Effects of Organizational Culture on Employees’ Job Satisfaction at LG Display Vietnam = Ảnh hưởng của văn hóa doanh nghiệp lên sự hài lòng của cán bộ nhân viên trong Công ty TNHH LG Display Việt Nam

ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA HÀ NỘI
KHOA QUẢN TRỊ VÀ KINH DOANH
---------------------

ĐẶNG THỊ HỒNG

EFFECTS OF ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE ON EMPLOYEES’
JOB SATISFACTION AT LG DISPLAY VIETNAM
ẢNH HƯỞNG CỦA VĂN HÓA DOANH NGHIỆP LÊN
SỰ HÀI LÕNG CỦA CÁN BỘ NHÂN VIÊN TRONG CÔNG TY
TNHH LG DISPLAY VIỆT NAM

LUẬN VĂN THẠC SĨ QUẢN TRỊ KINH DOANH

HÀ NỘI - 2019


ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA HÀ NỘI
KHOA QUẢN TRỊ VÀ KINH DOANH
---------------------

ĐẶNG THỊ HỒNG

EFFECTS OF ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE ON EMPLOYEES’
JOB SATISFACTION AT LG DISPLAY VIETNAM
ẢNH HƯỞNG CỦA VĂN HÓA DOANH NGHIỆP LÊN
SỰ HÀI LÕNG CỦA CÁN BỘ NHÂN VIÊN TRONG CÔNG TY
TNHH LG DISPLAY VIỆT NAM

Chuyên ngành: Quản trị kinh doanh
Mã số: 60 34 01 02

LUẬN VĂN THẠC SĨ QUẢN TRỊ KINH DOANH

NGƯỜI HƯỚNG DẪN KHOA HỌC: PGS.TS. NGUYỄN NGỌC THẮNG

HÀ NỘI - 2019


DECLARATION
The author confirms that the research outcomes in the thesis is the result
of the author‟s independent work during study and research period and it is not
yet published in other‟s research and article.
The other‟s research results and documentation (extraction, table, figure,
formula and other documents) used in the thesis are cited properly and the
permission (if required) is given.
The author is responsible in front of the Thesis Assessment Committee,
Hanoi School of Business and Management, and the laws for above-mentioned
declaration.

i


ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Firstly, I would like to acknowledge my advisor, Associate Professor
Doctor Nguyen Ngoc Thang for his wealthy advices. He has guided and
promptly given me a lot of instructions and comments in order to help me
moving forward with the right direction to the completion of my final research.
Secondly, I would like to express my sincere thank to Associate Professor
Doctor Nguyen Ngoc Thang for his support since the beginning of my research
that was selecting the very interesting research topics, then going through
research outline, until the end of this research. From this research, I can have a

deep understanding of business administration in general and innovative business
model of a business firm in particular.
I also would like to reserve special thank to my dear husband who spent
lots of his time supporting to analyze data and complete the thesis as planned.
Last but not least, I would like to send my deep thank all LG Display
Vietnam‟s employees, especially the 966 participants of the research. They have
assisted me to fulfill this research successfully in terms of survey questionnaires,
the research aims and scope. They did spend lots of time on my questionnaires;
so that I could collect valuable answers serving for the analysis of data before the
thesis could be completed well.
Because of the time limitation, I cannot avoid some mistakes in the
research. I look forward to receiving further comments from lectures and
colleagues so as to have more objective and fruitful research results/.

ii


TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION .................................................................................................... i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ..................................................................................... ii
LIST OF TABLES ................................................................................................. v
LIST OF FIGURE ................................................................................................ vii
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION .......................................................................... 1
1.1. Rationale ......................................................................................................... 1
1.2. Objectives of the research ............................................................................... 2
1.3. Subjects and the Research Scope .................................................................... 2
1.4. Research questions .......................................................................................... 3
1.5. Structure of the research.................................................................................. 3
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW ............................................................... 5

2.1. Organizational Culture .................................................................................... 5
2.2. Job Satisfaction ............................................................................................. 10
2.3. Current Situation of LG Display Vietnam .................................................... 12
2.3.1. Establishment and History of Development ........................................... 12
2.3.2. Building the Organizational Culture ....................................................... 13
2.3.3. The Management‟s Point of View and Purposes of Finding Effects of
Organizational Culture on Employees‟ Job Satisfaction .................................. 14
CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY ....................................................................... 16
3.1. Sample ........................................................................................................... 16
3.2. Instrumentation ............................................................................................. 16
3.3. Procedures ..................................................................................................... 19
3.4. Data Collection.............................................................................................. 22
3.5. Data Analysis ................................................................................................ 23
3.5.1. Overall .................................................................................................... 23
3.5.2. Analysis of the Survey Results ............................................................... 24
3.5.3. Analysis of the Internal Documents ....................................................... 25

iii


CHAPTER 4: RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS................................................. 26
4.1. Results ........................................................................................................... 27
4.1.1. Results Achieved from Excel Analysis .................................................. 27
4.1.2. Results Achieved from SPSS Analysis .................................................. 37
4.2. Discussions .................................................................................................... 66
CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSIONS, LIMITATIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS .. 68
5.1. Conclusions ................................................................................................... 68
5.2. Limitations .................................................................................................... 68
5.3. Recommendations ......................................................................................... 69
5.3.1. Suggestions for Future Studies ............................................................... 69

5.3.2. Suggestions for the Management of LG Display Vietnam..................... 70
REFERENCES ..................................................................................................... 74
APPENDIX A: INFORMED CONSENT TO PARTICIPATE ........................... 79
APPENDIX B: EMPLOYEE DEMOGRAPHIC SURVEY ............................... 80
APPENDIX C: SURVEY QUESTIONS ON JOB SATISFACTION ................ 82
APPENDIX D: SURVEY QUESTIONS ON ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE .. 83

iv


LIST OF TABLES
Table 1: Job satisfaction survey - Internal consistency reliability coefficient ..... 18
Table 2: Tables showing structure of respondents and distributions of
questionnaires ....................................................................................................... 20
Table 3: Survey results received (Source: Primary data).................................... 21
Table 4: Successful Ratio of Respondents‟ Answers........................................... 22
Table 5: Marital status of respondents ................................................................. 27
Table 6: Age group of respondents ...................................................................... 28
Table 7: Educational level of respondents ........................................................... 29
Table 8: Gender of respondents ........................................................................... 29
Table 9: Jobs of respondents ................................................................................ 31
Table 10: Service duration of respondents ........................................................... 31
Table 11: Living areas of respondents ................................................................. 32
Table 12: Mean score of organizational culture and job satisfaction of
respondents ........................................................................................................... 37
Table 13: Correlation between the company‟s organizational culture and
employees‟ job satisfaction .................................................................................. 38
Table 14: Details of correlation between the company‟s organizational culture
and employees‟ job satisfaction ........................................................................... 39
Table 15: Regression between organization culture factors and the employees‟

job satisfaction ..................................................................................................... 41
Table 16: Detailed regression between organizational culture factors and job
satisfaction factors ................................................................................................ 45
Table 17: Groups of sex and job satisfaction ....................................................... 47
Table 18: Groups of sex and organizational culture ............................................ 49
Table 19: Tables showing significant differences among the means of
independent groups of job grade to the employee‟s job satisfaction ................... 53
Table 20: Tables showing significant differences among the means of
independent groups of employees‟ education to their job satisfaction ................ 55

v


Table 21: Tables showing significant differences among the means of
independent groups of employees‟ living areas to their job satisfaction ............. 56
Table 22: Tables showing significant differences among the means of
independent groups of employees‟ service duration to their job satisfaction ...... 58
Table 23: Tables showing significant differences among the means of
independent groups of employees‟ job grades to the organizational culture ....... 60
Table 24: Tables showing significant differences among the means of independent
groups of employees‟ educational levels to the organizational culture...................... 61
Table 25: Tables showing significant differences among the means of
independent groups of employees‟ marital status to the organizational culture .. 63
Table 26: Tables showing significant differences among the means of independent
groups of employees‟ service duration to the organizational culture ........................ 63
Table 27: Tables showing significant differences among the means of
independent groups of employees‟ living areas to the organizational culture ..... 65

vi

LIST OF FIGURE
Figure 1: A framework to analyze the relationship between Organizational
culture and Job satisfaction .................................................................................. 12
Figure 2: Job satisfaction among total respondents at LG Display Vietnam ....... 33
Figure 3: Analysis of organizational culture in LG Display Vietnam ................. 35

vii


CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
1.1. Rationale
Located in Hai Phong Province, Vietnam, LG Display Vietnam was officially
established in April 2016 with total investment 1.5 billion USD. It is one branch of
LG, a famous Korean group specializing in manufacturing electronic products such
as TV, OLED, POLED module, washing machines, vacuum, refrigerator, etc. With
the purpose of becoming number one global display manufacturing company in
electronics industry, the company will reach 20.000 employees including 200
Managers, 1.800 Engineers, 200 Unit leaders, 1.900 Technicians, 500 Korean
Interpreters and about 17.000 Operators (Internal HR Plan 2017-2020). With this
business strategy, work quality, employee commitment and recruitment efficiency
(mass numbers) are always the matters of concern of the director board.
As a new company, LG Display Vietnam now focuses on building up a strong
organizational culture in order to help motivate its employees to work and create the
most professional working environment with high job satisfaction for the employees
in the company. Despite such efforts, turnover rates of the company are a little high,
3.5% among line worker taking shift work and 2.5% among office workers taking
admin shift (turnover rates of other companies in the same industry are 3% and 2%
relatively).
Consequently, high turnover rates have led to negative effects on LG Display as

follows:
-

Shortage of key positions such as Managers, Assistant Manager, Engineers.
This causes over-workload for current manpower in the same positions.

-

Low work performance of respective departments.

-

Worry for the management board and recruitment team.

-

Low cooperation among departments in the company because all are busy
and they are working under high pressure because of manpower shortage.

1


With above mention perspectives, this study will focus on finding: a) actual effects
of current organizational culture on employees‟ job satisfaction; b) the levels of
effects of organizational culture on employees‟ job satisfaction. The rationale of the
current study, therefore, is to analyze effects of organizational culture on the
employees‟ job satisfaction which may have certain relations with the high
resignation as above mentioning. The study is also expected to reveal levels of such
effects and what could be executed to improve current organizational in order to
have a better one in the future.

This study, therefore, intends to discover interesting relationship between the
company‟s organizational culture and its employees‟ job satisfaction. Based on the
results, possible contributions to the management of the company may be made
accordingly. Moreover, the study will focus on key elements of organizational
culture and the levels of its effects on employees‟ job satisfaction. Taking into
account different elements of job satisfaction, the theory of organizational culture
and job satisfaction will be openly discussed, so that the reader can fully understand
fully about them, elements of these two areas, certain theoretical relationships
concluded from results of previous studies and researchers.
1.2. Objectives of the research
By the end of the research, the author aims to:
-

To study impacts of organizational culture on job satisfaction of employees
in LG Display Vietnam.

-

To identify key elements of organizational culture and its effect levels on job
satisfaction of different groups of employees at LG Display Vietnam

-

To propose recommendations for the management of the company (if any) in
order to increase job satisfaction and firm‟s performance.

1.3. Subjects and the Research Scope
With the research environment in LG Display Vietnam, main subjects of the study
are permanent employees in the company. These employees are managers, assistant
managers, engineers/ assistants, unit leaders, technicians and operators. They have

been working from one month to more than 24 months in the company. They are

2


from different areas of the country and grouped into three main areas, Hai Phong,
nearby and far away. These people belong to different educational levels, from
secondary/ high school to higher education, and both male and female groups.
Regarding the data, most of the secondary data were collected internally from
internal HR policies, monthly turnover reports, analysis of employee types,
recruitment materials, and reports from TDR Task Team, from Jan till April 2018.
The primary data, on the other hand, were collected through questionnaires
conducted to nearly 1.000 employees of all job grades. These employees were
working in the company at the time that the research was conducted.
Although there are different aspects of organizational culture and job satisfaction to
study, the author will mainly focus on the impact of organizational culture on its
employees‟ job satisfaction, the levels of effects if any only. Further conclusions
and recommendations for organizational culture will be provided so as to strengthen
current organizational culture elements in the company while motivate the
employees to feel satisfied and work more fruitfully.
1.4. Research questions
Within its scope about job satisfaction and engagement to work, this study seeks to
answer the following core research questions:
-

How does the organizational culture affect employees‟ job satisfaction at LG
Display Vietnam?

-

What are elements of the organizational culture there and its levels of effects
on employees‟ job satisfaction?

-

What can be done in terms of organizational culture to improve the current
situation of the employees‟ job satisfaction?

1.5. Structure of the research
The research will come up with the following structure:
-

Chapter One

: Introduction, which presents the overall

information about the research (topic, questions, reasons to select, etc).
-

Chapter Two

: Review of Literature, which presents an in-

depth of organizational culture, job satisfaction, and engagement to work.

3


-

Chapter Three

: Research Methodology, which provides an overview of

the methods used in the research, what and how data are collected and
analyzed in the most proper way.
-

Chapter Four

: Results and Discussions, which explain major

findings and implications of the research.
-

Chapter Five

:

Conclusions,

Limitations

and

Recommendations, which provide the research contributions in terms of
practical and theoretical ways, its limitations and further suggestions for
future studies and for LG Display Vietnam as well.

4

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1. Organizational Culture
The study of organizational culture has been an area of particular interest of a
number of researchers. The term organizational or organizational culture has been
defined in various ways by different authors. Most of the definitions include
elements such as shared values, beliefs, assumptions, patterns of relationships, and
behaviors. One of the famous writers is Uttal (1983) who refers culture as a "system
of shared values (what is important) and beliefs (how things work) that interact with
a company's people, organizational structures, and control systems to produce
behavioral norms" (p. 66). Most writers pay their attention to some main cultural
topics and organizational relationships, while some think about how to describe
culture (Deal and Kennedy, 1982; Wallach, 1983; Wilkins, 1983; Betts and
Halffhill, 1987). Schein (1983, 1990) and Gross and Shichman (1987) present the
formation of organizational culture and the role of individuals and processes in
influencing culture development. Pettigrew (1979), on the other hand, demonstrates
how the concepts of symbolism, language, and rituals can be used to analyze and
understand organizational life, and reveal the rich tapestry of meaning around
everyday tasks and objectives in the workplace.
Furthermore, some other authors try to develop generic descriptions of
organizational culture and identify key cultural characteristics. Schhneider (1983)
describes organizational culture as “value systems and assumptions which guide the
way the organization runs its business”. Gutkinecht and Milller (1990) state that
culture can represent the organization‟s soul, purpose and foundation. Kerego and
Muthupha (1997) describe that organization and people positively influence one
another to achieve better results. They argue that employees in the organization are
the role model and because of them organizations become more successful.
Those researchers, so far, have proposed different types of cultures. Wallach (1983)
believes that there are three main types of organizational cultures: bureaucratic,

supportive and innovative. Bureaucratic refers to the hierarchical, procedural, and

5


structured aspects of the culture and innovativeness focuses on a creative, resultsoriented, challenging work environment. A supportive culture means teamwork and
a people-oriented, friendly, encouraging, trusting work environment. Wallach also
emphasizes the importance of appropriate adjustment from both organizations and
their employees in terms of needs and personality in order to fit the best with each
other. She hypothesizes that the more closely an employee's needs and personality
fit the organization's culture, the more likely the employee will be to remain with
the organization and perform well. Besides these most descriptive and normative
studies, other authors have focused on empirical studies on culture. In detail,
Reynolds (1986) uses analysis of variance to examine fourteen aspects of an
organization's culture from three perspectives: industry type, positions, and
comparison of "excellent" firms with two other groups. His findings demonstrate
that employees in different industries and positions in the firm perceive different
organizational cultures. From another perspective, Buono, Bowditch, and Lewis
(1985) examines the effects of two banks on the organizational culture when they
were merged. As found out, significant changes in employee attitudes happen
during the merger process. The employees' responses implicate certain reduction of
pride,

security

and

advancement,

and

interpersonal

relations,

although

compensation and work context remain the same. Using Wallach's three dimensions
of culture (bureaucratic, innovative, and supportive), Koberg and Chusmir (1987)
examine the relationships between culture and specific individual attitudes such as
needs, job satisfaction, job involvement, propensity to leave, and creativity. They
also find out that these factors are in close relations with each other. In addition,
these writers investigate impacts of these specific needs on corresponding cultural
dimensions on such as need for power with bureaucratic culture, need for
achievement with effective culture, and need for affiliation with supportive culture.
Important regression equations for the matching pairs of needs and cultures for job
satisfaction and intention to leave are found out accordingly.
Some other researchers also classified types of organizational cultures as follows:

6

Comment [WU1]:


Scholars

Types of Organizational Culture
Power culture

Harrison & Stokes (1992)

Role culture
Achievement culture
Support culture
Bureaucratic culture

Chung-Ming, Tse & Zhou (2002)

Clan culture
Entrepreneurial culture
Market culture
Power culture

Harrison (2004), Lysons (2000), Easton

Role culture

(1996), Muafi (2009)

Task culture
People culture
Clan culture

Sharimllah, Siong & Ismail (2011)

Adhocracy culture
Hierarchical culture
Market culture

Among those writers, O‟Reilly, Chatman and Caldwell (2001) was quite famous

ones not only because of his definition about organizational culture, but also his
useful instrument to analyze the organizational culture of a firm or a company. The
instrument was known as organizational culture profile which will be used as a
reference to design survey questions about organizational culture in this research.
Hillary and O‟Reilly (2007) concerned when an employee fit the organizational
culture, he/ she would tend to have better outcomes, such as: satisfaction,
commitment, and engagement.
Another famous author that studied organizational culture is Maull et al. (2001). In
the first place, he viewed organizational culture as a learned entity, so that new
members should adopt in order to „behave correctly‟. Secondly, he thought

7


organizational culture was a belief system, which guided what is seen as „the truth‟
for a particular organisation. Thirdly, he referred organizational culture as a strategy
of an organization. Lastly, he described organizational culture as mental
programming, including much of the previous three themes. And that organizational
culture was „shared‟ and not an individual concept, that it is „invisible‟ because it is
in the minds of the members, and is only different between different groups of
people. Maull et al. (2001) believed that organisational culture was influenced by
what personal outcomes its members pursued, what the customer orientation was
like, and what organizational issued the organization came across. He used this to
create their Personal, Customer Orientation, organizational and Cultural issuesmodel which will be also used as reference to build questions to survey
organizational culture in this research.
Viewing from another aspect, Bass (1995) suggested that an organization might be
considered an example of transactional groups if rules and documented procedures
were commonplace. Employees who seemed to be jockeying for position also
characterized

a

transactional

organization.

Conversely,

transformational

organizations were characterized by traits of adaptability and an attitude of sharing
common goals. Based on this, the organizational description questions were
designed to give organizations opportunities to evaluate culture based on
transformational and transactional qualities. Similarly, Bass, Avolio, Jung, and
Berson (2003) examined 72 U.S. Army light infantry rifle platoon leaders and
sergeants to predict the relationships of transformational and transactional
leadership on unit potency, cohesiveness, and performance in combat situations.
The results showed that transformational and transactional contingent reward
ratings of the platoon leaders and sergeants were positive. Such research supported
for the belief that passive leadership, where leaders waited for problems to arise and
then took corrective actions, might create harms to the performance of the unit.
Effects of Organizational Culture
According to Hansen and Wernerfelt (1989) and Schein (1985), organizational
culture can influence how people set personal and professional goals, perform tasks

8


and administer resources to achieve them. It also can affect the way people, make
decisions, perceive, feel and act. Deal and Kennedy (1982) and Peters and

Waterman (1982), on the other hand, implicate that organizational culture can exert
significant impudence in organizations such as employee performance and
commitment to work.
Besides organizational culture, some authors have focused their attention on
national culture which, according to them, may also affect behavior, attitude and job
satisfaction of the employee. Whenever people think about national culture, they
think about values, attitudes and beliefs which are reflected there. Since values and
attitudes vary from people to people, their levels of commitment to the organization
also differ. And how personal values fits with the existing organizational culture
and how the national culture affects personal values of the people within the
organization may be different from the east to the west. It is acknowledged that
obvious differences exist in the eastern and western cultures (Chen, 2001; El Kahal,
2001; Hofstede, 1980, 1991). For example, in Chinese organizations there are high
power values and bureaucratic culture (Chen, 2001). Another example is Confucian
values which are often associated with obedience, respect of authority and loyalty in
Chinese companies (Chen, 2001). In these companies, important decisions are made
by the owners and senior managers. This is also true in Korean companies where
the Confusion has existed for a long time. Obviously, owners and executives are on
top of any bureaucratic structure in those organizations. Direction and orders tend to
be top-down and there is little delegation and empowerment. On the contrary, this is
generally the reverse in Western and American companies. Hofstede (1980)
presents that both US and Australia hold low power distance culture, while values
of democracy, equalitarianism and participation are more prevalent. In the US and
Australia, managers are more on democracy, performance, and merit. There are
stories that American managers feel difficult working for Chinese owners because
these bosses always want them to sit down in the office and follow what they tell
them to do. Studies have shown that greater empowerment by management could
further enhance the employees‟ participation, productivity, satisfaction and

9

commitment (Conger and Kanungo, 1988; Malone, 1997). Such empowerment
seems to be more often in Western and American culture. And although western
firms have bureaucratic structure and rules, they are mainly used to coordinate
activities and for reporting purposes. Chinese and Korea firms, in contrast, use
bureaucracy as ownership to control and make centralized decision. With Chinese
and Korean culture, employees must always follow instructions without having a
chance to raise concerns or questions. On the basis of these differences between
Western and Eastern culture, it is predicted that national cultures have certain
effects on a firm‟s organizational culture and leadership, and therefore, affects the
level of employees‟ job satisfaction and work commitment.
Also, according to Chen (2001) and Cheng (1995), the differences in national
cultures can be found in how the organization is established and managed. For
instance, Korean, Chinese, and Taiwanese firms tend to be owned by founders and
families. They tend to be paternalistic, promote values of high power distance and
collectivism, bureaucratic control and centralized decision making with very limited
empowerment for employees. Promotion is often associated with family ties and
networks (El Kahal, 2002; Somers, 1995; Sommer et al., 1996). On the contrary,
Western organizations are usually owned by public shareholders and run by
professional managers. They are flatter in structure, less bureaucratic; therefore, can
promote individualism, decentralized decision making and provide more
empowerment to employees. Here promotion is often linked with personal
competencies and merits. However, with globalization and modernization trends
and processes, organizations, owners, and managers grasp better understanding of
key role of leadership and organizational culture which determine levels of job
satisfaction, work commitment and loyalty in different national contexts.
2.2. Job Satisfaction
Job satisfaction is defined as the extent to which employees like their work. Based
on perception that is known as satisfaction, an employee develops a positive or

negative attitude towards his/her job and environment (Ellickson and Logsdon,
2002). The more the working environment meets his/her needs/expectations, values

10


and personal characteristics, the higher his/her degree of job satisfaction. Locke
(1970) defines job satisfaction as a pleasurable or positive emotional state resulting
from the appraisal of one‟s job or job experiences. Schneider and Synder (1975),
Schein and Reicher (1983) define job satisfaction “as a personal evaluation of
conditions present in the job or outcomes that arise as a result of having job”.
Further, they explain that job satisfaction has to do with individual‟s perceptions
and evaluation of his job, and this perception is influenced by the person‟s unique
circumstances like needs, values and expectations.
According to Hebb (1949) and Morse (1953) changes in the organizational culture
affects the job satisfaction of the employees and it also changes their behaviors and
attitudes. Hellreigel et al. (1974) report the existence of relationships between
organizational culture, climate and job satisfaction. Wallach (1983) reveals that job
performance and job satisfaction are related to organizational culture. Further, he
observes that job satisfaction and culture of the organization are interdependent on
each other. Zammuto and Krakower (1991) suggest that management of the
organization with the positive culture can enhance the performance and satisfaction
level of the workers. Kline and Boyd (1994) determine the relationship between
organizational structure and job satisfaction. They observe that employees at
different levels are influenced by diverse work aspects and different facets of work
environment. Kerego and Muthupha (1997) explain that working conditions and
channels of communications highly affect the job satisfaction.
Taber (1975) and Johnson (2004) conclude that organizational culture has a positive
impact on the job satisfaction of the employees. Yousaf (1998) observes strong
positive impact of organizational culture on the job satisfaction. However, Taber

(1975) and Johnson (2004) opine that some component of the organizational culture
may not be positively associated with the job satisfaction. Amos and Weathington
(2008) argue that the organization with strong and suitable culture positively affects
not only the satisfaction of the employees but also the job commitment of the
employees with the organization. Chang and Lee (2007) emphasize over the group
oriented culture in the organization for raising the employees‟ job satisfaction.

11


In this study, the writer developed and proposed a theoretical framework for
analyzing the relationship between organizational culture and job satisfaction (See
Figure 1).
Figure 1: A framework to analyze the relationship between Organizational
culture and Job satisfaction
Organizational Culture

Job Satisfaction

- Values

- Pay & Rewards

- Norms

- Work-life balance

- Beliefs

- The job itself

- Leadership

- Workplace

- People
- Communication

2.3. Current Situation of LG Display Vietnam
2.3.1. Establishment and History of Development
LG is a global corporation established in 1947 in South Korea. Its first products
were vacuums. In Vietnam, LG started building the first branch named LG
Electronics in 2004 in Hai Phong province. LG Electronics specializes in producing
various high quality electronic products such as washing machine, vacuum, cell
phones, Tivi. After eight years of success and development in Vietnam, LG Display
Vietnam was established in December 2016. The total investment of the project is
1.5 billion US dollar. The company is located in Trang Due Industrial Park, An
Duong Hai Phong on the area of 44.5 ha. The key products of the company are
unique OLED and POLED displays which will be mainly distributed globally to
famous customers in the world. LG Display produces displays for diverse
applications such as TV, IT, Mobile, Commercial, Automotive displays, and OLED
Light. The company executes continuous R&D and investment in next- generation
displays such as Flexible and Transparent displays. With the size of 20,000
employees by end of 2020, LG Display Vietnam is the one of the biggest

12


Electronics companies in Hai Phong. It attracts a huge number of candidates from
Hai Phong, nearby and far-away provinces. LG Display Vietnam has created one of

the best working environments with competitive package for the employees around
the close, brings job opportunities to many people and contributes intensively to the
socio-economic development of Hai Phong in particular and the country in general.
LG Display Vietnam is also known as the company with good and strict rules,
regulations for its employees. Its missions are to provide the customer with
prominent high quality OLED and POLED displays with lower cost. Its key core
values are integrity, professional, team work, innovative, and comply with basic
principles in order to be global number one display company in the world. These
key values are identified and cascaded down to all employees with the hope that all
will work in the “organizational” spirit, so the whole branch will soon achieve its
objective to become the leading display company in the world.
At the time the study is conducted, the company has 3.986 employees in total, out
of which 89% are line workers including operators (3.171) Technician (334), Unit
Leader (81) and 10% (about 400 people) were office workers. Among those office
workers, there were around 54 managers, while the rest are mostly Korean
Interpreters and Engineers.
In order to help employees align with and achieve the development objective, TDR
Room (or organizational and development room) has been established in August
2017. The main function of TDR Room is to develop appropriate core values for
LG Display Vietnam and buid suitable channels to pass them down to all employees
in the company. With such purpose, the management board believes organizational
culture play significant role in bringing success to the company.
2.3.2. Building the Organizational Culture
According to N.R. Narayana Murthy, our assets walk out of the door each evening,
therefore, the responsibility of managers is to make sure that they come back the
next morning. Being aware of the role of employees in the company, the
management board of LG Display Vietnam believes that the company should
always have good organizational culture to avoid the loss of good manpower.

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As illustrated previously, organization culture refers to is a group of values, beliefs,
and behaviors that are created and maintained by the organizations leaders and
carried forth by the employees which differentiates an organization from others.
The top leaders of the company emphasizes that a strong organizational culture for
LG Display Vietnam should be built, so all employees within the organization can
experience a sense of belonging, engagement and commitment towards their
organization which is indeed critical for success. Consequently, TDR Room was
organized with eight members from HR team, Production team, Quality Team,
Innovation Team, and Joyful Team. The first purpose of TDR team is to build up a
strong organizational culture with core values, appropriate channels to transfer such
values the employee, and to provide necessary support for various cultural activities
in the company.
2.3.3. The Management’s Point of View and Purposes of Finding Effects of
Organizational Culture on Employees’ Job Satisfaction
With the emphasis of keeping employees with the company in the longest time, LG
Display management board has been well aware of the important role of
organizational culture. They consider it significant factor for the employee to decide
before leaving. Why does it happen like this? Supposing that the working
environment is not fair, employees are not cooperative with each other, which can
be referred to poor organizational culture and lead to high turnover among the
employee.
On the other hand, the management expects and predicts that good culture of the
company can contribute to create a good environment for the employee so as to
maintain the stability of the workforce. A good working environment with
supportive colleagues can motivate employees work well and effectively, which is
definitely needful in any company especially manufacturing environment. Thus,
from the leader‟s point of view, good organizational culture should be focused and
HR team should investigate its effects once it has been built up completely. In this

spirit, the study is proposed with the purpose of finding effects of organizational

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culture on the employee‟s job satisfaction and coming up with appropriate
recommendations accordingly (if any). Due to the time limitation and scope in LG
Display Vietnam, the study is expected to reach the target with the most reliable
results only.
From above-mentioning perspectives, the author has decided to conduct this
research with key purposes: 1) to reveal if there are actual effects of organizational
culture on employees‟ job satisfaction at LG Display Vietnam where she is
working; 2) to discover the levels of effects of organizational culture on employees‟
job satisfaction at LG Display Vietnam; 3) to be the first research in Vietnam
studying about the organizational culture and its effects on Vietnamese people‟s job
satisfaction in the big-sized direct foreign-invested manufacturing working
environment.

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CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY
3.1. Sample
Participants of this study were selected on the basis of three criteria. First, they were
permanent Vietnamese employees of all job grades from lowest to the highest in the
company. Second, they were from three main areas, Hai Phong, nearby and far
away. Third, they were both new employees and old ones that have worked in LG
Display Vietnam from one month to more than twenty-four months. Those criteria
were to ensure the objectiveness of the research.
These participants were 966 employees working in Production team, Quality team

and Support teams such as Business Support, Purchasing, Export-Import, and
Planning in LG Display Vietnam. A sample population was chosen to answer the
structured undisguised questionnaire, which included multiple choice and scale type
questions mentioned hereafter. They were randomly selected based on three abovementioning criteria and numbered from one nine hundred and sixty six. They were
sent with survey questions from middle May to middle Jun 2018.
3.2. Instrumentation
In this research, data were collected through self-designed questionnaires. Both
probability and non probability sampling techniques were used. The two main
aspects of job satisfaction and organizational culture with relevant questions were
studied carefully. They were divided into two parts. The first part covered 14
questions relating to job satisfaction. The second part covered 20 questions relating
to organizational culture. The total 34 question were assigned based on the Likert
five-scale rated from 1 to 5 with meaning as follows: 1 - strongly agree, 2 - agree, 3
- neutral, 4 - disagree, 5 - strongly disagree. Questionnaires are structured from
general to specific.
The possible minimum score could be was 34 (answering all questions with
“strongly disagree”) and the maximum one could be 170 (answering all questions
with strongly agree”). The 34 questions comprised the job satisfaction survey and
organizational culture and were divided into two facets, one contained 14 questions

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