UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY International School of Business ------------------------------ Nguyen Hong Mai PSYCHOLOGICAL CAPITAL, BURNOUT, AND QUALITY OF WORK LIFE: EVIDENCE FROM VIETNAM MASTER OF BUSINESS (Honours) Ho Chi Minh City – Year 2016 UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY International School of Business ------------------------------ Nguyen Hong Mai PSYCHOLOGICAL CAPITAL, BURNOUT, AND QUALITY OF WORK LIFE: EVIDENCE FROM VIETNAM MASTER OF BUSINESS (Honours) SUPERVISOR: Dr. Nguyen Thi Mai Trang Ho Chi Minh City – Year 2016 Acknowledgement I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor Dr. Nguyen Thi Mai Trang for the continuous support of my research, for her patience, motivation, and immense knowledge. Her guidance helped me in all the time of research and writing of this study.
In addition, I would like to thank my family and my friends for supporting me spiritually throughout writing this study. Therefore, I dedicate this work as a gift to them all. 1 Abstract The present study investigates the impacts of psychological capital on burnout and quality of work life of employees in Vietnam. The study based on positive organizational behavior theory to propose a model in which psychological capital has impacts on burnout and quality of work life.
This research also examines the roles of burnout in quality of work life. The model was tested with a sample of 302 employees working for firms in Ho Chi Minh City by means of structural equation modeling. The results show that the proposed model fits the data well and all hypotheses were supported. The test confirms that psychological capital has positive impacts on quality of work life and negative impacts on burnout of employees.
These findings verify the importance of psychological capital in work and lives in a transitioning market. Hence, psychological capital is important for enhancing employee’s quality of work life and reducing job burnout. In addition, firms should pay attention to this type of capital in their recruiting, training and career development programs. Keywords psychological capital, quality of work life, burnout, Vietnam 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ABSTRACT TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES LIST OF TABLES 1.
LITERATURE REVIEW AND HYPOTHESIS .4 Quality of work life .5 Moderating effects of demographics .1 Design and Sample. DATA ANALYSIS AND RESULT .4 Quality of work life .2 Limitations and directions for future research. 34 4 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Conceptual model. 8 Figure 2: Structural results (standardized estimates).
30 LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Sample characteristics. 18 Table 2: Measurement scale. 21 Table 3: Means, standard deviations, and standardized CFA loadings of items. 26 Table 4: Unstandardized structural paths in the model.
Introduction In today’s world, one of the fundamental strategic parts of an organization is human resource. Human resource can increase the resource capability of an organization in order to meet its objectives and for future growth (Armstrong, 2010). Human is also one of the most significant functions in economic productivity (Gavin & Mason, 2004). In order to get through the tough business environment and maintain sustainable growth, firms need to find out new methods to human resource management (Luthans, Norman, Avolio & Avey, 2008).
Researchers have focused on two components of the working people in recent years (Nguyen & Nguyen, 2012). The first component is the positive organizational behavior and its derivative psychological capital, which is described as an individual’s psychological state of development (Luthans et al., 2008) and the quality of work life is the second component (Sirgy, 2006; Wright & Cropanzano, 2004). Researchers show that there is a relationship between psychological capital and quality of work life (Nguyen & Nguyen, 2012; Nguyen, Nguyen & Minh, 2014) and a relationship between psychological capital and burnout (Luo & Hao, 2010; Luthans, Luthans & Luthans, 2004). Nevertheless, little information remains on the relationships between psychological capital, quality of work life, and burnout, notably in developing countries.
Moreover, the role of psychological capital and quality of work life of staff members has not gained much awareness by researchers in developing nations like Vietnam (Nguyen & Nguyen, 2012; Nguyen, Nguyen & Minh, 2014).