehman and Mubashar, 2017). 2.2. Theoretical framework 2.2.1. The theory of psychological capital In this study, the theory of psychological capital proposed by Luthans and colleagues is considered as the fundamental theory of psychological capital. Accordingly, the study considers psychological capital as a high-level construct that consists of four components: self-efficacy, optimism, hope, resiliency. Because of state-like, the psychological capital of an individual is easily molded, adjusted and ready to change, and develop. 2.2.2. Theory of job performance 2.2.2.1. Theory of job performance of Campbell (1990) Campbell (1994) states that there are 8 components at the most common level under the model of job performance, comprising (i) job-specific task proficiency ; (ii) non-job-specific task proficiency ; (iii) written and oral communication; (iv) demonstrating effort ; (v) maintaining personnel discipline ; (vi) facilitating peer and team performance; (vii) supervision/ leadership; (viii) management/ administration. Campbell et al. (1996) also emphasize that three components: job-specific task proficiency, demonstrating effort and maintaining personnel discipline are the basic factors which are applicable to all professions. 2.2.2.2. Theory of contextual performance of Borman and Motowidlo (1993). The model of contextual performance includes 5 aspects that represent contextual performance: (i) resilience, enthusiasm, and extra effort when necessary to complete the mission; (ii) volunteering to perform informal jobs that are assigned; 13 (iii) help and cooperate with peers; (iv) follow the organization's rules and procedures; (v) approve, support, and protect the goals of the organization. The theory of Borman and Motowidlo has many similarities with Campbell’s, but only focuses on job performance related to the implementation context. And it also does not have any addition to or clarification of this aspect in comparison to that of Campell’s. Therefore, the theory of job performance of Campbell (1990) is selected and used as the fundamental theory of employee’s job performance. 2.2.3. Theory of job attitudes 2.2.3.1. Need – satisfaction theoretical model of job attitudes According to Salancik and Pfeffer (1978), job attitude is considered as the result of a relationship between individual needs and the job nature or the job situation. Accordingly, when the characteristics of the job are compatible with an individual's needs, he or she is satisfied with the job and may also be more motivated to work. 2.2.3.2. Affective Events Theory Weiss and Cropanzano (1996) proposed a theory of job attitude called Affective Events Theory (AET). The main content of this theory focuses on the structure, causes and results of emotional experiences in the workplace with the view saying that emotional experiences also have an important impact on an individual's job satisfaction. 2.3. The relationships between psychological capital, job attitudes and job performance. 2.3.1. The relationship between psychological capital and job performance Self-efficacy (Bandura, 1997), hope (Peterson & Byron, 2008), optimistic (Corr & Gray, 1996), resiliency (Youssef & Luthans, 2007) have a positive effect on employee’s job performance. The theory of psychological capital and previous empirical studies has suggested that psychological capital (as a higher-order 14 construct) has a positive impact on an employee’s job performance. Psychological capital is used to improve job performance (Luthans & Youssef, 2004). According to Luthans, Avolio, Avey, and Norman (2007); Luthans, Norman, Avolio, and Avey (2008), with a higher level of psychological capital, employee has more resources to achieve his job goals and create more efficiency at work. The results of the positive relationship between employee’s psychological capital and his job satisfaction are obtained in many previous empirical studies of Aminikhah et al. (2016); Pouramini and Fayyazi (2015); Bergheim, Nielsen, Mearns, and Eid (2015); Kwok, Cheng, and Wong (2015). Hypotheis H1: Psychological capital has a positive influence on job performance. 2.3.2. The relationships between psychological capital, job satisfaction and job performance 2.3.2.1. The relationship between psychological capital and job satisfaction Self-efficacy has a positive impact on job satisfaction (Badran & Youssef- Morgan, 2015; Kwok et al., 2015). Hope helps employees try to achieve their goals even when they encounter various troublesome obstacles and they have a tendency to satisfy what they have achieved (Froman, 2010). The optimism helps people have a positive thinking towards life and job satisfaction because optimists tend to believe in positive future results. Youssef and Luthans (2007) also believe that optimism and resilience also have a positive effect on employee’s job satisfaction. Hypothesis H2: Psychological capital has a positive influence on job satisfaction. 2.3.2.2. The relationship between job satisfaction and job performance Some researchers say that there was theoretically-based exist to the positive relationship between job satisfaction and employee’s job performance. Intuitively, these two concepts are mutually related (Iaffaldano & Muchinsky, 1985). However, 15 there is still controversy and inconsistency in many empirical studies (Saari & Judge, 2004). The study proposes the following research hypothesis: Hypothesis H3: Job satisfaction has a positive influence on job performance. 2.3.3. The relationships between psychological capital, organizational commitment and job performance 2.3.3.1. The relationship between psychological capital and organizational commitment With self-efficacy, employee believes that difficulties and obstacles will help them to be well-trained and mature (Luthans et al., 2015). When employee is assigned works suitable to his job needs or he himself is supported to set work goals easily, he will be satisfied and has more willingness to work at his organization for long term period. In other words, this employee will have feeling to be attached with the organization. Hope pushes employee to have a future vision, job itself and job’s success. Hopeful employee feels positive about his job (Farran, Herth, & Popovich, 1995) and wants to keep working at organization. Results of empirical studies of Larson and Luthans (2006); Youssef and Luthans (2007) show that there is a relationship between hope and employee’s organizational commitment. Kluemper, Little, and DeGroot (2009) say that optimists tend to believe in positive results in future. This optimistic interpretation style helps them to objectively perceive temporary events caused by external factors (Youssef & Luthans, 2007). It also helps optimists to have positive feelings to both their life and their job that they are assigned. Apart from optimism, resiliency to challenges in the workplace also makes the employee feel positively while evaluating his job. He will feel satisfied his job’s needs and gain a working commitment attitude at the organization in long term period. Results of empirical studies of Luthans and Jensen (2005); Larson and Luthans (2006); Newman et al. (2014); Aminikhah et al. (2016) show that there is a positive effect of psychological capital on employee’s organizational commitment. 16 Hypothesis H4: Psychological capital has positive influence on organizational commitment. 2.3.3.2. The relationship between organizational commitment and job performance Employees who commit to the organization focus more on getting the organization's goals than specific tasks (Hulin, 1991). They try to accomplish and achieve high performance in tasks assigned with the belief that what they do will contribute to the accomplishment of organization’s goals and values. Previous studies using meta-analysis method of Wright and Bonett (2002); Jaramillo, Mulki, and Marshall (2005); Riketta (2002) and empirical studies of Meyer, Paunonen, Gellatly, Goffin, and Jackson (1989); Shore and Martin (1989) also show that organizational commitment has a positive impact on job performance. This study proposes hypothesis as follows: Hypothesis H5: Organizational commitment has positive influence on job performance. 2.3.4. The relationships between psychological capital, job stress and job performance 2.3.4.1. The relationship between psychological capital and job stress Self-efficacy affects how people perceive and interpret facts. People with a low level of confidence in themselves believe that they lack the resources to handle difficulties and easily fall into stressful situations; on the contrary, people with a high level of confidence will be less stressed. This was also supported by Bandura (2008). Self-efficacy is related to job stress (Siu, Spector, Cooper, & Lu, 2005). In addition, people with high hope are motivated by a sense of competence to develop methods to achieve what they want, which helps them find alternative ways of achieving goals in case the initial ones have come to a standstill (Luthans & Youssef, 2004). Therefore, difficulties and adversities arising in the work duration or the pressure from the overload are expected to overcome by people who have high hope. As a result, 17 people with high hope are less worried about stressful situations and better adapt to changes in the working environment (Kwok, Cheng, & Wong, 2015). What is more, optimism allows individuals to have favorable conditions and avoid unhappiness in life, promote their self-esteem and spirit, shield them from sorrow, sin, torment, and despair (Luthans & Youssef, 2004). Highly optimistic people have a positive point of view about the job and think that the difficulties and pressures in the workplace are temporary, and will be ended soon. Meanwhile, resilience can be a key factor in determining how people respond to a stressful environment (Avey, Luthans, & Jensen, 2009). Individuals with a high level of resilience are better equipped to cope with stress in a constantly changing work environment because they are willing to accept new experiences, flexibly adapt to changing work needs, and express emotions more stable against difficulties (Tugade, Fredrickson, & Feldman Barrett, 2004). As a high-level concept composed of four components: self-efficacy, hope, optimism, and resiliency, the psychological capital of employees also affects their job stress. Psychological capital is considered as a positive capital to combat the work stress of employees (Avey et al., 2009). Hypothesis H6: Psychological capital has a positive influence on job stress. 2.3.4.2. The relationship between job stress and job performance With the concept that job stress is conceptualized as the mismatch of relationships between employee’s characteristics and work environment, Beehr and Newman (1978) identify seven key aspects of work stress including (i) Working environment, (ii) Personal characteristics, (iii) Implementation process, (iv) Individual consequences, (v) Organization consequences (vi) Adaptive responses, (vii) Time. The relationship between aspects of work stress is simply described by Beehr and Newman (1978). Agreeing with the definitions of work stress of Lazarus (1966), Margolis and Kroes (1974), Caplan et al. (1975), Beehr and Newman (1978) also point out that the stress occurs when existing interaction between the 18 psychological and physiological states of an individual (the aspect of individual characteristics) and related factors involving to work (working environment aspects) such as job requirements, employee expectations on their own role into the organization, etc. Hypothesis H7: Job stress has a negative influence on job performance. 2.3.5. The relationships between psychological capital, turnover intention, and job performance. 2.3.5.1. The relationship between psychological capital and turnover intention Avey & ctg. (2011) arrange the turnover intention into the group of the employee’s undesirable job attitudes and affirm the exist of a negative relationship between the turnover intention and the psychological capital of the employee. According to Yim & ctg. (2017), the psychological capital and the turnover intention of the employee are in relation to each other and the concentration to the employee's psychological ability is considered as a suggestion to reduce his turnover intention. Avey & ctg. (2009) find psychological capital as a positive capital to combat employee resignation. Psychological capital helps reduce the negative impact of the employee’s resignation intention (Karatepe and Karadas, 2014). Tuten and Neidermeyer (2004) also recommend the employee’s regisnation intention will be increased with the low level of psychological capital. Self-efficacy is related to the employees' resignation intention (Harris and Cameron, 2005). People with more hopes have a tendency to better adapt with changes in the working environment and have less resignation intention (Kwok & ctg., 2015). Optimism allows individuals to have favorable conditions and avoid unhappiness in life, boost their self-esteem and spirit, shield them from sorrow, sin, torment and despair (Luthans and Youssef, 2004) Hypothesis H8: The employee’s psychological capital has a negative relationship with the employee’s turnover intention. 19 2.3.5.2. The relationships between turnover intention and job performance. Experimental studies by Shafique & ctg (2018), Shu & ctg (2018), Biron and Boon (2013), Rutherford & ctg (2012), Jaramillo & ctg (2006) have the same conclusion that the employee’s turnover intention have a negative relationship with the employee’s job performance. Hypothesis H9: The employee’s turnover intention has a negative relationship with the employee’s job performance. 2.4. Overview of the previous research 2.4.1 Previous research on the relationships between psychological capital and job satisfaction, organizational commitment, job stress, turnover intention. The study surveyed 40 previous studies on the effects of psychological capital on job attitude and job performance of employee published from 2005 to 2018, of which, 4 studies using meta-analysis and 36 studies using quantitative analysis methods. The number of studies on the relationship between psychological capital and employee’s job performance, employee’s job satisfaction, employee’s organizational commitment, employee’s job stress, and employee's turnover intention is 19, 21, 10, 9, and 12, respectively. According to the obtained results of previous studies, psychological capital has a positive relationship with employee’s job performance, job satisfaction, organizational commitment. Besides, psychological capital has a negative relationship with job stress, turnover intention. 2.4.2. Previous research on the relationships between job attitudes and job performance The study also surveyed 35 previous studies on the impacts of employee’s job attitudes including job satisfaction, organizational commitment, job stress, turnover intention on employee’s job performance. All these studies were published from 1984 to 2018, of which 7 studies using meta-analysis and 28 studies using quantitative analysis methods. Specifically, the number of studies on the relationship between job satisfaction, organizational commitment, job stress, turnover intention, 20 and employee’s job performance is 18, 16, 8, 8, respectively. Generally, the obtained results of previous studies show that job satisfaction, organizational commitment has positive relationships with employee’s job performance and job stress, turnover intention has negative relationships with employee’s job performance. 21 CHAPTER 3 – RESEARCH DESIGN 3.1. Research Process 3.2. Research methodology The study uses the combination of qualitative research method and quantitative research method. 3.2.1. Qualitative research method Referring to the survey questionnaires of previous studies, this research has designed an interview questionnaire (draft) and used qualitative analysis methods to edit, complete to an interview questionnaire (official) for research data collection. Specifically, the qualitative analysis activity is conducted to : (i) Examine the feasibility of applying a 5-level scale in measuring responses; (ii) Test the suitability and the consistency of the content of the pre-designed scale; (iii) Add new measurement variables to convey the meaning of the scale to fit the research context in Vietnam. Based on the research matters and the interviewees, researchers on human resource management, senior and mid-level managers at enterprises, and employees with at least five years of working experience are selected to study in this qualitative research activity. The purpose of this selection is to try getting multi-dimensional, critical, and complementary views from theoretical and practical perspectives.The sample size for this qualitative research activity is 10, including 02 researchers, 04 managers, 04 employees. To collect qualitative data, the collection tool used is a semi-structured outline to guide the discussion. This outline is divided into 3 parts with 23 open- ended questions about employee’s psychological capital, job attitudes, job performance as well as the relationship between concepts and a pre-designed questionnaire. 22 The two collection techniques used are individual discussion and group discussion. The former is used when collecting data from researchers (to clarify and deepen the problem) and from managers (due to their tight schedules). In addition, group discussion with the above mentioned is not appropriate because the agreement is not high, which can not be easy in a discussion (Tho, 2013). The latter is used when collecting data from employees. The content of the discussions is consolidated, analyzed, and used as a basis to complete the questionnaire. 3.2.2. Quantitative research method Apart from the descriptive statistics, reliability analysis of scales, exploratory factor analysis (EFA), confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), common method variance (CMV) test, structural equation model (SEM) are conducted to estimate the relationship between concepts using SPSS 25 software and AMOS 24 software. 3.3. The research model and proposed hypotheses 3.3.1 The research model Job satisfaction (denoted by SA), organizational commitment (denoted by OC), job stress (denoted by JS), turnover intention (denoted by TI) are four employee’s job attitudes are considered in relation to psychological capital (denoted by PsyCap) and employee performance (denoted by JP). In the real working context, there are always many different job attitudes of the employee at the same time. Therefore, the study proposes an overall research model (Figure 3.2) to consider the simultaneous impact of all four job attitudes on the relationship between employee's psychological capital and job performance. This approach helps gain a close understanding on the most real working context referring mediating role of job attitudes to the relationship between employee's psychological capital and employee's job performance. 23 Figure 3.2 - The overall research model on the relationship between psychological capital, job attitudes and job performance of employees Besides, four specific research models are given (figure 3.2a, figure 3.2b, figure 3.2c, figure 3.2d) to separately investigate the effects of each above job attitudes on the relationships between psychological and job performance. This approach helps understand the mediating role of each specific job attitude to the relationship between two mentioned concepts. Figure 3.2a – Research model on the relationship between psychological capital, job satisfaction and job performance of employees (Model No. 1) Figure 3.2b – Research model on the relationship between psychological capital, organizational commitment and job performance of employees (Model No. 2) PsyCap JP SA H1 H2 H3 PsyCap JP SA H1 H2 H3 TI JS OC H4 H6 H8 H5 H7 H9 PsyCap JP OC H1 H4 H5 24 Figure 3.2c – Research model on the relationship between psychological capital, job stress and job performance of employees (Model No. 3) Figure 3.2d – Research model on the relationship between psychological capital, turnover intention and job performance of employees (Model No. 4) 3.3.2. The proposed hypotheses 3.4. Development scales 3.4.1. Psychological capital scale With the purpose of evaluating employee’s psychological capital level, this study refers to the PCQ-24 psychological capital questionnaire edition which has been very popular in a lot of previous studies. Through discussion with experts, pre- design questionnaire is edited and appended. Specifically, the optimism scale has 02 existing items revised, the resiliency scale has 01 items altered and there are 2 new items added for each scale including hope, resiliency, and optimism. Therefore, the numbers of each component is 6, 8, 8, 8 respectively and the final psychological capital scale included 30 items. 3.4.2. Job performance scale The study has adopted from previous studies of Nguyen and Nguyen (2012); Rego and Cunha (2008); Staples, Hulland, and Higgins (1999) to design questionnaire on employee’s job performance. Then the study edits 01 item and adds PsyCap JP JS H1 H6 H7 PsyCap JP TI H1 H8 H9 25 3 new items based on the experts’ opinion. Finally, job performance is measured by 07 items. Last but not least, five-point Likert scale (1 = Strongly disagree, 5 = Strongly agree) is used to measure the response level. 3.4.3. Job satisfaction scale The measurement scale of job satisfaction is built thanks to Job Satisfaction Survey (JSS) by Spector (1985) as well as studies by Netemeyer et al. (1997), and Jung and Yoon (2015), including 7 measurement variables. Throughout the consultation sought from experts, two new measurement variables are added. The official employee satisfaction job scale consists of 9 measurement variables. 3.4.4. Organizational commitment scale Pre-design scale on employee’s organizational commitment refers to the revised version of TCM Employee Commitment Survey of Meyer, Allen, and Smith (1993). After experts’ discussion, 04 reverse-scored (negative) items are converted to positive items, 03 items are edited to make the meaning clearer and 02 new items are added. Hence, organizational commitment scale consisted of 20 items, including three components such as: affective commitment, continuance commitment, normative commitment. 3.4.5. Job stress scale The study has referred to the Job Stress Scale (JSS) developed by Parker and DeCotiis (1983) to measure job stress. Qualitative research activities were conducted to help complete the study of employees' job stress by editing 02 measurement variables and adding 01 new ones to the scale. 3.4.6. Turnover intention scale This study’s initial scale of employees' turnover intention is built thanks to scales in the previous studies by Avey et al (2009), Crossley and ctg (2002), Crossley and ctg (2007). In qualitative research activities, experts have proposed adding 2 new measurement variables. Therefore, the official employee’s turnover intention scale used in this study includes 7 measurement variables. 26 3.4.7. Other scales Besides