Factors affecting academic burnout and job performance, a study of married working women in vietnam

UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY
International School of Business
------------------------

Vo Thuy Thanh Tam

FACTORS AFFECTING ACADEMIC BURNOUT AND
JOB PERFORMANCE: A STUDY OF MARRIED
WORKING WOMEN IN VIETNAM

ID: 22130066

MASTER OF BUSINESS (Honors)
SUPERVISOR: DR. PHAM NGOC THUY

Ho Chi Minh City – Year 2015


ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I would like to express my very great appreciation to my adviser - Dr. Pham Ngoc
Thuy with all my respect and gratitude. I have been fortunate in receiving lots of her
valuable guidelines, recommendations and feedbacks during this research.

I am sincerely thankful to Professor Nguyen Dinh Tho, Associate Professor Tran Ha
Minh Quan, Associate Professor Nguyen Thi Mai Trang and Dr. Nguyen TN Que for their
valuable time as proposal examination committee. Their comments and meaningful advice
contributed significantly for me to complete this thesis.

My special gratitude is extended to all instructors and staffs of School
International Scholl of Business – University of Economics Ho Chi Minh City for their
teaching and guidance during my Master course.

Most especially to my family, my closet friends for giving me strengths, support
and love to overcome all the difficulties throughout my period of study.

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Contents
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ..................................................................................................i
LIST OF FIGURES .......................................................................................................... iv
LIST OF TABLES ............................................................................................................. v
ABBREVIATIONS ........................................................................................................... vi
ABSTRACT...................................................................................................................... vii
1.

INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................... 1
1.1. Research background .............................................................................................. 1
1.2. Research problems .................................................................................................. 2
1.3. Research objectives ................................................................................................. 4
1.4. Research methodology ............................................................................................ 5
1.5. The significance of the study................................................................................... 5
1.6. Research structure ................................................................................................... 6

2.

LITERATURE REVIEW AND HYPOTHESES ...................................................... 7
2.1. Theoretical foundation ............................................................................................ 7
2.2. Definition of constructs ........................................................................................... 9
2.3. Hypotheses development....................................................................................... 11
2.4. The proposed research model ................................................................................ 15

2.5. Chapter summary .................................................................................................. 16

3.

METHODOLOGY ................................................................................................... 17
3.1. Research process ................................................................................................... 17
3.2. Measurement scales .............................................................................................. 18
3.3. Questionnaire design ............................................................................................. 21
3.4. Sampling............................................................................................................... 22
3.5. Data analysis ......................................................................................................... 23
3.6. Chapter summary .................................................................................................. 24

4.

DATA ANALYSIS ................................................................................................... 25
4.1

Data collection process ......................................................................................... 25

4.2

Sample characteristics ........................................................................................... 26

4.3

Exploratory Factor Analysis .................................................................................. 28
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5

4.4

Reliability Test ...................................................................................................... 34

4.5

Testing research model using SEM ....................................................................... 35

4.5.1

Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) ............................................................. 35

4.5.2

Structural Model............................................................................................. 40

4.6

Bootstrap method .................................................................................................. 43

4.7

Discussion............................................................................................................. 45

4.8

Chapter summary .................................................................................................. 47

CONCLUSION, IMPLICATION, AND LIMITATION ........................................ 48

5.1

Main findings........................................................................................................ 48

5.2

Managerial implication ......................................................................................... 49

5.2.1

Implication for married working women ........................................................ 49

5.2.2

Implication for human resource management ................................................. 50

5.2.3

Implication for training institutes.................................................................... 50

5.3

Limitations............................................................................................................ 51

REFERENCES................................................................................................................. 52
APPENDICES .................................................................................................................. 61
Appendix A List of in-depth interviews’ participants ......................................................... 61
Appendix B Refined measurement scales ........................................................................... 62
Appendix C Questionnaire (Vietnamese Version) .............................................................. 68
Appendix D Questionnaire (English Version) .................................................................... 71

Appendix E Total Variance Explained (first round)............................................................ 74

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LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 2.1 Core self-evaluations, work-family conflict, and job burnout (Haines et al., 2013)
............................................................................................................................................. 8
Figure 2.2 Core self-evaluations, life satisfaction, and burnout (Lian et al., 2014) ................ 9
Figure 2.3 Research model ................................................................................................. 16
Figure 3.1 Research process ............................................................................................... 17
Figure 4.1 Diagram CFA (first round) ................................................................................ 36
Figure 4.2 Diagram CFA (last round) ................................................................................. 37
Figure 4.3 SEM .................................................................................................................. 41

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LIST OF TABLES
Table 2.1 Summary of hypotheses...................................................................................... 16
Table 3.1 Scales and coding ............................................................................................... 19
Table 4.1 Sample characteristics ........................................................................................ 26
Table 4.2 KMO and Bartlett's Test (first round) ................................................................. 29
Table 4.3 Pattern Matrix (first round) ................................................................................. 30
Table 4.4 KMO and Bartlett's Test (last round) .................................................................. 31
Table 4.5 Total Variance Explained (last round) ................................................................ 32
Table 4.6 Pattern Matrix (last round).................................................................................. 33
Table 4.7 Reliability Results .............................................................................................. 34
Table 4.8 Standardized Regression Weights ....................................................................... 38
Table 4.9 Fit indices for the test model result in CFA......................................................... 39

Table 4.10 Composite reliability and average variance extracted ........................................ 39
Table 4.11 Discriminant Validity ....................................................................................... 40
Table 4.12 Regression Weights .......................................................................................... 42
Table 4.13 Standardized Regression Weights ..................................................................... 43
Table 4.14 Regression Weights (bootstrap standard errors) ................................................ 44
Table 4.15 Removed Items................................................................................................. 44

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ABBREVIATIONS
AMOS: Analysis of Moment Structures
CEO: Chief Executive Officer
CFA: Confirmatory Factor Analysis
EAC: Asian Economic Community
EFA: Exploratory Factor Analysis
NGOs: Non-Governmental Organizations
SEM: Structural Equation Modeling
SME: Small and Medium-sized enterprises
SPSS: Statistical Package for Social Sciences

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ABSTRACT
In the age of integration, retaining and managing talented employees are extremely
meaningful for organizations to ensure their competitive advantages. Moreover, the demands
of employees’ knowledge and soft skills improvement is also increasing highly. In recent
years in Vietnam, more and more women have been holding important roles in national and
foreign companies. However Vietnamese women still framed in request to quality their roles

as wives and mothers in family. This creates psychological pressure and causes difficulties in
married working women. Thus, the paper aims to examine the factors affecting academic
burnout and job performance of married working women. Findings from the research will be
very useful for the human resources department to make plans and policies to manage and
develop female staffs in firms.
The measures were based on a thorough review of the previous literature. This study
included two phases, preliminary and main research, which were implemented in Ho Chi
Minh City. Using the data collection of 343 respondents, the author found that academic
burnout was influenced negatively by core self-evaluation and positively by work-family (and
family-work) conflict whereas job performance was affected positively by core selfevaluation and negatively by work-family (and family-work) conflict. Finally, the results
suggested that married working women should have optimistic self-view to deal easier with
conflicts between job and family. Consequently, they could reduce academic burnout and
improve job performance. Besides, the human resource department should establish more
supportive policies to help female employees reduce stress from work and family conflicts so
that they could perform job effectively. Furthermore, the results could be applied for training
institutes in attracting new students by supporting married working female students to achieve
better study outcomes. Some limitations of this research were shown at the end.

Keywords: core self-evaluation, academic burnout, work-family conflict, family-work
conflict, job performance

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1. INTRODUCTION
1.1. Research background
Enhancing job performance is an important issue in survival and development of
companies (Lai & Chen, 2012). Recruiting and retaining exceptional human talent can
provide value of “human capital advantage” (Wang, Chiang & Tung, 2012). Otherwise,
failure in these roles can lead extremely serious consequences for both company and

economics. Karatepe (2013) indicated that employees with full of stress could cause negative
effect on their job performance. Finding solutions to reduce employees’ burnout and improve
employees’ performance is never an easy answer and could cost much time and money from
not only organizations but also society.
On the other hand, globalization reached its peak at the beginning of the twentieth
century, which had heated up the market, especially the growing ones of the Third World. In
order to take more advantages in a highly competitive market, the demand to develop
knowledge, skills and a global mindset for each individual in firms is supposed to increase
significantly (Dobre, 2012).
In literatures, many studies have been carried out to investigate the factors affecting
job performance (Springer, 2011; Ahmad & Omar, 2012; Ram, 2013; Fu & Deshpande, 2014)
and job burnout (Bakker, Demerouti & Verbeke, 2004; Beheshtifar & Omidvar, 2013; Li et
al., 2015). Academic burnout, which is considered as another type of job burnout applying in
learning, has received much more concern of management sector in recent decades (Galbraith
& Merrill, 2012; Harris, Gallagher & Rossi, 2013; Haines et al., 2014; Anuradha & Jha, 2014;
Lian et al., 2014; Hojat et al., 2015). Among these factors, core self-evaluation has become a
hot issue in psychological researches due to its relevance to job burnout and job performance
not only in a medical sector but also in economics (e.g. Li, Guan, Chang & Zhang, 2014;
Javed, Abrar, Haq & Shabir, 2014).
According to Haines et al., (2013), individual who has high core self-evaluation has
less conflicts between work and family related activities. These conflicts cause unbalance in
individual’s life and decrease their quality of life (Md-Sidin, Sambasivan & Ismail, 2010;
Lian et al., 2014). Thus, they are recognized the main reasons for individuals stress in modern

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life within their impact on academic burnout and job performance (Ahmad & Omar, 2012;
Karatepe, 2013).

1.2. Research problems
In the age of globalization, the needs to retain and manage talented employees, who
have deep practical knowledge & high degree, is extremely essential in order to increase the
competitive advantages of the firm (Kapoor, 2011).
Vietnam is known as a developing country and it is forecasted to face lots of
opportunities as well as risks when taking part in Asian Economic Community in the end of
2015 (Vietnamnet, 2014). According to this news, there are majority of Vietnamese
entrepreneurs that are not concerned adequately about information of AEC integrating
process. Hence, they have no preparation to contribute specific strategies and this could create
a potential chance for foreign companies to dominate Vietnamese market in the next few
years. Moreover, human resource is now conceded as an anxious problem for Vietnamese
firms. When Vietnam completely joins in Asian Economic Community, qualified Vietnamese
workers have widely opportunities to work in multinational groups or Vietnamese large firms
have more sources to recruit qualified managers (Vietnamnet, 2015). However, this also
makes many shortcomings to both Vietnamese workers who are not qualified enough and
small and medium-sized enterprises (SME). The employees have to face the challenge that
whether they ought to improve themselves by achieving more skills and higher degrees or
they will be discharged; whereas human resource department of Vietnamese firms need to
find solutions of developing and retaining their current potential talents to avoid brain drain.
As a result of this, examining factors affecting academic burnout and job performance are
important for research.
Although men used to be known as the majority of labor, in current, the demographic
composition has been changed dramatically. According to Vietnamese Government statistic
in 2014, women have more than 45 million people, accounting for over 50% of the national
population and over 47% of social workers (Bhxhlamdong, 2014). More and more women
have been working in the areas that has previously been the strength of men like electricity -

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electronics, information technology, and mechanical engineer. Moreover, women are
increasingly holding important roles in government organizations, NGOs and firms.
Research in 2015 by the International Labor Organization, Vietnam was ranked 76 out
of 108 countries in the rate of female participation in management with 23% (Ilo, 2015).
According to that research, there were 29.5% women employers in the small and medium
enterprises. This had positive implications for the development of the country due to the fact
that women accounted for half of the supportive international education resources, which
means they also accounted for a significant proportion of the talents. The study also showed
a positive relationship between the leadership of women with business efficiency. The reason
could be explained that women often control household budgets, making financial decisions
and their purchasing power is increasing, they are important customers and consumers for
products and services. Therefore, making decisions in the enterprise should have the
participation of both women and men. In final, research results indicated that the support for
women in career development was encouraged because increasing the proportion of women
in the highest positions of leadership would promote productivity and competency for
business in particular, and for the economy - society in general.
In the political field from the early 21st century have the appearance of famous female
politicians such as Hillary Clinton (USA), Yingluck Shinawatra (Thailand), Angela Merkel
(German) or successful female CEOs such as Indra Nooyi (PepsiCo), Sheryl Sandberg
(Facebook), and Susan Wojcicki Diane (Youtube). On October 12, 2014, Vietnam already
organized the day to praise the women entrepreneurs in the country (Antv, 2014). The typical
examples like Ms. Mai Kieu Lien (CEO of Vinamilk), Ms. Thai Huong (CEO of TH True
Milk), and Ms. Pham Thi Viet Nga (CEO of DHG Pharma) have encouraged Vietnamese
women to constantly develop and study for their better lives and the respect of society.
However, it is not the same as other continents, Asia still underestimates the
importance of women in work and life. South Korea, China and Vietnam though publicize
gender equality in society but under the influence of the ancient habits, women are still tied
to their role as wives and mothers, who have to undertake households from cooking, washing
and other stuffs to take care of their husband and children. Even though young women

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nowadays are encouraged to develop career but after working, they still have to do chores at
home. Those who are married are expected not only have responsibility for their elementary
family but also for their own parents and parents-in-law. While human energy is limited,
married women who have suffered the 8-hour job pressure, then continue to take care of their
family, and in some cases they have to enhance knowledge and skills by joining training
courses, it could not be surprised that they are burnout. Finding and understanding burnout
problem of married women will be very useful for the human resources department to make
plans and policies to manage and develop married female staffs who gradually keep higher
and more significant positions in companies recent years.
In the literature, many world-wide scholars have researched the influence of core selfevaluation on job performance (Karatepe, 2011; Ahmad & Omar, 2012; Tang, Tang & Li,
2013), the influence of core self-evaluation on academic burnout (Kao, 2009; Lian et al.,
2014), or the relationship between work-family (and family-work) conflict and job burnout
as well as job performance (Wang, Chang, Fu & Wang, 2012; Karatepe, 2013), but very few
same studies were examined the influence of core self-evaluation on academic burnout and
job performance mediating by work-family (and family-work) conflict and studied toward
women in Vietnam, especially married working women. Although women in general may
have the same pressure from work, family and studying, married working women seems to
suffer much more stressful due to their responsibility of work, the role of wife and mother,
and studying simultaneously (Noor, 2004; Koyuncu, Burke & Wolpin, 2012; Lian et al.,
2014). Moreover, it is not denied that they are actually important in labor force who have
contributed significantly on firms’ stability and success. Thus, this study examines the role of
core self-evaluation to academic burnout and job performance, mediating by work-family
(and family-work) conflict among married working women in Vietnam.

1.3. Research objectives
The overall objectives of this research are to examine the effect of core self-evaluation to
academic burnout and job performance through the influence of work-family and family work

4


conflict of married working women in Vietnam. Specifically, a model was developed to
explain:
-

The direct relationships of Vietnamese married working women’s core self-evaluation
between their academic burnout and their job performance.

-

The individual effect of Vietnamese married working women’s core self-evaluation on
academic burnout and job performance through work-family and family-work conflict
as the two mediators.

1.4. Research methodology
The research was conducted on married working women in Ho Chi Minh City. The
author choose Ho Chi Minh City because it is the largest city which has lots of diverse kinds
of companies and education programs in Vietnam.
The questionnaire was translated into Vietnamese and applied widely after refining by
face-to-face in depth interviewing with 6 married female students from evening and weekend
classes and the supervisor.
This study used convenience sample with face-to-face interview method. The sample
size was expected around 350, thus, 650 questionnaires were delivered to participants.
Data was analyzed by SPSS 20 and AMOS 20. The author used EFA to test the
measurement model and CFA for reliability and validity. SEM was used to test the structural
model.
1.5. The significance of the study

In terms of practice, the research results will help married female employees become
more aware of the importance of self-evaluation, enhancing their capabilities as well as create
a balance between work and family in order to increase the efficiency of learning as well as
job performance.
Besides, the project also helps the human resource management understand married
female employees who have both to work and learning higher, thereby offering solutions to
support and encourage them so as to not only help employees but also increasing the firm’s
important asset - human resource.

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The training institutions could utilize the result of this research to understand married
female customers, and basing on the customer insight, they could find more solutions to
support them and build its own strategy to attract more female learners such as creating
flexible timetables, e-learning form, submission via online system to reduce unnecessary
activities to help women save time and health to boost their personal accomplishment.
The study also could help families and society have an open mind for women
responsibility, erasing the out-of-date thinking that women should focus only on the kitchen
and housework. Within perception of women needs, families and society can support the
married female employees in sharing tasks such as homes care, children care, encouraging
them to nonstop improving themselves.
1.6. Research structure
This paper includes five parts as follows:
-

Chapter 1: Introduction

This chapter presents the research background, research problem, research objectives
and research questions, research methodology, the significance of the study, and research

structure.
-

Chapter 2: Literature review and hypotheses

This chapter introduces the fundamental theories and definition of each concepts,
theoretical modeling, hypotheses and the conceptual model of this study.
-

Chapter 3: Research methodology

This chapter illustrates the research design, research methodology and the process of
conducting in the study.
-

Chapter 4: Data analysis

This chapter summarizes the characteristics of collected sample and the result of this
study after analyzing data.
-

Chapter 5: Conclusions, implications, and limitation

This chapter provides the findings, the contribution of this study in managerial theory
and practice as well as the limitations of the study for future research direction.

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2. LITERATURE REVIEW AND HYPOTHESES

This section starts with theoretical foundation, definitions of each concepts which have
been conducted in previous papers. Based on those studies, hypotheses and conceptual model
are proposed.

2.1. Theoretical foundation
Conservation of Resource Theory
The research was developed based on the conservation of resource theory which was
implemented by Hobfoll in 1989 (Heinz et al., 2013). Hobfoll (cited in Karam, 2011) indicates
that the resources which include objects (e.g. possessing an apartment, a car), conditions (e.g.
being employed, being part of a group), personal resources (e.g. having necessary knowledge,
skills and abilities), and energy resources (e.g. level or engagement) are limited, thus
employees try to gain, preserve and assure them. When the conflicts happen, individuals
encounter both threat of resource loss and actual loss of resources.
Pheko (2013) supposes that conservation of resource theory is used as an appropriate
foundation to comprehend the two interfaces (i.e. work and family). The model could also
explain stress issue from intra-role and inter-role conflict, offering a stable conceptual
framework. Lots of researchers have applied it to strongly determine the relationship between
these two domains and illustrate how these conflicts affect the firm performance.

7


Model of Core self-evaluations, work-family conflict, and burnout
Base on conservation of resource theory, Haines et al. (2013) apply to human resources
management to investigate the effect of work-family (and family-work) conflicts to burnout
and draw the model of Core self-evaluations, work-family conflict, and burnout as below:

Figure 1 Core self-evaluations, work-family conflict, and job burnout (Haines et al., 2013)

Figure 2.1 Core self-evaluations, work-family conflict, and job burnout (Haines et al., 2013)

In the model, core self-evaluations of individuals is considered a factor that influences
their burnout. Work-family and family-work conflict play an intervening role, stand between
core self-evaluations and burnout to mediate the relationship of them. Haines and his partners
also study the moderating role of core self-evaluations on the relationship between workfamily (and family-work) conflict, but this study does not concern this part of the model. The
result of this paper confirms the negative relationship between core self-evaluations and
work-family (and family-work) conflict, as well as the positive relationship between workfamily (and family-work) conflict and burnout. However, the outcome of this paper is known
as general stress and strain status of people and it has not studied deeper in any specific fields
yet (e.g. academic burnout, job burnout, health burnout). Another noticeable limitation is that
the respondents of this research focus on police officers and civilian staffs in Quebec
(Canada), thus the accuracy of its findings when generalizing to employees in other
workplaces is not assure.

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Model of Core self-evaluations, life satisfaction, and academic burnout
With the same idea of Haines et al., Lian and his colleagues (2014) also choose core
self-evaluations to be a predictor factor of burnout, but they select to investigate the
spectacular area – academic burnout among university students. Base on previous findings
that the main individual factors that affect academic burnout are self-efficacy, locus of
control, and self-esteem, they defend that core self-evaluations can predict negative academic
burnout. Besides, many papers confirmed that all dimensions of job burnout have negative
relationship with satisfaction (Dyrbye et al., 2013; Wang et al., 2014; Khamisa et al., 2015).
In addition, Judge et al. (2003) indicated that core self-evaluations can completely predict the
degree of satisfaction. Hence, they proposed the second hypothesis that core self-evaluations
influence academic burnout by mediating life satisfaction. The result proves both of two
hypotheses with significantly emphasize on the suitable predictor of core self-evaluation on
burnout and affirm that students with a positive self-view can be more interested in their life
and feel more satisfaction. This leads to reduce students’ awareness and pressure of learning.

Figure 2 Core self-evaluations, life satisfaction, and burnout (Lian et al., 2014)

Figure 2.2 Core self-evaluations, life satisfaction, and burnout (Lian et al., 2014)

2.2. Definition of constructs
Core self-evaluations
As mentioned above, core self-evaluations have received much more interest from
scholars all over the world, thus there are many definition of it. Judge et al. defined this term
as “an individual's most fundamental evaluation of his own ability and value” (Zhou et al.,
2014). The interpretation of core self-evaluations is also understood that the internal
personality factors reflecting the belief of ones’ capability, control and competency (Li et al.,

9


2014). It is also perceived a broad latent construct, including four personality traits which are
self-esteem - evaluation of self-worth, locus of control - evaluation of one’s control over one’s
environment, self-efficacy - evaluation of one’s capability and competence to be success, and
emotional stability - evaluation of one’s emotional adjustment (Judge et al., 2003). In general,
core self-evaluations are concerned with the ability of individual to assess his own
competences through the personality traits, mainly including self-esteem, locus of control,
self-efficacy, and emotional stability.
Work-family conflict
Work and family are the inseparable two sides of adults’ lives (Olorunfemi, 2009) but
these two domains are discovered to conflict each other because of simultaneous demands of
the role between his/her work and family (Mihelic & Tekavcic, 2014). Work-family conflict
is considered a vital factor cause work stress (Demerouti et al., 2001; Wallace, 2005; Radzali,
Ahmad & Omar, 2013). This may be because the pressure that employees have when they
could not balance their work-life leads them not to concentrate on work-related activities, thus

work stress happens. In general, work-family conflict occurs when individual could not play
a good role in family since he focuses much more on his job.
Family-work conflict
On the other hand, family–work conflict appears when man spends too much time
worrying his family than work (Boyar et al., 2008; Mihelic & Tekavcic, 2014). For example,
a woman have to request working days-off to look after her sick son because she has no
support from her family. In this case, this female employee scarifies her job for her family.
Academic burnout
The word “burnout” used to mention work-related stress in studying the factors
affecting employees’ outcomes (e.g. Rosenberg & Pace, 2006; Kim, Ji & Kao, 2011; Cooke,
Doust & Steele, 2013). Nowadays, according to Lian et al. (2014), academic burnout is
known as a spread of job burnout in education environment because students also have to
perform many activities which are the same as work, such as responsibility to complete
assigned work in given time, cooperation among colleagues, presentation, updating new
information. Anuradha & Jha (2014) define that student academic burnout is the stress which

10


reached its peak level, affecting student’s academic performance. They suppose that it appears
when students have no interest in studying, annoyed with lecturers’ expectations, and are tired
of studying. Being burnout not only affect students’ education and their results but also
threaten other workers due to their underperformance (Kizilci, Erdogan & Sözen, 2012).
Thus, it becomes an important problem and is examined by many modern scholars.
Job performance
As job performance is a vital factor in both organization psychology and human
resource management (Campell,1990, as cited in Gary, 2011), there are many definitions of
job performance. While Campell et al. (1993, as cited in Parker, 2007) stated that job
performance covered all behaviors that were controlled by employees themselves to achieve
company goals, Silvester, Patterson & Ferguson (2003) concluded more specifically in sales

areas that sales performance comprised daily efforts of salesman to attract customers, serve
customer service and achieve sales target. Thus, it could be said that depending on the context,
job performance is comprehended differently. However, in general it could be concluded that
job performance aggregated daily work activities of employees in each department of the firm
and they were assessed periodically based on the level that individuals achieved the firm
objective by people who have upper level position compared to them.

2.3. Hypotheses development
Relationships of core self-evaluations and work–family and family-work conflicts
Many recent documents have supposed that positive core self-evaluations leads to
lessen work-family (and family-work) conflict (Haines et al., 2013; Lian et al., 2014). This
result may be due to the reason that an individual who has high core self-evaluations means
he is optimism and thus he could easily overcome troubles in his life and work to upturn his
quality of life (Jiang et al., 2014). In other words, when someone perceives their competency
in controlling their life, they have a powerful motivation to complete both work and family
related activities perfectly by many different ways.
There are differences in philosophy between Western and Eastern women. While
Western women with freedom mindset could not accept to be tied in marriage life, Eastern

11


ones consider house chores are those things that they have responsibility and mandatory
obligation to do. Ritual and behavior culture in Vietnamese society have ingrained into the
minds of young girls, continued to follow them when they grow up and get married. As a
result of this is that Vietnamese women consider the joy of taking care of their husband and
children is priority in life.
Although Vietnam society publicize gender equality and encourage women to immerse
in work life, pay attention to foster the ability to develop their own career. However, the
conflict between the traditional housewife duties and the attractiveness from knowledge and

skills investment as well as stable career sometimes causes them stressful and exhausted. As
it was stated in conservation of resource theory, due to limited human resource, if one focuses
on one object, the performance of other tasks will be reduced.
Therefore, to working women who got married, optimistic self-view could be the
solution to bring them more confident in balancing their life. Positive thinking about their
own capacity could help them calmly handle conflicts between their work and family life.
This leads to the first and second hypotheses:
H1: There is a negative relationship between core self-evaluation and work - family conflict
H2: There is a negative relationship between core self-evaluation and family - work conflict

Relationships of work-family and family-work conflicts and academic burnout
Family and work are two inseparable aspects of the modern women life, but with
limited resources, married working women can not manage well both the two work
simultaneously. Conflicts between family and work is always a topic attracted many
researchers in the field of human resources.
Work-family conflict occurs when women are dedicated to develop their career and
unconcern about family matters. Many husbands with conservative ideology suppose that
household is simple, a good wife must undertake good housework such as cooking, laundry,
child care, etc. but they forget those things require lots of time and effort of the wife. To
married working women who put their priority on career, it is almost exhausting their
resources. After long time working hard at office with tons of documents, project timeline,

12


sometimes they have to work overtime, so when they come home, they feel too tired to
complete family care obligations.
On the other hand, family-work conflict happens when women overweight their
private family life and not focus on their job. Today they worry about the health of their
husband and children, tomorrow they are sad because of their family. They use working time

to search cheap goods or cooking recipes. They not really focus on work, so they meet a
variety of errors and failures.
In both two cases, conflicts cause married working women stressful and depressed
because they always hope to finish well both work and private life. Work-family balance or
how to solve the conflict between work and family roles of individual is “at the core of issues
central to human resource development” (Grzywacz & Carlson, 2007). Lots of prior
researchers affirmed the importance of understanding the influence of stress and conflicts on
employees’ burnout. They have the same perspective that failure to balance personal life with
work will cause serious consequences, such as making employees feel depressed (Shree,
2012). The reason may be because once individual could not balance their work-life by
defeating work-family (and family-work) conflict, they could not concentrate on effectively
finishing both roles family and work, thus they always have to worry and nervous.
In addition, women with career promotion ambitious tend to take part in skill training
courses or higher education program after their working time. However, with limited personal
resources and energy resources, they hardly arrange enough time to concentrate on their study.
Especially, when married female students could not feel satisfied with their work and family,
they could not focus adequately on their learning. For example, when their children are sick
or their boss request them to work overtime, they may be absence in many classes, lack of
knowledge, or could not spend time to do homework. Their knowledge and skills from school
are gradually been forgot while the demand of them exists. This leads them easy to feel
depressed and disappointed of themselves because their capacity could not be better as their
expectation. Hence, when they have to face with deadline of homework or examination, it is
not quite difficult to recognize that they are afraid and exhausted in studying. As a result of
this, the hypotheses could be offered that:

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H3: There is a positive relationship between work - family conflict and academic burnout
H4: There is a positive relationship between family – work conflict and academic burnout

Relationships of work-family and family-work conflicts and job performance
As mentioned above, the level of work-life balance has represented employees’
attitude, behavior and outcomes. Eby et al. (as cited in Baral & Bhargava, 2010) said that
incompatibility between work and family cause not only employees’ health but also
organizational performances. This viewpoint is continued to be demonstrated in recent
researchers such as Lim, Song & Choi (2012), Goyal, Jain & Jain (2013). It is said that the
harmony in life which implies the balance between workplace role and the role of family
would bring benefits to employees and organization; otherwise, the missing of this consensus
causes extremely worse troubles to employees and leads to poor job performance (Kim,
2014).
Vietnamese women were educated from very soon age that they have to take
responsible for caring their future own family. Although new cultural ideas which imported
in Vietnam attract women to have dynamic work life outside their home, women still suppose
that family household is their mandatory obligation. Therefore, they want to complete well
both work and family life. Married female employees who prefer working to family, they
seem to have effective job outcomes. However, for a long time, due to their carelessness of
taking care of children or household, the tension among family members will cause extremely
stressful status to them. Due to this situation, their performance at work reduce significantly.
The inverse correlation between family-work conflict and job performance is shown more
obviously. Employees who tend to absence too much to solve their family problems or not
concentrate on working, it is certain that they cause lots of mistakes in work and not be
assessed high in job performance. Thus, two bellowed hypotheses are suggested:
H5: There is a negative relationship between work - family conflict and job performance
H6: There is a negative relationship between family – work conflict and job performance

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Relationships of core self-evaluations, job performance and academic burnout

Followed the idea of Kammeyer-Mueller et al. (2009), positive core self-evaluations
is expected to reduce stressors which declines the extreme psychological strain. It means core
self-evaluations and burnout have a negative relationship. Li et al. (2014) demonstrates this
relationship again through the research of core self-evaluation and burnout among nurses. The
results show that “Nurses who had higher self-evaluation characteristics, reported less
emotional exhaustion and cynicism, and higher professional efficacy”. Besides that, Karatepe
(2011) confirms that exhaustion is negatively related to job performance. Hence, it could be
said that core self-evaluations has positive relationship with job performance or adverse
direction with burnout. Furthermore, core self-evaluations could directly influence academic
burnout because based on previous papers, four traits of core self-evaluations (self-esteem,
self-efficacy, locus of control, and emotional stability) are proved to affect academic burnout
(Yang & Farn, cited in Lian et al., 2014). Applied in married working women situation, if
they have high core self-evaluation, they could quickly find solutions to reduce stress which
come from their job or their study. Therefore, the two last proposed hypotheses could be
stated that:
H7: There is a positive relationship between core self-evaluation and job performance
H8: There is a negative relationship between core self-evaluation and academic burnout

2.4. The proposed research model
From the arguments of seven hypotheses, the conceptual model of the paper is drawn
as below:

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Figure 3 Proposed Research model

Figure 2.3 Proposed Research model
Table 1 Summary of hypotheses

Table 2.1 Summary of hypotheses
H1

There is a negative relationship between core self-evaluation and work - family conflict

H2

There is a negative relationship between core self-evaluation and family - work conflict

H3

There is a positive relationship between work - family conflict and academic burnout

H4

There is a positive relationship between family – work conflict and academic burnout

H5

There is a negative relationship between work - family conflict and job performance

H6

There is a negative relationship between family – work conflict and job performance

H7

There is a positive relationship between core self-evaluation and job performance

H8

There is a negative relationship between core self-evaluation and academic burnout

2.5. Chapter summary
In summary, this chapter mentions previous theory and concepts relating to core selfevaluation, work-family (and family-work) conflict, academic burnout and job performance.
As a result of this, the research model with eight hypotheses is established to illustrate
relationships among these five factors as figure 2.3 above.

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3. METHODOLOGY
This chapter presents methodology of this study. Firstly, the research process that is
followed by measurement scales, which are used to develop questionnaire. Next is the
questionnaire design. Finally, the sample and the tests used in data analysis are discussed.
3.1. Research process

Figure 4

Research process

Figure 3.1 Research process

After research problems were identified, literature review was executed to find out
previous theories, conceptual models, constructs definitions related to study factors affecting

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