Journal of Macromarketing http://jmk.sagepub.com/ Psychological Capital, Quality of Work Life, and Quality of Life of Marketers : Evidence from Vietnam Tho D Nguyen and Trang T M Nguyen Journal of Macromarketing 2012 32: 87 originally published online 22 September 2011 DOI: 10.1177/0276146711422065 The online version of this article can be found at: http://jmk.sagepub.com/content/32/1/87 Published by: http://www.sagepublications.com On behalf of: Macromarketing Society Additional services and information for Journal of Macromarketing can be found at: Email Alerts: http://jmk.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts Subscriptions: http://jmk.sagepub.com/subscriptions Reprints: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav Permissions: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav Citations: http://jmk.sagepub.com/content/32/1/87.refs.html >> Version of Record - Apr 9, 2012 OnlineFirst Version of Record - Sep 22, 2011 What is This? Downloaded from jmk.sagepub.com at UNIV TORONTO on November 13, 2012 Psychological Capital, Quality of Work Life, and Quality of Life of Marketers: Evidence from Vietnam Journal of Macromarketing 32(1) 87-95 ª The Author(s) 2012 Reprints and permission: sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/0276146711422065 http://jmk.sagepub.com Tho D Nguyen1 and Trang T M Nguyen2 Abstract This study examines the roles of psychological capital (PsyCap) in job performance and quality of work life (QWL) of marketers in a transitioning market, Vietnam It also investigates the impacts of marketers’ QWL on their job performance and quality of life (QoL) A test based upon a sample of 364 marketers in Ho Chi Minh (HCM) City reveals that PsyCap has positive impacts on both job performance and QWL of marketers In addition, QWL underlies both job performance and QoL of marketers These findings confirm the importance of PsyCap in marketers’ work and lives in a transitioning market Keywords quality of work life, quality of life, psychological capital, job performance, Vietnam Introduction People play a key role in economic productivity (Gavin and Mason 2004) and the ‘‘flat world’’ competition has allowed or forced people around the world to cooperate and to compete with each other (Friedman 2007) Such a new business environment requires firms to have a new approach to human resource management in order to survive and to create sustainable growth and development (Luthans et al 2008) Regarding people in the workplace, there are two areas, among others, that have received much attention by researchers in the last few years The first is the positive organizational behavior and its derivative psychological capital, which is defined as an individual’s psychological state of development (PsyCap; Luthans et al 2005; Luthans et al 2008) The second is quality of work life (QWL; Sirgy 2006; Wright and Cropanzano 2004) and the relationship between work and life (Harrington and Ladge 2009) Research shows that there is a relationship between PsyCap and job performance (Luthans et al 2005; Luthans et al 2008), and a relationship between QWL and job performance (Koonmee et al 2010) However, little empirical evidence exists on the nature of or relationships among PsyCap, QWL and quality of life (QoL), especially in transitioning markets Furthermore, to the best of our knowledge, little attention has been paid to the role of PsyCap in QWL and QoL of marketers in transitioning markets such as Vietnam Thus, the purpose of this study is to investigate the roles of PsyCap in job performance and QWL, and subsequently, in QoL of marketers in Vietnam Vietnam provides a good case for the study of PsyCap and QWL of marketers In 1986, the Vietnamese government initiated a new economic reform program, aiming to transform from a centrally planned economy to a market-oriented economy under socialist guidance Under the centrally planned system, business activities of Vietnamese firms focused primarily on production These firms lacked knowledge about market economics and marketing management (Nguyen and Nguyen 2010) The movement toward a market economy, together with entry to the World Trade Organization (WTO), has forced Vietnamese firms to change business practices Instead of focusing on production and relying primarily on the government planning system for distribution and other functions typically associated with marketing management, firms now are required to make products, to develop brands, and to find markets for their products/brands They are also required to produce higher quality and more competitive brands and are required to effectively market their brands to compete successfully with international brands in their home markets, and, when possible, in export markets In so doing, they are confronted with several difficulties, one of which is a shortage of qualified marketers (Nguyen and Nguyen 2011) Thus, research in the area will assist firms in understanding the role of PsyCap in QWL of marketers in order to stimulate them to University of Economics, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam University of Economics and Law, Vietnam National University, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam Corresponding Author: Tho D Nguyen, University of Economics, HCM City, 17 Pham Ngoc Thach, District 3, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam Email: ndtho@ueh.edu.vn Downloaded from jmk.sagepub.com at UNIV TORONTO on November 13, 2012 88 Journal of Macromarketing 32(1) Psychological Capital H4 employee performance productivity and loyalty (Korunka, Hoonakker, and Carayon 2008; Rego and Cunha 2008) To reiterate, marketers’ QWL is expected to have a positive impact on their performance Therefore, the authors propose the following hypotheses: Job Performance H2 H3 Quality of Work Life H1 Quality of Life Hypothesis 1: QWL has a positive impact on QoL Hypothesis 2: QWL has a positive impact on job performance Figure Conceptual model effectively and efficiently work for firms, which in turn may enhance worker well-being and Vietnam’s socioeconomic development Below, the authors provide a literature review and hypotheses; articulate the research method, data analysis, and results; offer a discussion and implications; and conclude with limitations and directions for future research Literature Review and Hypotheses Conceptual Model Figure depicts a conceptual model explaining the role of PsyCap in QWL and subsequently in job performance and QoL of marketers Specifically, the model proposes that PsyCap of marketers will have positive impacts on both marketers’ QWL and job performance Further, QWL of marketers underlies their job performance and QoL QoL and QWL Employees’ work–life integration is a critical issue for several organizations because it is associated with employees’ wellbeing (Harrington and Ladge 2009) Gavin and Mason (2004) observe that work is an important source of the QoL for people and that people’s general happiness in life is closely related to their happiness at work However, there is a lack of empirical evidence for this relationship in Vietnam In this study, the authors propose a positive relationship between marketers’ QWL and QoL QWL is about the well-being of employees (Sirgy et al 2001) and there are several different definitions of QWL (Martel and Dupuis 2006) In the context of this study, following Sirgy et al (2001), the authors define QWL as marketers’ satisfaction with a set of human needs when participating in the workplace The set of human needs includes health and safety needs, economic and family needs, social needs, esteem needs, actualization needs, knowledge needs and aesthetics needs Similar to QWL, QoL is complex and the concept has been measured in a variety of ways (Lee et al 2002; Vaez, Kristenson, and Laflamme 2004) It can be defined as the overall satisfaction with life (Vaez, Kristenson, and Laflamme 2004) Based on the satisfaction approach to QoL, there is a link between job satisfaction and life satisfaction because life satisfaction is influenced by satisfaction with life domains, including work (Sirgy 2006) Thus, QoL is affected by QWL In addition, QWL is important for firms because it relates to Psychological Capital Concern about trait-like personality and state-like psychological capacities of employees has received little attention by organizational behavior researchers (Luthans et al 2005) Trait-like personality is not specific to any task or situation and tends to be stable over time, whereas state-like psychological capacities are more specific to certain situations or tasks and tend to be more malleable over time (Chen et al 2000) Several related concepts that describe state-like psychological capacities of employees can be found in the literature on positive organizational behavior such as psychological ownership (Avey et al 2009), PsyCap (Luthans et al 2005; Luthans et al 2008) This study focuses on PsyCap of marketers Luthans, Youssef, and Avolio (2007) propose four components of PsyCap: self-efficacy, optimism, hope, and resiliency They define PsyCap as: an individual’s positive psychological state of development that is characterized by: (1) having confidence (self-efficacy) to take on and put in the necessary effort to succeed at challenging tasks; (2) making a positive attribution (optimism) about succeeding now and in the future; (3) persevering toward goals and, when necessary, redirecting paths to goals (hope) in order to succeed; and (4) when beset by problems and adversity, sustaining and bouncing back and even beyond (resiliency) to attain success (Luthans, Youssef, and Avolio 2007, 3) Luthans et al (2008) note that PsyCap has both conceptual and empirical support Self-efficacy refers to ‘‘people judgments about their capability to perform particular tasks’’ (Parker 1998, 835) Applied to the marketing professional level, self-efficacy helps marketers to be confident about their knowledge and skills in performing their assigned marketing tasks Optimism is broadly defined as ‘‘the tendency to maintain a positive outlook’’ (Schneider 2001, 253) Positive organizational behavior focuses on realistic optimism, which ‘‘involves enhancing and focusing on the favorable aspects of our experiences’’ (Schneider 2001, 253) Applied to the marketing professional, optimistic marketers are characterized by having positive expectations of outcomes in a changing work environment (Luthans et al 2008) Hope reflects ‘‘the belief that one can find pathways to desired goals and become motivated to use those pathways’’ (Snyder, Rand, and Sigmon 2002, 257) Hope comprises two dimensions: pathways (way power) and agency (will power) Pathways refer to one’s Downloaded from jmk.sagepub.com at UNIV TORONTO on November 13, 2012 Nguyen and Nguyen 89 capability of generating workable routes to the desired goal and agency relates to one’s perceived capacity to use the pathways to reach the desired goal (Snyder et al 1996; Snyder, Rand, and Sigmon 2002) Applying hope to the marketing professional level in a firm, pathways facilitate marketers to recognize the goals set by the firm and to translate those goals into their own actions to achieve the goals Agency assists marketers in controlling their actions to achieve the desired goals and especially, in applying the requisite motivation to the best alternative pathway (Luthans et al 2008; Snyder, Rand, and Sigmon 2002) Finally, resiliency refers to ‘‘positive adaptation in the context of significant adversity or risk’’ (Masten and Reed 2002, 75) Applying resiliency to the marketing professional, resiliency can be characterized by coping responses to both adverse and extreme positive events (Luthans 2002; Luthans et al 2008) Research shows that these four components (self-efficacy, optimism, hope, and resiliency) of PsyCap have positive relationships with performance, happiness, well-being, and satisfaction of workers For example, self-efficacy has been found to have a positive impact on performance (Stajkovic and Luthans 1998; Legal and Meyer 2009) Employees’ optimism is related to their performance, satisfaction, and happiness (Youssef and Luthans 2007) Hope is related to employees’ performance, satisfaction, happiness, and retention (Youssef and Luthans 2007) Resiliency has a positive relationship with employee performance (Luthans et al 2005) and happiness and satisfaction (Youssef and Luthans 2007) In sum, self-efficacy, optimism, hope and resiliency are related to the performance and QWL of employees Luthans, Youssef, and Avolio (2007) found that PsyCap overall is a better predictor of employee performance than are its individual components For that reason, in this study, the authors focus on the predictive power of overall PsyCap rather than its individual components And, the authors propose that overall PsyCap will have positive impacts on both QWL and performance of marketers Thus, Hypothesis 3: PsyCap has a positive impact on QWL Hypothesis 4: PsyCap has a positive impact on job performance Method Design and Sample Two phases comprised the research, a pilot and a main survey, and was undertaken in Ho Chi Minh (HCM) City, the principal business center of Vietnam Respondents were marketers working for firms in HCM City The pilot study consisted of two steps: qualitative and quantitative First, the authors conducted a series of in-depth interviews with eighteen marketers in HCM City to modify the measures by examining how consumers described their PsyCap and QWL Although most of the measures of constructs were available in the literature, this step is important to make them appropriate for the context of this study (a transitioning market) The quantitative pilot study was undertaken by face-to-face interviews with 125 marketers to refine the scales Cronbach’s alpha reliability and exploratory factor analysis (EFA) were used to preliminarily assess the scales The main survey was also undertaken by using faceto-face interviews A convenience sample of 364 marketers working for various types of firms in HCM City was interviewed in this survey The purpose of this main survey was to validate the measures and to test the structural model Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was utilized to assess the measures and structural equation modeling (SEM) were employed to test the theoretical model and hypotheses Measurement Constructs examined included PsyCap, QWL, and job performance QoL, PsyCap, and QWL were second-order constructs and job performance and QoL were first-order constructs PsyCap was comprised of four components: hope, optimism, resiliency, and self-efficacy Hope was measured by items borrowed from Snyder, Rand, and Sigmon (2002) Note that hope used in this study is state hope (Snyder, Rand, and Sigmon 2002) Optimism was measured by items adopted from Carver and Scheier (2002) Resiliency was measured by items, adopted from Block and Kremen (1996) Selfefficacy was measured by items, borrowed from Parker (1998) QWL was measured by items addressing need satisfaction of marketers (Sirgy et al 2001) Job performance was measured based on marketers’ self-assessment Although self-assessment has been criticized for being less accurate compared to objective criterion measures, it is valuable when anonymity is guaranteed and/or individuals perceive no need to present themselves favorably for career, performance appraisal, and/social acceptance purposes (van der Heijden and Nijhof 2004; Rego and Cunha 2008) as in the case of this study The scale included items, adopted from Staples, Hulland, and Higgins (1999) and Rego and Cunha (2008) Finally, QoL was measured by items, adopted from Peterson, Ekici, and Hunt (2010) Seven-point Likert-type scale, anchored by (strongly disagree) and (strongly agree) was used for all items in this study The questionnaire was initially prepared in English and then translated into Vietnamese by an academic fluent in both languages This procedure was undertaken because English is not well understood by all marketers in Vietnam Back translation was undertaken to ensure the equivalence of meanings Measurement Refinement The measures were refined via Cronbach’s alpha reliability and EFA, using the data collected from 125 marketers in the pilot study Specifically, EFA (principal components with varimax rotation) extracted four factors from the items measuring PsyCap with 66.38 percent of variance extracted: self-efficacy (Eigenvalue ¼ 4.38); optimism (Eigenvalue ¼ 1.62); resiliency (Eigenvalue ¼ 1.34); and hope (Eigenvalue ¼ 1.18) The Downloaded from jmk.sagepub.com at UNIV TORONTO on November 13, 2012 90 Journal of Macromarketing 32(1) Cronbach’s alphas for these scales were 66 (hope), 72 (optimism), 68 (resiliency), and 87 (self-efficacy) Note that item measuring optimism (I’m always optimistic about my future) and item measuring hope (At this time, I am meeting the goals that I have set for myself) were deleted due to their low item-total correlations (