The ongoing decrease of job satisfaction amongst the corporate credit officers in bank for investment and development of vietnam jsc ho chi minh city branch causes, impacts, and solutions

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

NGUYEN TRAN NGOC ANH

THE ONGOING DECREASE OF JOB
SATISFACTION AMONGST THE
CORPORATE CREDIT OFFICERS IN BANK
FOR INVESTMENT AND DEVELOPMENT OF
VIETNAM JSC – HO CHI MINH CITY
BRANCH: CAUSES, IMPACTS, AND
SOLUTIONS

MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

Ho Chi Minh City – Year 2018


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

NGUYEN TRAN NGOC ANH

THE ONGOING DECREASE OF JOB
SATISFACTION AMONGST THE
CORPORATE CREDIT OFFICERS IN BANK
FOR INVESTMENT AND DEVELOPMENT
OF VIETNAM JSC – HO CHI MINH CITY
BRANCH: CAUSES, IMPACTS, AND

SOLUTIONS

MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

SUPERVISOR: LE THI THANH XUAN

Ho Chi Minh City – Year 2018


Executive summary
Nowadays, in the fourth industrial revolution (Industry 4.0), although there are an
increasing number of professional fields gradually replaced by technology (i.e.
banking, production, transportation, etc.), the intellectual capital of human resource is
still considered as the indispensable asset of all organizations in operating and
maintaining organizations’ operations. Therefore, to build and maintain the effective
human resource as a competitive advantage requires the management to put forward
suitable strategies in which creating a more convenient work place is one of
prerequisites. The failure of the managers on understanding and adjusting
appropriately could gradually lead to the decrease of job satisfactions. More
concernedly, the low levels of job satisfactions are supposed to provoke other severe
consequences such as the increase levels of burnout, the high turnover rate, the
smoulder deterioration of employee involvement and organizational commitment, and
the decline of organizational outcomes.
Indeed, from Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam JSC – Ho Chi Minh
City Branch (hereinafter called BIDV.HCMC) perspectives, as a matter of fact, there
stand an increasingly high turnover rate amongst the corporate credit officers and the
decreasing business outcomes. Although there are a variety of internal and external
causes that are to blame for these results, it is popularly believed that the decreasingly
low level of job satisfaction is probably the main internal underlying cause.
Therefore, the thesis first aims to identify the underlying causes of low satisfaction

amongst the corporate credit officers at BIDV.HCMC. According to several deeply
interviews derived from the current and former employees, the findings of the thesis
point out that the uncertainty and power distance appear to be the main causes that
lead to an emerge in the turnover intention. The thesis will then discuss some feasible
alternative solutions regarding to the improvement of some management skills and the
promotion of a more democracy working environment to incline the level of
satisfaction and relieve the turnover intention amongst the BIDV.HCMC workers.

1


Acknowledgements
I would like to acknowledge all who supported me during my studies without whom I
would not be where I am today.
I would especially like to thank my supervisor – Professor Le Thi Thanh Xuan for all
her advice and guidance, without her invaluable helps this thesis could not have been
possible.
I also would like to show my gratitude to my colleagues at work and classmates at ISB
for their constant supports and motivations. I also send my sincere thankfulness to my
parents and friends for their support and encouragement.

2


Table of contents
Executive summary ................................................................................................................................1
List of figures ..........................................................................................................................................4
List of tables ............................................................................................................................................5
I.

Introduction ....................................................................................................................................6
1.1. Company Background ..............................................................................................................6
1.2. The branch’s structure and general goals ...............................................................................7

II. Problem context ..............................................................................................................................8
III. The classification of initial causes leading to the decrease of job satisfaction ........................14
3.1. The theoretical initial cause and effect map..........................................................................14
3.2. The factual cause and effect map ...........................................................................................15
IV. The literatures for the elements affecting to the job satisfaction and the connections of these
literatures with the BIDV.HCMC contexts........................................................................................17
4.1. Working environment .............................................................................................................17
4.1.1. Physical working conditions ...........................................................................................17
4.1.2. Human resource element ................................................................................................18
4.1.3. Organizational element ...................................................................................................19
a.

Remuneration .....................................................................................................................20

b.

Corporate culture ................................................................................................................25

4.2. Work – life balance..................................................................................................................31
4.2.1. Time – based conflict .......................................................................................................32
4.2.2. Strain – based conflict .....................................................................................................34
V.

Cause validation ...........................................................................................................................35

VI. Alternative solutions ....................................................................................................................40

6.1. The first alternative solution: training the management skills for the managers at all
levels. .................................................................................................................................................40
6.2. The second alternative solution: the team – building/extracurricular activities. ..............42
6.3. The third alternative solution: developing a democracy working environment................44
VII. Organization of actions ................................................................................................................46
VIII.

Conclusions ...........................................................................................................................48

IX. Supporting information ...............................................................................................................49
INTERVIEW GUIDE ..........................................................................................................................50
IN-DEPTH INTERVIEW....................................................................................................................51
Transcipt ...............................................................................................................................................52
Reference...............................................................................................................................................59

3


List of figures
Figure 1: BIDV.HCMC organizational structure
Figure 2: The conceptual cause – effect model of the thesis
Figure 3: The initial cause – effect map
Figure 4: The general process of promotion in BIDV.HCMC
Figure 5: The cause and effect map
Figure 6: The final cause and effect map

4


List of tables

Table 1: The size of debt and deposit from 2014 to 2016
Table 2: The income of credit, deposit and other services from 2014 – 2016
Table 3: The total number of employee at all levels in BIDV.HCMC in 2018
Table 4: The income of debt, deposit and other services of BIDV.HCM by category of
CCM and ICM departments from 2014 to 2016 (BIL. VND)
Table 5: The growth of net income of loan, deposit and other services classified by
departments from 2014 to 2016
Table 6: The market share of credits amongst banks in 30/6/2018
Table 7: The growth rate of credits amongst the selected banks in 30/6/2018
Table 8: The development of BIDV branches in the period of 2010 – 2017
Table 9: The number of BIDV.HCMC officers leaving job in 2014 – 2017
Table 10: The number of staff leaving their CCM duties from 2014 – 2017
Table 11: A variety of reasons acquired through the interviews
Table 12: The average income per head of several surveyed banks in 2016 – 2017
Table 13: The average salaries of some positions at BIDV.HCMC in 2018
Table 14: The costs for private courses of training in leadership skills
Table 15: The cost of holding several team – building/extracurricular activities
Table 16: The cost of developing a democracy working environment
Table 17: An action plan timeline which consumes 12 months from December 2018 to
December 2019

5


I.

Introduction

1.1. Company Background
Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam JSC – Ho Chi Minh City Branch

(hereinafter called “BIDV.HCMC”), founded in 1976, is one of the longest established
branches of BIDV. Over 40 years of development, BIDV.HCMC nowadays becomes
one of the largest units of BIDV with the total asset of approximately VND 20,000
billion and contributes roughly 10% to the general profit after tax of BIDV (Source:
the financial statements of BIDV in 2017). The market network of BIDV.HCMC
mainly concentrates on individual customers and a number of large corporate
customers specializing in construction, high technology industries, building materials,
agriculture, commerce etc. Moreover, in the field of human resources development,
BIDV Head office considers BIDV.HCMC as an ideal place to train and educate many
leadership generations of BIDV at all levels. The following tables illustrate some
typical acquired goals in business operations in 2014 – 2016: (VND Billion)
Table 1: The size of debt and deposit from 2014 to 2016
SIZE
DEBT BALANCE (BIL. VND)
DEPOSIT BALANCE (BIL. VND)

2014
13,943
17,856

2015
16,542
23,536

2016
2015/2014 2016/2015 2016/2014
19,054
19%
15%
37%

22,937
32%
-3%
28%

Table 2: The income of credit, deposit and other services from 2014 – 2016
INCOME
DEPOSIT (BIL. VND)
CREDIT (BIL. VND)
OTHER SERVICES (BIL. VND)
TOTAL

2014
277
282
165
725

2015
349
264
164
777

2016
336
231
164
731

2015/2014
26%
-6%
0%
7%

2016/2015
-4%
-13%
0%
-6%

2016/2014
21%
-18%
0%
1%

(Source: Financing – Planning Department)
Due to the broadly domestic and international business networks and the quality
management systems reviewed periodically by the International Organization for
Standardization (ISO 9001: 2015), BIDV.HCMC is one of the experimental branches
to be selected for applying a number of international standards (i.e. Basel, etc.) and
testing banking products before launching into the entire system. Moreover,
BIDV.HCMC is selected as an important payment intermediary of many domestic and
international organizations (i.e. Foreign Direct Investment, etc.).
6


1.2. The branch’s structure and general goals

Figure 1: BIDV.HCMC organizational structure
Board of
Directors
Internal
management
Financing and
planning

Risk
management

Customer
management

Operation

Risk
management

Transaction
offices

Customer
Service

Corporate
banking

Organization

Vault Service

Individual
banking

Human
Resources

Credit
Administration

(Source: Financing– Planning Department)
In accordance with the BIDV policy of standard organizational model in branch, the
organizational structure of BIDV.HCMC includes Board of Directors and five main
divisions of business operations: Customer Management including Departments of
corporate customer management and individual customer management (hereinafter
called CCM and ICM), Risk Management (Department of Risk Management),
Operation (Department of Credit Administration, Department of Customer Service and
Department of Vault Service), Internal Management (Department of financing and
planning, Organization Department, and Human Resources Department) and the
subsidiary units (or Transaction Offices, in other words). The following table
illustrates the current total number of employee at all levels in BIDV.HCMC:
Table 3: The total number of employee at all levels in BIDV.HCMC in 2018
Divisions
Board of Director
Internal management

Risk management
Operation

Customer Management

Department
Financing and Accounting
Organization
Human resources
Risk management
Customer service
Vault Service
Credit Administration
Corporate customer
Individual customer

Number
6
15
15
4
13
30
12
16
49
39

Percentage
2%
6%
6%
2%

5%
12%
5%
6%
20%
16%
7


Divisions
Transaction offices
Total

Department

Number
48
247

Percentage
19%
100%

Source: Department of human resource management
According to the general goals of BIDV in 2017 – 2020 including maintaining the top
position in market share, scale, and the ability of regulating the domestic financial
market, the entire BIDV system in general and BIDV.HCMC in particular mainly
concentrate on the traditional banking areas including credit, guarantee issuance,
deposit, international payment, trade finance, and other banking products (i.e. internet
banking, card products, etc.). In other words, it is obvious that the traditional banking

field (i.e. credit, guarantee issuance, etc.) is still in the highest priority of BIDV in
2017 – 2020. For example, according to the speech of Mr. Van Dinh Hai – Director of
BIDV.HCMC – in Corporate Banking Meeting in March, 2017, he stated that: “Even
though the development of retail banking and other related products will be the trend
of modern banking in the future, the contribution of corporate banking still plays an
important role of our current performance. We have already attracted a number of
large and SME (small and medium enterprise) corporate customers and these
customer resources are our competitive advantage. Most of our income comes from
them, about 80%, thus, maintaining the group of customers is still necessary for our
performance in long term”. This shows that corporate customer resources have the
most significant impact to BIDV.HCMC performance and the labour force in this front
– office division plays a key role in the business operations.
II.

Problem context

In fact, the CCM departments have three main responsibilities of: developing and
maintaining customer relationships, (ii) appraising and submitting to the higher levels
having jurisdiction over all credit proposals, and (iii) collaborating to other
departments to develop and retain the business operations in BIDV.HCMC. Due to
being a key role in income – generating activities, the CCM departments are allocated
the largest number of employees – accounting for approximately 20 percent of the
entire branch staff. Moreover, due to the credit activities regarding a great deal of
internal and external issues (i.e. laws, finance, communication, business characteristics
8


of various customers, business strategies of BIDV, internal rules and procedures, etc.).
Therefore, in spite of the offered competitive remuneration, to be in charge of a great
deal of complex tasks in customer management division requires the employees at all

levels to be skilful, well – regulated, and be able to lifelong learning.
As commented above, it is undeniable that the CCM departments play a pivotal role in
running the branch’s business operations. Particularly, the CCM departments
contribute approximately 76 percent of the entire branch income in 2016 (see table 4).
Table 4: The income of debt, deposit and other services of BIDV.HCM by
category of CCM and ICM departments from 2014 to 2016 (BIL. VND)
Departments
CCM
ICM
TOTAL
CCM (%)
ICM (%)

DEPOSIT
2014 2015 2016
166
214
222
112
135
113
278
349
335
60% 61%
66%
40% 39%
34%

2014

266
16
282
94%
6%

CREDIT
2015 2016
239
202
26
28
265
230
90%
88%
10%
12%

OTHER SERVICES
2014 2015 2016
140
135
132
24
30
33
164
165
165

85% 82%
80%
15% 18%
20%

2014
573
152
725
79%
21%

TOTAL
2015 2016
587
556
190
175
777
731
76%
76%
24%
24%

(Source: Financing – Planning Department)
As commented above, the performance of BIDV.HCM concentrates on three main
groups of service which are deposit service, credit service and other services
including domestic and international payment, trade finance, internet banking,
insurance etc. The performance is evaluated on two main elements: size (balance of

debt and deposit) and the efficiency (income from main groups of service). According
to the figure in Table 1, both debt balance and deposit balance increase with 37% and
28% respectively throughout period 2014 – 2016 and this shows that the size of
balance is expanded year by year. However, the efficiency element seems not to be
consistent with the increasing balance. Particular, the figures in table 2 show that the
growth rate of income generally decreases from 2014 to 2016, especially the income
from credit services significantly decreases by 6% and 13% in 2015 and 2016 in that
order, and decreases by 18% throughout the entire surveyed period.
More importantly, according to the analysis of total income classified by categories
including CCM and ICM departments (see table 5, table 2), table 2 and table 5 indicate
that the decreases in income throughout period 2014 – 2016 focuses on corporate
9


customer area with: 10% (2015/2014) and 15% (2016/2015) in credit services; and 4%
(2015/2014) and 2% (2016/2015) for other services. Therefore, it is noticeable that the
decreases on total income the surveyed period mainly derived from CCM departments.
Table 5: The growth of net income of loan, deposit and other services classified by
departments from 2014 to 2016
GROUP
CORPORATE
INDIVIDUAL
TOTAL

DEPOSIT
2015/2014 2016/2015
29%
4%
21%
-16%

26%
-4%

CREDIT
2015/2014
2016/2015
-10%
-15%
61%
10%
-6%
-13%

SERVICE
2015/2014 2016/2015
-4%
-2%
22%
10%
0%
0%

(Source: Financing – Planning Department)
Beside the decrease of income from corporate customers, based on the observation, the
author also found several underlying subjective and objective reasons causing the
decreasing performance of BIDV.HCMC. They are:
-

In relation to objectives reasons, one of the challenges of BIDV performance is the
increasing high competition from other commercial banks. Nowadays, there are

many commercial banks, especially some banks invested by the foreign direct
investment (i.e. HSBC, ANZ, Hong Leong Bank, etc.) in Ho Chi Minh City which
not only provide diversified bank services like those in BIDV, but they also have
some specific products than BIDV to meet the changing needs of customers. The
big competitors of BIDV.HCMC can be listed: Vietcombank, Vietinbank or
foreign banks such as ANZ, HSBC, etc. Catching the demand of using services
with cheap expense of corporate customers is one of the popular competitive
strategies that the competitors follow to attract more and more customers. This
leads to the difficulty for BIDV.HCMC’s officers in negotiating and maintaining
the existing customers, and approaching new customers. Indeed, the following
tables illustrating the market share of credits and the growth rates of credits
amongst banks in 30/6/1018 would be an obvious evidence that show a highly
increasing competition that BIDV in general, and BIDV.HCMC encounter with.
Table 6: The market share of credits amongst banks in 30/6/2018

10


ACB
3%

Market share of credits
BIDV
13%

VIETINBANK
12%
EXIMBANK
2%
MBBANK

3%
SHB SACOMBANK
3%
4%

OTHERS
44%

LIENVIETPOSTB
TECHCOMBANK
HDBANK
ANK
2% 1%
2%

VPBANK
2%

VIETCOMBANK
9%

Table 7: The growth rate of credits amongst the selected banks in 30/6/2018

The growth rate of credits
20.00%
15.00%
14.50%
13.30%
12.20%
11.80%

11.30%
15.00%
10.80%
10.70%
9.60%
7.20%7.70%7.80%9.00%
10.00%
5.00% 2.30%
0.00%

TECHCOMBANK
BIDV
VIETINBANK
VPBANK
VIB
SACOMBANK

(Source: The mid – annual reports of banks in 30/6/2018)
-

Another objective reason could be derived from the internal competitions between
BIDV branches as a result of the expansion of new branches (See table 8).
Table 8: The development of BIDV branches in the period of 2010 – 2017
182 190 190

200
150

126 136
113 118 117

No. of domestic branchs
of the entire BIDV

100
50

9

12

12

15

19

27

36

36

No. of branches in HCMC

0
2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017

(Source: the BIDV annual reports)

11


Particularly, BIDV.HCMC is one of the main branches that are responsible for
expanding the network of BIDV in Ho Chi Minh City. In the period of 2014 –
2017, BIDV.HCMC supported to open 05 new branches by sharing its customers,
debt and deposit balances as well as human resources. The expansion not only
influences the size and income of BIDV.HCMC, but also creates the internal
competitions between BIDV branches in Ho Chi Minh City. Especially, this leads
to the shortage of experienced labor force of BIDV.HCMC in recent years because
the experienced staff are chosen to undertake the new positions in their new
branches. Although the BIDV networks are expanded and the brand of BIDV is
more well – known, these expansions have a certain significant impact to the
performance of BIDV.HCMC.
-

One of the noticeable subjective reasons is high turnover rate of BIDV.HCMC
officers, especially in CCM departments (see table 9 and 10). Theoretically,
according to Price and Mueller (1981) with Causal Model of Turnover, the
turnover rate is referred as the percentage of staff resigning from their firms within
a certain period of time. Specifically, table 9 shows a comparison of number
officers leaving job amongst departments, and obviously indicates that the high
turnover mainly happens in the CCM departments.
Table 9: The number of BIDV.HCMC officers leaving job in 2014 – 2017
No.
1
2
3

The number of officers leaving their jobs

CCM departments
Other departments
Total

2014
2
2
4

2015
3
1
4

2016
6
1
7

2017
12
3
15

(Source: the BIDV.HCMC annual reports)
In fact, there stand a great deal of underlying subjective and objective causes (i.e.
the expectation of workers on their organizations, company culture, promotion
opportunities, professionalism, individual development, internal communication,
etc.) influencing on job satisfaction, organization commitment, and turnover
intention in further. Indeed, from BIDV.HCMC perspectives, due to a number of

recent specific causes that would be deeply analysed later on in this thesis, a
noticeable problem of employee turnover has been emerged since 2014. The rise
12


of this problem pose a concern to the managers at all levels in maintaining the
human resource as a competitive advantage and accomplishing the branch
business goals in further. Particularly, according to the following statistics, the
number of CCM staff resignation has substantially inclined in the past four years
(2014 – 2017), as below:
Table 10: The number of staff leaving their CCM duties from 2014 – 2017
No.
1
2
3
4

Year
Corporate credit officers
Number of people leaving job
Number of new recruits
Turnover rate (2/1)

2014
49
2
3
4%

2015

50
3
5
6%

2016
52
6
3
12%

2017
49
12
6
23%

(Source: the BIDV.HCMC annual reports)
Theoretically, the alarming turnover rate is considered as an essential contributor
to the lack of workers and the decline of organizational operations in further
(Borda & Norman, 1997). In other words, from managers’ perspectives, in fact,
alarming increasing turnover rate can be costly to their organizations. Particularly,
the shortfall of performance and productivity on part of the leavers in advance of
departure is not only described as a significant sign of resignation, but it also
negatively influences on the general work of their teams/departments.
Furthermore, these resignations then have the effect of increasing working
pressure/work – life imbalance on remaining employees because they have to
share the job duties left by the leavers and diminishing spirits of the remaining
staff, lead to the possibility of further turnover (Borda & Norman, 1997; Coomber
& Barriball, 2007). In the long term, filling the available positions could be a time

– consuming and resource – consuming tasks. More concernedly, the lack of
critical positions for too long is supposed to have significantly negative effects on
organization outcomes. Therefore, the striving to avoid increasing turnover rate
should be considered as a matter of considerable management concern.
As shown in this section, there are a variety of potential causes that explain for the
decrease of the BIDV.HCMC outcomes. Particularly, in a more objective field, the
high competition of other banks and other BIDV branches are supposed to be the
systematic and unavoidable risks. On the other hand, the increasing turnover rate
13


amongst CCM departments is considered as a non – systematic/subjective cause. In
relation to the increasing turnover rate, as a deficiency ensues and the unfavourable
outcomes of BIDV.HCMC are emerged, it follows that the reasons CCM staff vacate
from their job duties must be clearly analysed. In fact, it is popular that turnover
intention is one of the typical consequences derived from the fluctuation of job
satisfaction at working practices. Therefore, it has long been believed that job
satisfaction has been cited as an indispensable contributory factor to organizational
commitment in the international human resource literature (Strachota, Normandin,
O’brien, Clary, and Krukow, 2003; Cavanagh, 1992; Borda and Norman, 1997). In
other words, the status of job satisfaction is described as an primary predictor of intent
to stay, and thus many authors consistently concluded that an increase in turnover are
supposed to occur if a workforce is dissatisfied (Saleh, Lee, and Prien, 1965; Blegen,
1993; Irvine & Evans, 1995; Hellman, 1997). Whilst there exist a variety of definitions
of job satisfaction across related literatures, job satisfaction generally has been
considered as an individual point of view in the manner of personal expectations at
work correspond to outcomes (McKenna, 2000). Additionally, job satisfaction is a
complex phenomenon with many various affecting elements. Generally speaking, in
order to minimize thoroughly the alarming turnover rate and other unfavourable
symptoms as well due to the dissatisfaction requires managers first to identify the

underlying issues, and then put forward the suitable strategies/solutions to improve the
current working situations. Therefore, in the next section, the thesis will first
theoretically examine the affecting elements. Then, based on the findings gathered
from the in – depth interviews and the commented theoretical examinations, the thesis
will aim to classify several surveyed elements affecting to the status of job satisfaction
amongst CCM staff in BIDV.HCMC.
III. The classification of initial causes leading to the decrease of job satisfaction
3.1. The theoretical initial cause and effect map
According to Longo & Mura (2011), intellectual capital has been interpreted as the
asset that organizations employ for their competitive advantages including human
capital, structural capital, and relational capital. Particularly, relational capital
14


indicates the networks of relations that the corporate, by means of its workers, creates
internally and externally (i.e. the collaboration between staff, and suppliers, customers,
or other stakeholders, etc.). Besides, human capitals refer to the sum of employees’
capacities (i.e. skill, knowledge, experience, expertise, etc.) to create the tangible and
intangible assets and the values for their organization and give it a competitive edge in
the marketplace (Hejazi, Ghanbari, & Alipour, 2016). Moreover, structural capital
consists of the knowledge residing in and is employed through databases, patents,
procedures, systems, and routines. From organizational perspective, several scholars
state that intellectual capital drives corporate performance, impacts corporate
innovative capacities, and positively relates to organizational skill and knowledge
transfer (Chen, Shih, & Yang, 2011; Kang & Snell, 2009; Reed, Lubatkin, Srinivasan,
2006; Subramaniam & Youndt, 2005). Therefore, based on the findings of Longo &
Mura (2011), there stands a significantly positive connection between the
adequateness of intellectual capitals on employee’ satisfaction that itself creates many
potential consequences in further (i.e. career achievement, attitudes, turnover intention,
etc.). (See figure 2)

Figure 2: The conceptual cause – effect model of the thesis
The adequatesness of
intellectual capitals:
- The structural capital
- The relational capital
- The human capital

The employees'
satisfaction

The employees' attitudes
and spirits fluctuate
from low to high (i.e.
turnover, neglect,
aspiration, etc.)

3.2. The factual cause and effect map
From BIDV.HCMC perspective, based on the findings derived from the thorough
interviews, there are many different explanations for the decrease of CCM employees’
job satisfaction. More systematically, the thesis classifies these reasons into three
groups including human capital, structural capital and relational capital (see table
11), then lists them into the initial cause – effect map (see figure 3), as below:
Table 11: A variety of reasons acquired through the interviews
No.
1

Group
Relational
capitals

Reason
The lack of democracy at work and the internal communications are negatively
influenced due to the large power distance.

15


No.

Group

2

Structural
capitals

3

Human Capital

Reason
The internal procedures are somewhat complicated and the empowerment is low, this
fact leads to the lateness in solving the customers’ needs.
Due to the overlapped rules and procedures, the higher managers tend to avoid the
uncertainty by shifting the responsibilities onto the lower levels.
The inexperienced – leadership skill managers implicitly make their subordinates
incapable due to inefficient feedbacks and knowledge sharing.
Unfair promotions are based on personal relationships, and feeling – based judgments
The workers are incapable in arranging time and balancing between work – life lead to
work – life imbalance

Figure 3: The initial cause – effect map

The shortage of human
capital

The shortage of
intellectual capital

The shortage of structural
capital

The shortage of relational
capital

The inexperienced leadership skill managers

The inefficient feedbacks
and knowledge sharing

The personal
relationships and the
feeling - based judgments

Unfair promotions

The incapability of time
arrangement and
balancing between work
and life

Work - life imbalance

The high uncertainty and
the overlapped rules and
procedures

The responsibility shifting

The low empowerment
and the conplicated
working procedures

The delayed and late
working processes
The lack of internal
democracy at work

The large power distance
The inefficient internal
communications

As shown in this section, the thesis works out the cause and effect map based on the
practices gathered from the interviews. Each of these practices alone or together has a
negatively certain influence/significant on the CCM officers’ satisfaction and causes
further consequences (i.e. discouragement, turnover intention, etc.). In other words,
these commented external expressions are the further consequences that very much
depend on the fluctuation of job satisfaction. Obviously, the job satisfaction is the
central problem and itself is dependent on a variety of independent variables, typically
called intellectual capitals. According to the built map, the shortage of intellectual

capitals is expressed implicitly through the unfavourable practices (i.e. the ineffective
internal communications, unfair promotions, etc.) in the working environment.
Therefore, in the next section, based on the findings from the interviews, the thesis
16


will aim to analyse the shortage of these intellectual capitals and its impacts thorough
approaching the related literatures and linking these literatures to the practical
elements affecting to the job satisfactions including working environment and work –
life balance.
IV. The literatures for the elements affecting to the job satisfaction and the
connections of these literatures with the BIDV.HCMC contexts
4.1. Working environment
Job satisfaction is the principle of the staffs’ behaviors in the work place and based on
the awareness and faith that they have about their current duties. Due to the various
internal and external impacts, the degree of job satisfaction fluctuates from high to low
levels. Workers have their own views about different aspects of their duties such as the
nature of functions, colleagues, supervisors, remuneration, etc. These aspects are the
parts of a work environment surrounding and deeply influencing on individuals’ job
activities, attitudes, and satisfaction.
Indeed, an abundance of evidence derived from empirical studies in human resource
management conducted in different industries hitherto point out the view that there
could be a significantly positive correlation between working environment and job
satisfaction (Leiter and Laschinger, 2006; Aiken, Clarke, Sloane, Sochalski, Busse,
Clarke, ... & Shamian, 2001; Anitha, 2014; Raziq and Maulabakhsh, 2015). In other
words, a motivated work environment intrinsically approves employees’ performance,
and job satisfaction in further (Marin – García, Bonavia, and Losilla, 2011), especially
in some human capital – intensive industries (e.g. financial services, health care,
education, etc.). There stand a number of different definitions of the term “working
environment”, and its factors influencing on employees’ morale and performance.

Particularly, working environment could be theoretically defined as a combination of
three pivotal elements: technical element, human resource element, and organizational
element (Kohun, 1992; Opperman, 2002). The match between these elements and the
context of BIDV.HCMC will be particularly discussed in several following
subsections below:
4.1.1. Physical working conditions
17


Firstly, physical working conditions, or technical element stands for the physical or
technical facilities that firms invest to facilitate their staff to perform their respective
responsibilities and activities, such as tools, equipment, office layout, ventilation,
lighting, noiselessness, technological infrastructure, etc. (Raziq & Maulabakhsh,
2015). In theory, there stands a positive psychological influence of the workstation on
job satisfaction (Newsham, Brand, Donnelly, Veitch, Aries, & Charles, 2009;
Tomovska – Misoska, Stefanovska – Petkovska, Ralev, & Krliu – Handjiski, 2014;
Brill & Weidemann, 2001; Wineman & Adhya, 2007). From the banking perspectives,
employees probably spend most of their time doing indoor activities, thus a well –
equipped workplace play as one of key determinants in creating the staff’
comfortableness, providing pleasant condition that ultimately improve productivity,
and other advantages (cost savings, time savings, health protection, etc.). In the
context of BIDV.HCMC, the impact of this element on job satisfaction appears to be
insignificant because of the following motives. Firstly, the convenient location of
BIDV.HCMC (located in Nguyen Cong Tru St., District 1, HCMC – generally called
“Wall Street of Saigon”) considerably facilitates the staff in their income – generating
activities (i.e. transactions, notary – related activities, etc.). Secondly, from Vietnam
perspective, it is popular that investing in the physical appearance of the branch is
supposed to be an effective strategy to build the trust and attract more customers, thus
the board of directors consider creating a more convenient work place as one of
prerequisites. For example, the tools/equipment, or the infrastructure of internal

computer network are periodically/suddenly tested and maintained to ensure their high
quality of services. Finally, in fact, the perceptions of the branch’s physical factors
discussed above amongst the employees appear to be positive. Moreover, according to
the findings derived from several in – depth interviews, there is no empirical evidence
that technical element influences on the BIDV.HCMC staff’ satisfaction.
4.1.2. Human resource element
Secondly, in relation to the human resource element, this element is concerned with
the interactional justice to ensure sound social relationships and efficient supports at
job contexts between employees and their peers, others with whom the employees
relate (Colquitt, 2001). Basically, interactional justice is divided into two components:
18


interpersonal and informational justice. Specifically, interpersonal justice reflects the
level to which employees are treated with politeness, fairness, dignity, and respect by
their managers at all levels in executing working procedures and other working
activities (i.e. performance appraisals, determining outcomes, making decisions, etc.).
The informational, in the other hand, concentrates on reasons supplied to staff that
disclose information about why procedures were employed in a determined way or
why the results were distributed in a specific fashion. To achieve and retain cohesive,
loyal, and dedicated labor forces requires the management to consider interactional
justice for personnel at every level as a vital condition in operations. In other words,
the failure of managers on acting the role of facilitators to promote the justice probably
triggers some severe problems, especially in job satisfaction, productivity and the
company outcomes in further (Amabile and Kramer, 2011). In the context of BIDV,
there has long been an official code of conduct that provides staff with clear standards
and expectations of how to do their job functions. Ideally, the BIDV.HCMC
employees at all levels are expected to use these standards in their working activities
and interpersonal relationships/communications between them and their colleagues
and higher managers to ensure the fairness and democracy at work. In fact, in the

context of BIDV.HCMC, due to the certain factors regarding to organizational element
including power distance and uncertainty avoidance that would be analyzed in the
following subsection, there probably exists an interactional injustice between the
managers at all levels and their subordinates, especially in internal communication and
making decision relating to promotion and determined business goals. Consequently,
according to the findings from the interviews, it is evident that this injustice
significantly impacts on the satisfaction amongst the CCM staff and the increase of
turnover rate.
4.1.3. Organizational element
Finally, organizational element refers to: (1) internal systems, policies, procedures, and
(2) organizational cultures, and other philosophies. Particularly, the internal systems,
policies, and procedures are ideally expected to build and maintain the distributive
justice and procedural justice. Theoretically, according to Adam (1965), distributive
justice is defined as the impartiality combined with decision consequences and
19


allocation of resources. The consequences or resources allocated may be in different
forms including tangible/short – term forms (i.e. salaries, bonus, etc.) and
intangible/long – term forms (i.e. promotion, etc.). Adam (1965) also believes that the
equality in distributing these outcomes would foster the perceptions of distributive
amongst staff. Besides, according to Leventhal (1980), procedural justice is
conceptualized as the justice and explicitness of the working procedures that produce
outcomes. This justice is expected to be in evidence and promoted when workers have
their voice in the process or the features of process ensure consistency, accuracy,
obviousness, ethicality, and the lack of bias. In the context of BIDV.HCMC, on the
findings of the interviews, the distributive and procedural justice will be examined via
the staff perceptions of prevailing remuneration status. Moreover, the procedural
justice will be revised in the discussion of organizational culture in regarding to the
uncertainty avoidance.

a.

Remuneration

As a matter of the fact, the term “remuneration” expresses the policies of
compensation and promotion provided in exchange for the services accomplished.
Regarding to the compensation – a type of short – term remuneration, from
BIDV.HCMC perspectives, based on the findings that most of CCM staff seem to be
satisfied with the level of compensation for their current positions in BIDV.HCMC, it
is evident that the compensation is not the underlying cause of the deterioration of
satisfaction amongst CCM staff.
Mr. Tran Hoai Nam shares: “For a 3 – year experience staff, my average income per
month is nearly about 30 million dong, which is quite competitive to my friends’ ones
in the other banks.”
Mrs. Ha Ngoc Giang also approves: “I am totally satisfied with the compensation I
receive from my bank. I fairly think that it is deserved and quite higher than most
banks in Ho Chi Minh City”
An empirical research conducted and largely published by Navigos Group – a firm
specializing in human resource services in Vietnam reveals that the average income of
a BIDV employee stand at the third position compared with those in other banks.
20


Table 12: the average income per head (in VND million) of several surveyed
banks in 2016 – 2017
30

27.3
23.9

25

26
22.3

24.3
21

23 24

21.4

21

19

20

19.820.2

15.9

15
10
5
0
Vietinbank Vietcombank

BIDV

Techcombank
2016

VIB

MBBank

ACB

2017

(Source: Navigos Group)
In relation to the remaining term, promotion refers to the major strides that are on the
employee’ career paths to higher hierarchical levels with higher responsibilities in
their organizations and typically always accompanies with more attractive
remuneration packages (Malik, Danish, and Munir, 2012). In BIDV.HCMC contexts,
the average salaries of higher levels seem to be approximately doubled over those of
lower higher levels statistically. Particularly, the following table will illustrate the
average salaries of some positions (from substitute to head of department, salaries of
deputy directors and director are not allowed to be shown in this thesis) at
BIDV.HCMC in 2018.
Table 13: The average salaries of some positions at BIDV.HCMC in 2018
Position

Level

Substitute

Deputy
head

Head

of
of

Class
Notes
1
2
3
4
5
20
22
24
26 A new officer would receive an average
salaries about 20 million VND/month in
accordance with Level 5 class 1. After each
three – year of work, his/her salaries will be
enhanced to a higher rank (i.e. Level 5 class 2,
3, and 4).
6
23
25
27
29 The employee must have at least 1 – year
experience and undertake more complicated
works than level – five colleagues.
7
35

38
41
44 These levels are only assigned to the deputy –
8
45
48
51
54 of – head positions
9
55
58
61
64 These levels are only assigned to the head – of
21


Position
department

Level
Class
10
65

68

71

Notes
74 – department positions

(Source: the department of human resource management)
As a matter of the fact, due to the concerns of scarceness of managerial positions,
practitioners thus find it critical to advance the most appropriate decisions to guarantee
the procedural justice in promotion:
-

Individuals who are selected will be well – qualified for the required adaptation
and response flexibly to their changing environment, and

-

The perception of impartiality of managerial promotion procedures amongst
employee (De Pater, Van Vianen, Bechtoldt, and KLEHE, 2009).

Mrs. Le Thi Kim Nhan, Head of Department of human resource, points out the view
that: “Ideally, to ensure the procedural justice in promotion, we would like to choose
the most appropriate candidates for higher positions on the basis of their past
performance, their managerial capacity, other communication skills, etc. Moreover,
the right candidates not only gain the approval from board of directors, they also have
to express their capacities during working practices to persuade other colleagues from
their departments. In fact, there are, however, some unfavorable situations mainly
derived from unexplained commands of the Director of our branch, we must promote
some candidates who may not be the best ones we expect, especially in deputy head
positions. These firstly emerges a split amongst the HRM Department and Board of
directors, then we would find it uncomfortable to work with these biased managers as
we require higher abilities than they actually can. Moreover, we admit that these
practices would raise the perception of unfairness in promotion, and performance
appraisal in further amongst our staff, especially in some ignored candidates.
Consequently, this discontent likely causes the decline of job motivation, and

satisfaction.”
Indeed, there obviously stands a direct and positive relationship between promotional
opportunities and job satisfaction, and this relationship also plays a prerequisite in
maximizing return on human resource and overall company outcomes. More
importantly, Malik, et al., (2012) emphasize that the reliance of the positive
22


relationship between promotional opportunities and job satisfaction is on perceived
justice by staff. Conversely, the staff perceptions of bias may cause negative impacts
on organizations (Lemons and Jones, 2001). For example, several researchers believe
that unfairness dilemmas probably accompany with other financial and psychological
costs such as turnover intention, job discontentment, and pay discontentment (Daileyl
and Kirk, 1992; McFarlin and Sweeney, 1992). Sashkin and Williams (1990) even find
out a positive connection between perceptions of organizational injustice and
physiological stress and sickness amongst workers, and the incline of absenteeism and
other industrial accidents.
Therefore, these issues are not only of concern to employers, but also to the
researchers who have long been identifying decisive criteria in order to ensure the
fairness in the context of advancement (García – Izquierdo, Moscoso, and Ramos –
Villagrasa, 2012). Particularly, based on the works of McEnrue (1989), García –
Izquierdo, et al., (2012), Beehr and Juntunen (1990), Kaplan and Ferris (2001), there
stand at least three procedural and informational issues that need to be considered
including:
-

The availability of a structured scheme with clearly – defined promotion
directions for employees. For example, absolute merit – based system refers the
eligibility of promotion to the comparison between the employees’ actual
performance and a determined cut – off level. In the relative merit – based

system, the promotion is rewarded to the candidate with highest – ranked
performance in compared with those of others. Another popular system is
seniority – based system which dignifies candidates with the most experience in
specific duties, or their organizations/industries (Phelan and Lin, 2001).

-

The transparency and the adequateness of information relating to chances,
preconditions, qualifications, and the procedure required to be examined.

-

The cognition of the competency – based standards of managerial selections
amongst staff.

Since BIDV.HCMC is one of largest branches of BIDV, and its scale is equal to those
of mid – size banks, thus the board of directors expect to select carefully the most well
23