Job resourcefulness - antecedents and outcomes.pdf

UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY
International School of Business
------------------------------
HO TAN VUONG
Job Resourcefulness:
Antecedents and Outcomes
MASTER OF BUSINESS (HONOURS)
Ho Chi Minh City – Year 2018

UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY
International School of Business
------------------------------
HO TAN VUONG
Job Resourcefulness:
Antecedents and Outcomes
MASTER OF BUSINESS (HONOURS)
SUPERVISOR: DR. NGUYEN THI MAI TRANG
Ho Chi Minh City – Year 2018

1
Table of Contents
List of Acronyms............................................................................................................3
List of figures..................................................................................................................4
List of tables ...................................................................................................................5
Acknowledgement..........................................................................................................6
Abstract...........................................................................................................................7
Introduction ....................................................................................................................8
Literature review and hypotheses development ...........................................................12
The Five-Factor Model of personality traits .............................................................12
Job resourcefulness ...................................................................................................14
Personality traits and JR............................................................................................15
JR and job performance ............................................................................................18
The role of QWL.......................................................................................................19
Psychological hardiness and JR ................................................................................22
Research methodology .................................................................................................25
Research design.........................................................................................................25
Sample characteristics...............................................................................................28
Measurement.............................................................................................................29
Data analysis and results...............................................................................................30
The Cronbach’s alpha test.........................................................................................30

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Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) test.................................................................31
Composite reliability ( ) and average variance extracted ( ) test......................33
Structural model and hypothesis testing ...................................................................35
Hypothesis Testing....................................................................................................36
Multi-group analysis .................................................................................................37
Discussion.....................................................................................................................38
Conclusion and implications ........................................................................................40
Theoretical implications............................................................................................41
Implications for management....................................................................................42
Limitations and direction for future research ...............................................................43
References ....................................................................................................................45
Appendix 1: Guideline for pilot study..........................................................................56
Appendix 2: Vietnamese Questionnaire.......................................................................58
Appendix 3: Descriptive statistic of sample.................................................................60
Appendix 4: The results of Cronbach’s Alpha coefficient of reliability......................62
Appendix 5: CFA of the model ....................................................................................65
Appendix 6: Structural results (standardized estimates) of the model.........................69

3
List of Acronyms
JR: Job Resourcefulness
PH: Psychological Hardiness
QWL: Quality of Work Life
CFA: Confirmatory Factor Analysis
SEM: Structural Equation Modeling

4
List of figures
Figure 1: Conceptual model .........................................................................................24
Figure 2: Research procedure.......................................................................................25
Figure 3: Structural results (standardized estimates) of the model ..............................36

5
List of tables
Table 1: Standardized CFA loadings of items..............................................................32
Table 2: Measure correlations, the squared correlation, and AVE ..............................34
Table 3: Structural paths in the model..........................................................................35
Table 4: Standardized direct, indirect and total effects between constructs ................35

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Acknowledgement
Firstly, I would first like to express my honest thanks to my supervisor Prof. Nguyen
Thi Mai Trang for her patience, encouragement, and immense knowledge. Her
guidance and strongly support help me in all the time of writing and research of the
thesis, even in the moments of stressful.
Besides my supervisor, I would also like to acknowledge all teachers who taught
me in International School of Business (ISB) during MBUS course. The knowledge I
gained will certainly support not only for my work but also for my life in the future.
Thirdly, I would like to thank the proposal and final thesis defense committees,
especially Dr. Tran Ha Minh Quan and Dr. Nguyen Phong Nguyen for their insightful
comments and encouragement. Beside, my sincere thanks also go to all respondents
who participated in my pilot study and main survey.
I thank my classmates of MBUS 7 for useful discussions, for sleepless nights
studying together before examinations, and for all unforgettable moments we have had
in the last two years.
Last but not least, I must express my profoundly thanks to my family for give me
the best conditions for studying and doing this thesis. Especially, I would like to send
my thanks to Ha Thi Truc Mai, who is not only my MBUS 7 classmate but also my
wife, for supporting, encouraging and standing by my side in any circumstances.

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Abstract
The study investigates the impact of personality traits of openness to experience,
conscientiousness and psychological hardiness on job resourcefulness of service
employees in Vietnam. It also examines the relationships between job resourcefulness,
quality of work life, and job performance at individual level. An empirical test with a
sample of 217 employees from various service industries by means of structural
equation modeling indicates that these personality traits have a positive relative to job
resourcefulness. Furthermore, job resourcefulness has positive impact on quality of
work life, and together with quality of work life, has positive influence on job
performance of service employees. Based on these results, the study contributes to
personality theory and the author also suggests some implications for managers in
order to enhance individual performance and quality of work life through personality
traits and job resourcefulness.

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Introduction
Today’s competitive environment puts many challenges on managers in operating as
efficiently as possible across industries (Harris, Artis, Fogliasso, & Fleming, 2008;
Harris, Artis, Walters, & Licata, 2006; Harris, Ladik, Artis, & Fleming, 2013). In the
service industry, the reduction in organizational support and resource cutback (Harris
et al., 2006; Harris et al., 2013) has underlined the importance of finding quality
staffs, who can achieve their goals with limited resources. Researchers addressed this
problem with the development of the construct ―Job Resourcefulness‖ (JR) (Harris et
al., 2006; Licata, Mowen, Harris, & Brown, 2003). Resourceful staffs can take
advantage of everything available around them, create opportunities and persist in
trying different strategies to find the best tactics. As businesses have to maximize their
profits by operating both efficiency and effectiveness with resource constraints- the
era of ―do more with less‖ (Harris et al., 2006; Thurow & Cunningham, 1999), job
resourcefulness (JR) is becoming more and more important. Resourcefulness in work
means not only ―can-do‖ but also ―will-do-at-any-cost‖ attitude, ―out-of-the-box‖
thinking to solve the problems in every situation.
Licata et al. (2003) laid the foundation stone in conceptualizing and defining JR as
―an enduring disposition to garner scarce resources and overcome obstacles in pursuit
of job-related goals‖ (p. 257). As a situational-level personality trait, JR is a
hierarchical personality trait and is preceded by the combined effect of elemental traits
(e.g. conscientiousness, introversion) and compound traits (e.g. activity needs,
competitiveness) (Licata et al., 2003). This construct is aimed at assessing the staffs’
ability to work effectively in scare resource climate. A growing stream of

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development and application this construct has offered much to the marketing
literature.
Based on previous studies, JR was impacted by both intrapersonal and external
factors (Harris et al., 2008). Across different service industries, personality traits were
found to influence JR, especially ―openness to experience‖ and ―conscientiousness‖
which relevant to almost service industries (Licata et al., 2003). On the other hand,
role stressors (role conflict and role ambiguity) were revealed that negatively affect JR
(Harris et al., 2006). Authentic leadership is also a JR’s antecedent according to
Semedo et al. (2016). To the best of the author’s knowledge, psychological hardiness
has not been investigated as a JR’s antecedent. Psychological hardiness refers to
people’s commitment, control and challenge (Cole, Bruch, & Vogel, 2006; Cole,
Feild, & Harris, 2004; Kobasa, 1979; Maddi, 1999b). In service industries,
psychological hardiness seems to be a potential factor leading to resourcefulness.
Among outcomes of JR, Licata et al. (2003) found that JR affects job performance
whilst Harris et al. (2006; 2013) revealed that the outcomes are sales performance, job
satisfaction and intention to leave. JR also influences employees’ creativity (Semedo
et al., 2016) and burnout symptoms (Rod & Ashill, 2009). Recently, JR was
demonstrated to be a moderating factor of the impact of work-family and family-work
conflict on travel agencies employees’ burnout (Akgunduz, Bardakoglu, & Alkan,
2015). Although the literature on JR’s outcomes is quite adequate, the role of JR in
quality of work life is still under-investigated, based on the author’s knowledge.
Quality of work life (QWL) briefly mentions of the well-being of employees
(Sirgy, Efraty, Siegel, & Lee, 2001). A pleased employee will be a productive,

10
delicate and loyal employee (Greenhaus, Bedeian, & Mossholder, 1987), lead to the
development of both employee and organization. Employees’ work-life integration is
becoming significant business problem of 21st
century because it is related to
employees’ well-being (Harrington & Ladge, 2009). Researchers have showed that
QWL have a positive impact on job performance in Vietnam context (Nguyen,
Nguyen, & Tran, 2014; Nguyen & Nguyen, 2012). In addition, the dimensions of
personality traits are positive correlated with QWL (Kaushik & Tonk, 2008). The
understanding about the link between another personality trait (such as situation-level
personality trait - JR), QWL, and QWL’s outcome (such as job performance) should
be enhanced in order to contribute to work-life integration, especially in transition
markets like Vietnam.
As a transition economy, Vietnam is a potential context for the investigation of JR
and QWL of service employees. In 1986, Vietnam began market-oriented reform
program under socialist guidance, namely Doi Moi. With a centrally planned economy
before that time, domestic firms had little knowledge about market economics and
management due to the primarily focus on production (Nguyen, Barrett, & Fletcher,
2006; Nguyen & Nguyen, 2011). The World Trade Organization (WTO) accession
has provided a variety of opportunities and threats to Vietnamese organizations.
Opportunities come from the import - export trading of goods, materials, services and
technologies as well as international cooperation. Threats coming up with an open
market are the fierce competition and strict control of standards (e.g. quality and
safety) (Nguyen & Nguyen, 2011). To the aims of survival and development in this
competitive business climate, managers need to identify, maintain and nurture

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appropriate resources and capabilities. Therefore, individual resource, e.g.
resourcefulness, is therefore an indispensable element for human resources in today’s
competitive climate.
High-performing service employee enhances organizational competitive advantage.
Hence, researchers and managers in service industries are deeply concerning about
service employee productivity (Harris, Brown, Mowen, & Artis, 2014; Harris &
Fleming, 2017; Ye & King, 2016). Psychological factors which affect the productive
service employee correspondingly remain indispensable. Recent research highlights
the important role of service employee in productivity and performance, focusing on
individual resources (Harris & Fleming, 2017). As noted, service settings (including
banking, restaurant, healthcare, call center) have shown indications of cutbacks
(Harris et al., 2006; Harris et al., 2013) and JR was therefore more important. Base on
the author’s knowledge, there is quite limited evidence of JR in Vietnam economy’s
context up to now.
As mentioned above, Vietnamese organizations are facing fierce competition since
accessing WTO. In addition, resource cutback in service settings also is a difficult
situation for Vietnamese organizations, which has little knowledge of resource
management. The role of human resource, e.g. resourcefulness, consequently be more
crucial in Vietnam. The understanding about employees’ work-life integration also
needs to be evaluated in this situation. This study provides managers in transition
markets (such as Vietnam) a more comprehensive investigation about JR’s
antecedents and outcomes. The purposes of this study are to:

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 investigate the influence of personality traits of openness to experience,
conscientiousness from The Five Factor Model (McCrae & Costa, 2003)
and ―psychological hardiness‖ on JR.
 examine the relationships between JR, QWL, and job performance.
The structure of this paper is as follows: introduction, literature review and hypotheses
development, research methodology, data analysis and results, discussion, conclusion
and implications, limitations and direct for future research.
Literature review and hypotheses development
The Five-Factor Model of personality traits
From the beginning of the 20th century, the study of personality has been the
foundation of psychology and it is a mysterious and thorny field up to now (Monte,
1995). Personality refers to ―the intrinsic organization of an individual’s mental world
that is stable over time and consistent over situations‖ (Piedmont, 1998, p. 2) and
―long-lasting and important characteristics within an individual, one that continue to
exert a strong influence on behavior‖ (Ewen & Ewen, 2014, p. 9). In a simply way,
personality can be understood as a group of habitual behaviors, thinking and feeling.
Researchers have posited that basic personality traits affect service performance and
personality testing therefore is frequently used in hiring, promotion and assess
employee’s ability (Harris & Fleming, 2017).
Historically, psychologists have been endeavoring to develop a common and
systematic framework for interpreting individual differences. Galton seems to be the
first researcher who clearly identifies the basic lexical hypothesis, which is that the

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most critical individual differences in human dealings will be converted into single
term (Goldberg, 1990, 1993). In 1884, Galton investigated "the more conspicuous
aspects of the character by counting in an appropriate dictionary" and "estimated that
it contained fully one thousand words expressive of character, each of which has a
separate shade of meaning, while each shares a large part of its meaning with some of
the rest" (Galton, 1884, p. 181). Base on a Standard English dictionary, he tried to
classify the words related to personality. Galton’s work was first amended by Allport
and Odbert (1936), and later by Norman (1967).
In 1934, Thurstone carried out a factor analysis with 60 adjectives for describing
people in common use. As result, he concluded that 5 independent common factor are
sufficient. Using Thurstone’s approach, but Cattell came up with a more complex set
of personality factors, called 16 Cattell Personality Factor (Goldberg, 1990). Other
scientists analyzed Cattell’s 16 Factors and proved that only 5 factors can be
replicated in different contexts (Digman & Takemoto-Chock, 1981; Fiske, 1949).
Numerous subsequent studies have recognized the similar five factor structures for
reliability and generality (Borgatta, 1964; McCrae & Costa, 1987). These preliminary
researches led the way for the formation of The Five Factor Model. The Five Factor
Model of McCrae and Costa had been considered as one of the fundamental and core
criteria for the study of personality theory. This model is consisted of five independent
dimensions: neuroticism (sensitive/ nervous/ emotional/ vulnerable vs. secure/
confident/ calm/ hardy), extraversion (outgoing/ passionate/ active/ energetic vs.
solitary/ unfeeling/ passive/ reserved), openness to experience (inventive/ creative/
imaginative/ curious vs. consistent/ uncreative/ conventional/ cautious), agreeableness

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(friendly/ generous/ lenient/ compassionate vs. challenging/ stingy/ critical/ detached),
and conscientiousness (efficient/ conscientious/ ambitious/ organized vs. easy-going/
negligent/ aimless/ careless).
With the above description, personality is characterized by cognitive, emotional
and behavior components that are idiosyncratic (Mulyanegara, Tsarenko, & Anderson,
2009). Each personality factor consists of several components that are interrelated,
expressed as bipolarity traits such as negligent-conscientious. All five-factor
dimensions represent an individual’s personality, which can be high score in this trait
and low score in others (McCrae & Costa, 2003).
Job resourcefulness
According to Raymark, Schmit, and Guion (1997), JR is typical of work-related trait.
Licata et al. (2003) emphasized in their research that ―a job-resourceful employee is
able to accomplish his or her job-related tasks despite the presence of challenging
circumstances that would normally limit the ability to successfully reach performance
goals‖ (p. 258). As a situational level personality trait, JR is an enduring disposition,
results from pressure to act in a specific work context (Rod & Ashill, 2009).
Licata and colleagues (2003) also argued that JR does not follow a specific set of
behaviors but rather an intrinsic motive, driving the performance of such behaviors.
That is a mindset motivated to create new ideas and the ability to visualize appropriate
methods to achieve difficult goals. Resourceful staff can take advantage of everything
available around them, create opportunities and persist in trying different strategies to
find the best tactics. Harris et al. (2008) indicated that the ability to excel in resource

15
constraints’ climate is a critical element of individual’s success in a service
organization.
Therefore, resourceful employee is able to complete their work-task efficiently as well
as perform superior work performance comparing to less resourceful one. Not
surprisingly, JR has a significantly impact on job performance on both self-ratings and
supervisor-ratings, when personality traits are antecedents of it (Harris et al., 2013;
Licata et al., 2003).
Personality traits and JR
Despite the empirical work on antecedents of JR is limited, researchers have indicated
both intrapersonal factors (e.g., personality traits) and external factors (e.g., role
stressors) influence JR. In Licata et al.’s (2003) study, a hierarchical personality
model approach, adapted from 3M Model of Mowen (2000), was used to evaluate the
influences of traits on JR. This hierarchical personality theory posits that JR is placed
as a situational level trait, which are influenced by lower level traits (elemental and
compound traits) and influence higher level traits (surface trait), leading to
performance measures. With three distinct sectors in the service industries, several
personality variables were remarkably controllers of service employee performance,
mediated by JR. By inheriting the results of Hierarchical personality model, the
evaluation of each component of the Five-Factor personality traits to JR was
presented.
Openness to experience measures an individual’s science, creativity,
imaginableness and liberalism (McCrae, 1996). It also refers to the degree to which an

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employee is intellectual, inquiring, unique and how he or she can create ideas and
solutions (Bakker, Van Der Zee, Lewig, & Dollard, 2006). People with high score in
openness seems to be doing well in training settings, learning new things (Lievens,
Harris, Van Keer, & Bisqueret, 2003), especially in the under-resourced environment
that requires creativity, flexibility, learning. Creativity is always considered to be a
fundamental, prerequisite, and core element for effectiveness, and existence of
organization (Woodman, Sawyer, & Griffin, 1993). In addition, creative personality
has significantly correlation with creative performance (Oldham & Cummings, 1996).
Consequently, this construct has a close relationship with performance and
resourcefulness.
Conscientiousness refers to an employee’s responsibility, persistence, and hard-
working, dependable as well as punctual, organized in the workplace (Goodstein &
Lanyon, 1999). The conscientious staffs tend to be persistent and hard-working until
the assigned task is finished (John & Srivastava, 1999). High level of
conscientiousness may be perceived as being resolute and focused while low one
related to flexibility and spontaneousness. Obviously, these personal characteristics
are important and necessary attitudes to successfully achieve performance goals in
difficult circumstances.
Neuroticism describes employee’s emotional stability, based on the ability to cope
with distress. People who have high core in neuroticism tend to exhibit negative
behavior such as embarrassment, fear, worry, temperamental (Barrick & Mount,
1991). There is no doubt that neurotic employees will have bad perceptions of work
environment than emotionally stable ones (Erdheim, Wang, & Zickar, 2006), thus

17
resulting in low work efficiency and job performance. In addition, when meet
obstacles or challenges, neurotic employees will find it difficult to fulfill assigned
tasks with scarce. Hence, there is no suggestion on the link between neuroticism trait,
JR and job performance.
Extraversion reflects individual’s sociability, talkativeness, activeness and
stimulation (Goodstein & Lanyon, 1999). Extraverts refer to a high degree of positive
feelings as well as interconnections (Bakker et al., 2006). Moreover, extraverts are
cheerful and passionate, simply because they can overcome stress easily. Low
extraversion leads to quiet, reserved and sober characteristic. However, it’s not
sufficient evidence to propose a hypothesis about the relationship between
extraversion and JR.
Agreeableness is a dimension that measures how cooperative, trustful, generous,
lenient and good-natured an employee is (Barrick & Mount, 1991). Agreeableness is
associated with positive perception of others, thus it is imaginable that agreeable staffs
may have good relationship with colleagues (Shi, Lin, Wang, & Wang, 2009). Staffs
with high score in agreeableness may have strength in maintaining the internal
relationship, informational sharing, decision making in the organization. There is no
compelling evidence show that agreeableness affects JR and job performance.
With the descriptions and arguments above, in relationship with JR and job
performance, openness to experience and conscientiousness are most noticeable.
Intuitively, this is reasonable because resourceful staff need both creativity (openness)
and conscientious to take advantage of scarce resource to overcome difficulties.
Indeed, based on preliminary research of Licata et al. (2003), openness to experience

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and conscientiousness are the only two personality traits in the Five-Factor model that
influence JR and job performance in all of their studies (banking, restaurant, nursing
industries). This result is an important precondition for traits’ selection in later
research. With the research objects are employees in various service industries, the
selection of openness to experience and conscientiousness to represent Five-Factor
model of personality traits is essential. Thus, the following hypotheses are proposed:
Hypothesis 1: Openness to experience is positively related to JR.
Hypothesis 2: Conscientiousness is positively related to JR.
JR and job performance
Job performance at individual level refers to a set of personal behaviors or actions
corresponding with the organization’s objects. The relationship between JR and job
performance may be sponsored by motivational perspective. Licata et al. (2003)
affirmed that job-resourceful employee has ―a greater inherent drive to accomplish
job-related goals, even under resource-deprived conditions‖ (p. 258). It means that the
highly resourceful employees working in cutback environment, their inherent drive
will be encouraged: JR affects employees to achieve work goals (Licata et al., 2003),
motivates upper-level of job performance (Harris et al., 2006) as well as impulse
employees to innovate (Rod & Ashill, 2009). Therefore, a high level of JR may
motivate employee to complete work-task as well as deliver high performance. In
empirical terms, previous studies revealed that JR enhanced job performance in
nurses, restaurant and bank employees (Karatepe & Aga, 2013; Licata et al., 2003).
Moreover, the link between JR and job performance was found in division employees

19
of an electronics marketing and sales firm (Ho & Wong, 2009). According to Rod and
Ashill (2009), JR also elevated service recovery performance.
In service industries, JR positively affects job performance in both self-rated and
supervisor-rated level (Harris et al., 2013; Licata et al., 2003). Numerous researches
have examined the influence of internal factors on self-rated performance such as the
study of Deeter-Schmelz and Sojka (2007). In this study, evaluating job performance
at self-assessment level will be more appropriate and easier for data collection in
Vietnam. Therefore, the following hypothesis is hypothesized:
Hypothesis 3: JR is positively related to job performance.
Despite there were criticisms that the self-ratings is less accurate than peer-ratings
and supervisor-ratings, self-ratings may be a good value to ensure anonymity and/or
respondents feel no need to present themselves and/or social acceptance purposes
(Van der Heijden & Nijhof, 2004). Based on Rego & e Cunha (2008), ―employees
who self-describe as more/less productive are likely described by their supervisors as
more/less productive as well and are really more/less productive according to
objective standards‖ (p.742). In an organization, individuals directly experience in
real-world environments, observe others, self-assess as well as receive others’
assessment about their performance.
The role of QWL
There is a variety of definitions of QWL throughout previous research (Martel &
Dupuis, 2006). In the early 1970s, Walton (1973) proposed a multidimensional

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concept comprising eight major criteria of QWL and explained their interrelationship.
These criteria are:
(1) Adequate and fair compensation, (2) safe and healthy working conditions, (3)
immediate opportunity to use and develop human capacities, (4) opportunity for
continued growth and security, (5) social integration in the work organization, (6)
constitutionalism in the work organization, (7) work and total life space and (8)
social relevance of work life (Rose, Beh, Uli, & Idris, 2006, p. 62).
Recently, QWL regards to staff’s state of being healthy and happy. QWL is the
individual satisfaction not only in job but also in other life aspects such as family,
society, finance, and so on (Sirgy et al., 2001). In service context, adapted from Sirgy
et al. (2001), QWL is defined as ―employee satisfaction with a variety of needs
through resources, activities, and outcomes stemming from participation in the
workplace‖ (p. 242). In QWL literature, there are two main theoretical approaches:
need satisfaction and spillover theory. The need satisfaction approach to QWL is
adapted by Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, McClelland’s theory of needs, Herzberg’s
motivation-hygiene theory and Alderfer’s theory of motivation (Sirgy et al., 2001).
This approach to QWL implies that the level of individual’s satisfaction is in line with
needs. In addition, the spillover states that satisfactions in this area may affect
satisfaction in other areas. The conceptualization of QWL is the combination of
satisfaction of seven demands. These are health and safety, economic and family,
social, esteem, actualization, knowledge and aesthetics needs. In Vietnam, QWL
consists of three basic needs: survival needs, belonging needs and knowledge needs
(Nguyen et al., 2014; Nguyen & Nguyen, 2012).

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For past decades, QWL has been studied and identified as an important prerequisite
for organizational productivity. QWL is a comprehensive process that aims to increase
staffs’ satisfaction, leading to their job effectiveness and overall organizational
effectiveness (ellah Mejbel, Almsafir, Siron, & Mheidi, 2013). Moreover, QWL links
to staff performance productivity, loyalty and job efficiency in IT (Korunka,
Hoonakker, & Carayon, 2008), hospital staffs (Barzegar, Afzal, Tabibi, & Delgoshaei,
2012) and engineers (Maleki & Hasanmoradi, 2017). This research adapted Kurt
Lewin’s Field Theory of employee behavior, which describes the link between QWL
and performance (Kurt, 1997). As this theory stated, individual behavior and
performance may be affected by the level of perception and reaction to the
environment (Kohler & Mathieu, 1993), which can be referred to QWL environment
in this study. Previous studies have shown the significant influence of marketers’
QWL on job performance in Vietnam context (Nguyen et al., 2014; Nguyen &
Nguyen, 2012). This study inherits the results of previous researchers and re-evaluates
this relationship with other survey object, service employees, in order to contribute to
QWL literature. Thus:
Hypothesis 4: QWL is positively related to job performance.
Harris et al. (2006) affirmed that being resourceful leads to job satisfaction in the
process of completing job-tasks. Refer to fit theory of Edwards (1991), an employee
who exactly fits with job context will have the high level of satisfaction. Indeed, an
employee with high ratings of resourcefulness easily fits well in an environment of
scarce resources, hence has much satisfaction in work. In fact, a person who presents
resourceful in work will present resourceful in his/her off-of-job work. This leads to

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the fulfillment of all needs from work to daily life. Base on the author knowledge,
there are almost no studies evaluating the impact of JR on QWL. So, the following
hypothesis is proposed to fill this gap:
Hypothesis 5: JR is positively related to QWL.
Psychological hardiness and JR
Psychological hardiness, also known as hardiness, cognitive hardiness and personality
hardiness, is a personality trait which was first given by (Kobasa, 1979). As a pioneer
who investigated this personality trait, Kobasa (1979) suggested that psychological
hardiness functions as a resisting force in the confrontation with stressful events.
Other researchers have shown that hardiness affects the way individuals experience,
analyze and cope with stress (Maddi, 1999a) as well as increase performance,
conduct, and morale (Maddi, 1999b). Psychological hardiness is also a general
conception displayed as a stable disposition (Maddi, 1999b) and a model of attitudes
and skills (Maddi, 2007) which can change stressful situations from disasters into
development opportunities.
Psychological hardiness is described as a personality construct consisting of three
components: commitment, control, and challenge dispositions (Bartone, Ursano,
Wright, & Ingraham, 1989; Cole et al., 2004; Kobasa, 1979; Maddi, 1999b) . Kobasa,
Maddi, and Kahn (1982) defined commitment disposition as ―a tendency to involve
oneself in (rather than experience alienation from)‖ (p. 169). The committed
employees have a strongly belief that they can reduce the awareness of threat in
stressful situations. They also feel ―an involvement with others that serves as a

23
generalized resistance resource against the impact of stress‖ (Kobasa, 1979, p. 4).
Secondly, control disposition is ―a tendency to feel and act as if one is influential
(rather than helpless) in the face of the varied contingencies of life‖ (Kobasa et al.,
1982, p. 169). This implies that the individual’s perception and emotions are
influenced by imagination, knowledge, and skill when encountering contingent
situations. The person, who has highly sense of control, was hypothesized to have
decisive control, cognitive control, and coping skill (Averill, 1973). Control is
believed to increase stress resistance by turning events into something that fits into
life. Finally, challenge disposition is defined as ―the belief that change rather than
stability is normal in life and that the anticipation of changes are interesting incentives
to growth rather than threats to security‖ (Kobasa et al., 1982, p. 169). Employee who
has interesting experiences, flexible perception, ability to change is often well adapted
to the new situations. The challenge is to make an effort to transform one’s self, and to
develop instead of to conserve.
With the above description, the combination of commitment, control, and
challenge refers to healthy individual, enhancing stress resistance when coping with
contingency. It is easily to recognize the similarities in the literature of psychological
hardiness and JR. People who have psychological hardiness, by increasing their
abilities, find stressful situations as ―developmental provocative‖ opportunities
(Maddi, 2002). Therefore, hardy individuals need to practice and experience hardiness
in order to overcome stressful challenges. On the resourcefulness side, resourceful
people also have to deal with challenging situations (scarce resources) in order to
accomplish work-task in the long run. Resourceful people may take advantage of all

24
the resources around to solve stressful events and vice versa, hardy people may see the
difficulties of under-resource work environment as development opportunities. With
above arguments, the author hypothesizes the relationship of psychological hardiness
and JR as follows:
Hypothesis 6: Psychological hardiness is positively related to JR.
Under the roof of hierarchical personality model approach, motivational perspective,
Kurt Lewin’s Field Theory of employee behavior, and fit theory of Edwards (1991),
the conceptual model is presented in Figure 1.
Figure 1 Conceptual model
H4
H5
H3
H6
H2
H1
Openness to
Experience
Conscientiousness
Psychological
hardiness
Job
Resourcefulnes
s
Job
Performance
Quality of
Work Life
Personality traits

25
Research methodology
Research design
The research design consisted of three stages: draft questionnaire design, pilot survey
(qualitative research), and main survey (quantitative research). The research procedure
was illustrated as figure 2.
Draft questionnaire design
Pilot survey (Qualitative research)
Main survey (Quantitative research) and data analysis
Figure 2 Research procedure
After identifying the research objectives, the literature was subsequently reviewed.
The draft questionnaire was established by inheriting from relevant previous studies in
literature. This draft questionnaire was undertaken using seven-point Likert scale
Research Objectives Literature Review Draft Questionnaire
In-depth interview
with 18 respondents
Final Questionnaire
(Vietnamese)
Revised
measurements
Convenience
sampling with 300
employees
Cronbach’s Alpha Confirmatory Factor
Analysis (CFA)
Conclusion &
managerial implications
Results Structual Equation
Modeling (SEM)

26
ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). The target respondents were
service employees in Ho Chi Minh City; belonging to different sectors such as
bank/finance, sales, logistic, marketing, consultant (IT, architect), etc.
The pilot study was taken in qualitative stage. With this phase, in-depth interview
was used with 18 service employees. Previously, also in Vietnam context, (Nguyen,
Shultz, & Westbrook, 2012) evaluated the construct of PH with 6 business students
whilst the construct of QWL was examined with 18 marketers (Nguyen et al., 2014;
Nguyen & Nguyen, 2012). The author followed these studies about these two
constructs with the saturated point of 18. A group of 18 experiencer (who had over 3
years working experience) in various service fields was selected based on the author
connection. Although most of the constructs’ measurements are available in literature
and some constructs had been investigated in Vietnam, it is necessary to re-verify their
correspondence in this context (transition market) and this research object (service
employee). The purpose of this stage of the pilot study is to revise the final
questionnaire that suitable to this study’s objectives. As a result, there was one item in
the Vietnamese questionnaire need to be considered (QWL6: ―I feel appreciated at
work‖). The author and some experiencers finally decided to remove this item because
of the similarity between its meaning and the two items of job performance (JP3: ―I
think my manager believes I am an efficient worker‖ and JP4: ―I think my colleagues
believe I am a very productive employee‖). After finishing this step, the comments
and revisions of measurement were implemented (See Appendix 1).
Based on the result of pilot survey, the author whose first language is Vietnamese
initially translated this questionnaire into Vietnamese. After that, the author asked an

27
English teacher to back translate the Vietnamese questionnaire in to English and we
checked all items for translation error. After carefully consideration and adjustment,
there weren’t instances of any sematic differences between the translation and the
initial version. This final Vietnamese version with instructions was used in main
survey to ensure all respondents understand all details. The instructions also underline
that the questionnaire only attaches special important to respondents’ individual
opinions to reduce possible response bias. Furthermore, the first part of the
questionnaire is screening question, which emphases that this questionnaire focuses on
service employees only. The last part of questionnaire includes demographic
information. Respondents were asked to re-check and complete all questions before
sending back.
The main survey was undertaken using convenience sampling from August to
September, 2018. The sample size of the research depends on how the sample
estimates. According to Hair, Black, Babin, and Anderson (2014), the sample size as
general rule should be preferably 100 or larger and the minimum sampling should be 5
observations per each scale. Therefore, the model with 30 measurements should have
the minimum sample size is n = 30x5 = 150 observations. Beside, Tabachnick and
Fidell (2007) proposed the desired sample size for standard multiple regression
analysis is: n >50+8m (in which m = number of independent variables). In this study,
there are 3 independent variables. The required sample size correspondingly is
n>50+8x3=74 observations.
In accordance with the sample size requirement, a total of 300 Vietnamese
questionnaires were delivered to respondents through two channels: online social

28
media and face-to-face interview. Firstly, an online questionnaire version was created
using Google Forms. A total of 230 survey invitations to this online questionnaire
were sent to respondents, who from various service companies, through online social
media (Facebook, Zalo, Viber, Linkedin). About 120 invitations were sent by the
author while the remainders were sent by the author’s friends to their companies
(Platinum Global, Draftaway, New Star Logistic, Sacombank, Techcombank, PG
World, etc.). The aim of this action was to reach out more diverse respondents by
taking advantage of the friends’ relationships. Secondly, about 70 people were face-
to-face interviewed in office areas (District 1 and District 7). A small gift was sent
respectfully to each respondent who completed the questionnaire in direct interview.
As a result, there are 256 completed questionnaires returned, obtain 85.33%
feedback ratio. After rejecting the inappropriate responses, the number of usable
questionnaires for this study is 217, obtain 72.33% usable feedback ratio.
The purpose of this main survey, of course, is to validate the measures and test the
hypotheses. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was deployed to validate the
measures and structural equation modeling (SEM) was utilized to test the conceptual
model and hypotheses.
Sample characteristics
Based on a summary of the filled-in valid questionnaire responses, the cross-sectional
analysis of data was used to determine the proportion of respondents based on gender,
age group, position, field of service industries, income, work experience and
education level. Almost the value of kurtoses and skewnesses were between the range

29
of [-2, +2], which revealed that the acceptance of normal univariate distribution
(George & Mallery, 2003) (See Appendix 3).
In 217 feedbacks, 48.4% was male and 51.6% was female. With regard to age, the
majority are service employees aged from 25 to under 35 (130 employees, nearly
60%), the younger employees under 25 made up 30% (65 employees) that is higher
than employees from 35 to 45 (22 employees, 10%).
Regarding to position, a number of 146 respondents reveal that they are staff
(occupied 67.3%) while 20.3% with supervisor/leader and only 12.4% manager
participate. Although the survey covers a wide range of service industries, three of the
key service sectors are consultant service (29%), sales (19.8%), and bank/finance
(17.5%). Besides, the majority of service employees have their income range from 5
to less than 20 million VND, in which approx. 40% respondent has income from 5 to
less than 10 million VND and 35% from 10 to less than 20 million VND per month.
The statistics also reveals that most respondents were graduated, accounting for
80.6%. In term of work experience, the survey reaches approx. 37% employee with
from 2 to less than 5 years working experience. Especially, 42% employee with less
than 2 year working and 21% people have worked over 5 years. A detailed descriptive
statistics of sample is presented in Appendix 3.
Measurement
Six constructs were examined: personality traits (openness to experience,
conscientiousness), JR, job performance, psychological hardiness, and a
multidimensional construct - QWL. All measurements are reported in Table 1.

30
Personality traits’ measurements were adapted from Licata et al. (2003) and
Mowen (2000). Four-item per scale was employed for openness to experience and
conscientiousness, which were widely accepted by previous scientists. The scale
evaluates the level respondents describe themselves through these items. JR will be
assessed on four-item scale developed by Licata et al. (2003).
Job performance in this study is self-rated performance of service employees. It
was measured with three items from Staples, Hulland, and Higgins (1999) and one
item from Rego and e Cunha (2008). Psychological hardiness was measured by six-
item scale, adapted from Cole et al. (2006). QWL consisted of three components of
need satisfactions: survival needs, belonging needs, and knowledge needs. A set of 8
items (one items of belonging needs was removed from pilot study) was measure
these components, which were introduced by Sirgy et al. (2001) and modified by
Nguyen and Nguyen (2012).
Data analysis and results
As discussed previously, the measurements of these constructs were refined using
Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of reliability test. After that, confirmatory factor analysis
(CFA) was used to validate the scale, structural equation modeling (SEM)
subsequently to test the model and hypotheses. The multi-group analysis also was
employed to test the moderating effect of genders.
The Cronbach’s alpha test
It was required to test the Cronbach’s alpha of all constructs’ scale to assess the
reliability of the research concept. According to Leech, Barrett, and Morgan (2013),

31
Cronbach’s alpha should be over 0.7, but over 0.6 could be acceptable. In addition, if
item which item-total correlation was negative or two low (less than 0.3), it should be
removed.
The result of Cronbach’s alpha test performed that all scales are above 0.7, which
indicated that these constructs have reasonable consistency reliability. In detail, the
Cronbach’s alpha for openness to experience is 0.883, for conscientiousness is 0.891
and PH is 0.909. JR and job performance also have their Cronbach’s Alpha over 0.8
(0.883 for JR and 0.924 for job performance). About second-order construct, the
Cronbach’s for all QWL items is 0.912 (0.817 for Survival needs, 0.766 for Belonging
needs, and 0.896 for Knowledge needs). Also, no item has the corrected item-total
correlation less than 0.4. In summary, all items are sufficient for establishing the main
survey to test the model and hypotheses. The result of Cronbach’s Alpha coefficient of
reliability is present in Appendix 4.
Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) test
As mention above, the CFA approach with the maximum likelihood estimation
method was utilized to assess the quality of the measures. The saturated model (final
measurement model) was conducted by combining the CFA model of the second-
order construct (QWL) and the CFA models of first-order constructs (openness to
experience, conscientiousness, PH, JR, and job performance). Because QWL’s
measures unidimensional, three summates (survival needs, belonging needs, and
knowledge needs) were used to test the structural models. It helps decrease the
number of free parameters considerably, leading the estimation more reliable without
increasing sample size (Bagozzi & Edwards, 1998).
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32
Table 1 Standardized CFA loadings of items
Items M SD Loadings t-value
Openness to experience: = 0.883; = 0.654
I frequently feel highly creative. PT1 4.65 1.35 0.833 ---
I am imaginative. PT2 5.05 1.37 0.805 13.826
I usually find novel solutions. PT3 5.02 1.25 0.829 14.444
I am more original than others. PT4 4.75 1.41 0.765 12.855
Conscientiousness: = 0.897; = 0.685
I am efficient. PT5 5.28 1.29 0.853 14.695
I am organized. PT6 5.14 1.51 0.824 ---
I am orderly. PT7 5.25 1.44 0.809 14.075
I am precise. PT8 5.06 1.40 0.825 13.959
Job resourcefulness (JR): = 0.884; = 0.655
I am very clever and enterprising in doing my
job.
JR1 4.65 1.26 0.777 12.981
I am a very resourceful person in finding ways
to do my job.
JR2 5.00 1.20 0.832 14.310
I pride myself on being able to make things
happen in the face of scarcity – a situation
which lacks resource.
JR3 4.99 1.23 0.819 ---
On the job I am inventive in overcoming
barriers.
JR4 4.92 1.23 0.809 13.750
Job performance (self-rated): = 0.924; = 0.754
I believe I am an effective employee. JP1 5.40 1.38 0.867 17.820
I am happy with the quality of my work
output.
JP2 5.08 1.43 0.852 17.188
I think my manager believes I am an efficient
worker.
JP3 5.37 1.51 0.882 ---
I think my colleagues believe I am a very
productive employee.
JP4 5.42 1.35 0.871 17.985
Psychological hardiness (PH): = 0.910; = 0.632
Despite setbacks, I remain committed to
accomplishing job tasks.
PH1 5.05 1.46 0.615 10.170
When necessary I am willing to work extra
hard.
PH2 5.53 1.33 0.721 12.789
When a problem occurs at work, I am usually
able to deal with it.
PH3 5.22 1.27 0.875 18.040
I am in control of most things that happen to
me at work.
PH4 4.85 1.32 0.810 15.573
I enjoy facing new challenges at work. PH5 5.23 1.39 0.832 16.365
I am able to cope with unexpected problems at
work.
PH6 5.10 1.38 0.883 ---
Quality of Work Life (QWL): = 0.940; = 0.814
Survival needs: = 0.818; = 0.600
My job provides good health benefits. QWL1 4.33 1.64 0.770 ---
I am satisfied with what I’m getting paid for
my work.
QWL2 4.61 1.55 0.771 11.379
My job does well for my family. QWL3 4.76 1.49 0.782 11.556
Belonging needs: = 0.771; = 0.627
I have good friends at work. QWL4 5.19 1.43 0.811 11.573
I have enough time away from work to enjoy
other things in life.
QWL5 5.01 1.62 0.772 ---

33
Knowledge needs: = 0.898; = 0.747
I feel that my job allows me to realize my
full potential.
QWL7 4.73 1.56 0.851 16.951
My job allows me to sharpen my
professional skills.
QWL8 5.08 1.58 0.839 16.520
My job helps me develop my creativity. QWL9 4.91 1.51 0.901 ---
The CFA result for proposal model with 385 degrees of freedom received an
acceptable fit to the data: Chi-square = 799,924 ( = .000); /df = 2.078; GFI =
.812; TLI = .913; CFI = .923; and RMSEA = .071 and the factor loadings of all items
were high and substantial (the lowest loading was 0.615) and all significant (p<0.001)
(See Appendix 5). This CFA model has already included two covariance lines
between PH1-PH2 and PT5-PH6 due to critical misfit as Modification Indices (Mis)
showed.
Composite reliability ( ) and average variance extracted ( ) test
The means and standard deviation of items, CFA loadings, composite reliability ( ),
average variance extracted ( ) were shown in Table 1. As shown in Table 1, all
constructs had desirable levels of composite reliability ( ), ranging from 0.771 to
0.924 (Bagozzi & Yi, 1988). According to Fornell and Larcker (1981), the convergent
validity was achieved when average variance extracted ( ) of all constructs greater
than 0.5. Table 1 above indicated that the minimum of was 0.600 (greater than
0.5). Therefore, the scales used in this study were unidimensional and the within-
method convergent was achieved.
Regarding to discriminant validity test, average variance extracted ( ) were not
totally greater than the shared variance among pairs of constructs (the square of their
correlations). According to Table 2 below, there were still pairs of constructs that not
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34
meet the requirement of this discriminating test and have high correlation such as PH-
job performance (0.823), JR-openness to experience (0.866), JR-QWL (0.842), and
openness to experience-QWL (0.828). Therefore, additional empirical test for
discriminant validity by deploying chi-square different test for constrained and
unconstrained models was utilized (Joreskog, 1971 cited in Anderson & Gerbing,
1988).
The result of chi-square different test with two separate constructs (i.e. PH and job
performance) revealed that the unconstrained model is better fit than the constrained
model with one construct (i.e. the correlation between PH and job performance is
constrained to 1.00). Statistics show that df increase from 34 to 35, chi-square increase
from 62.582 (for unconstrained model) to 65.873 (for constrained model) and =
0.07. Thus, discriminant validity is not achieved. Similar results of chi-square
different test with remaining pairs of constructs were obtained. The author will discuss
about this situation at the end of this study.
Table 2 Measure correlations, the squared correlation, and AVE
Measure
Openness
to
Experience
Conscientiou
ssness
JR
Job
Performance
PH
QWL
Openness to Experience 1
Conscientiousness 0.787**
(0.619)
1
JR 0.866**
(0.750)
0.812
(0.659)
1
Job Performance 0.751**
(0.564)
0.814**
(0.663)
0.814**
(0.663)
1
PH 0.677**
(0.458)
0.760**
(0.578)
0.791**
(0.626)
0.823**
(0.677)
1
QWL 0.828**
(0.686)
0.730**
(0.533)
0.842**
(0.709)
0.834**
(0.696)
0.735**
(0.540)
1
** Correlation is significant at 0.01 level
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