Retention of professional bankers at commercial banks in ho chi minh city

1

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

Doan Duc Minh

RETENTION OF PROFESSIONAL BANKERS
AT COMMERCIAL BANKS
IN HO CHI MINH CITY

ID: 60340102
MASTER OF BUSINESS (Honours)
SUPERVISOR: Dr. LE NGUYEN HAU

Ho Chi Minh City – Year 2012


RETENTION OF PROFESSIONAL BANKERS

i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Beginning of my thesis, I would like to express all my sincere thanks to those
people who made this thesis possible and an unforgettable experience for me.
First of all, I would like to show my deepest sense to my supervisor Dr. Le Nguyen
Hau, who offered his continuous advice and encouragement throughout the course
of this thesis. Dr. Hau has offered me the systematic guidance and great inspiration
in putting into me toward the scientific field.
Then, I am thankful to all my colleagues and Board of Management in Shinhan

Bank Vietnam, United Overseas Bank, Hong Leong Bank, Vietnam Commercial
Bank, Asia Commercial Bank, Saigon Commercial Bank, Dong A Commercial
Bank for the consultation, orientation and support during my research process.
Last but not least, this is a great time for a son of family, husband of wife to take
this opportunity to express the profound gratitude from my deep heart to my
beloved family for their love and continuous support both spiritually and
materially.


RETENTION OF PROFESSIONAL BANKERS

ii

ABSTRACT
Employees retaining is an important goal of every corporate organization, which
drives company to hit the target. This thesis explores the factors that can
significantly impact employee retention in an organization, and specializes in field
of commercial banks in Ho Chi Minh City. It attempts to relate some of the factors
discovered to major theories in employee retention. The literature surveyed by this
study mention employee motivation and job satisfaction as the main factors that
influence employee retention rates. This survey implies that still significant for
managing employee retention in today’s rapidly expanding banking industry.

Human resources is definitely one of the most valuable assets in the organizations,
however, high turnover is currently being mentioned recently. There are a lot of
researches around this topic because retaining employees were realized to be very
costly to the organizations. Therefore, retention of key personnel is a precedent
issue for all banks and it seems not many research reports conducted in Vietnam
banking industry.
In the labor market, competitors are always attracting key personnel who are

valued core and not satisfied with their current job. This research explores the
current situation of job satisfaction of key personnel and figures out the antecedent
factors, which impacts job satisfaction. Finally, managerial implications are
withdrawn for improving the level of satisfactions, retaining key personnel.

Employing a quantitative approach, in which, the data were collected from 160
professional bankers (“bankers”) in commercial banks in Ho Chi Minh City,
multiple regression analysis has resulted in the determinants of job satisfaction,
and a significant impact of job satisfaction on job satisfaction. Pay and leadership
support are found to be two most important factors, other factors include benefit,
opportunities of training and promotion, work challenges. The analysis results


RETENTION OF PROFESSIONAL BANKERS

iii

also show that bankers in selected commercial banks are currently not completely
satisfied with their jobs. Based on the statistical results, managerial implications
have been discussed and recommendations are provided to improve the retention
rate of the banking industry in Ho Chi Minh City.


RETENTION OF PROFESSIONAL BANKERS

TABLE
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS......................................................................................
ABSTRACT.............................................................................................................
TABLE OF CONTENTS........................................................................................
LIST OF TABLES...................................................................................................

LIST OF FIGURES................................................................................................
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION…………………………………….…………....1
1.1Background…………………………………………………….….…....…1
1.2

Problem statements………

1.3

Research objectives………

1.4

Scope of study……………

1.5

Thesis structure……………

CHAPTER 2: LITERATUE REVIEW………………………………….….……...4
2.1

Maslow’s hierarchy of need

2.2

Retention…………………

2.3

Job satisfaction and anteced

2.4

Moderating factors…………

2.5

Research model ……………

2.6

Summary of hypotheses……

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHOD…………………………….……….……15
3.1

Research procedure………

3.2

Measurement scales………

3.3

Method of data collection…

3.4

Method of analysis…………

3.4.1 Assessment of measu

3.4.2 Multiple regression…
CHAPTER 4: RESEARCH RESULT………………………………………........
4.1

Introduction………………

4.2

Sample characteristics……

4.3

Assessment of measuremen


RETENTION OF PROFESSIONAL BANKERS

4.3.1
4.3.2
4.3.3

4.4 Assessment of theoretical
4.4.1
4.4.2
4.4.3

characteristics to impact o

4.4.4

4.5 Discussion………………

4.6 Managerial implications…
CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS……….………...46

5.1 Conclusion………………

5.2 Recommendations………

5.3 Limitation and further res
REFERENCES…………………………………………………….…….....……viii
QUESTIONAIRRES………………………………………………….….………xii


RETENTION OF PROFESSIONAL BANKERS

vi

LIST OF TABLES
Table 2.1: Maslow‘s hierarchy of needs.............................................................................. ..5
Table 3.1: Summary of scales for 8 constructs in the model.......................................... 17
Table 4.1: Sample characteristics.......................................................................................... 21
Table 4.2: EFA and reliability test result for scales.......................................................... 23
Table 4.3: EFA and reliability test result for three scales refined.................................. 25
Table 4.4: Result of joint factors analysis for 7 scales..................................................... 27
Table 4.5: Characteristics of 7 scales for re-assessment of reliability.......................... 28
Table 4.6: Assessment for job satisfaction scale............................................................... 28
Table 4.7: Multiple regression result of antecedent factors to job satisfaction..........29

Table 4.8: R square value........................................................................................................ 29
Table 4.9: F and Sig. value..................................................................................................... 30
Table 4.10: Regression result between job satisfaction and retention............................. 30
Table 4.11: R square value......................................................................................................... 30
Table 4.12: F and Sig. value...................................................................................................... 30
Table 4.13: Means values of different factors....................................................................... 31
Table 4.14: Differences of impact of antecedent factors by gender................................. 32
Table 4.15: Differences of impact of antecedent factors by age....................................... 33
Table 4.16: Differences of impact of antecedent factors by ownership.......................... 33
Table 4.17: Differences of impact of antecedent factors by size...................................... 34
Table 4.18: Regression coefficients......................................................................................... 35


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vii

LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 2.1: The research model............................................................................................. 13
Figure 3.1: Research procedure............................................................................................ 15
Figure 4.1: Regression coefficients model......................................................................... 38


RETENTION OF PROFESSIONAL BANKERS

CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
This chapter is an introduction and intended to provide background information on
the nature of the present study and its objectives and purpose. It is divided into
four sections. The first section presents background of the research, the second part

presents the problem statement, the third part presents the objective, and the final
section presents the scope of study.
1.1 Background
The retention of bankers has been shown to be significant to the development and
the accomplishment of the organization’s goals and objectives. In recent years, the
system of financial institutions and banks in Vietnam has been developed in
increasing quantity of credit institutions and quality in diversity of ownership and
banking services. Currently, the whole banking system has reached at number of
52 local commercial banks, 51 foreign bank branches, 31 of non-bank credit
institutions. As the "blood" of the economy, the banking sector has been grown
remarkable and contributed to the stable development of Vietnam.
The local commercial banks in Ho Chi Minh City (the banks) were established
along with the development process of Vietnam economy. In the first years of
development, the banks have developed gradually, with small and medium scale,
and not really pay attention to human resource management (HRM). Due to the
development of economy, the banks have boomed and developed remarkably.
Especially in 5 years recently, the banks has set up with the wide network branches
and the number of bankers in this industry increased by more than 20,000 bankers,
growth of the average number of bankers more than 15% per year. Along to the
stable development, HRM requires improvement and upgrade to professional
level. However, HRM practices in the banks have not been focused and still
applied the old-fashion method. Board of management faced the serious issue that
employee turnover increased about 9.5% per year within recent


RETENTION OF PROFESSIONAL BANKERS

three years (Asia Banker Forum, 2011). The banks has been conducting a
campaign to reform human resources management system to improve the
effectiveness of HRM, high labor productivity, raise incomes and policies to retain

bankers.
The banks also do understand that the professional bankers are the key factor in
competition in the banking market and this may cause a threat to the success of
long-term businesses. For this reason, the banks rose up a query how to retain
professional staff and satisfy their work-related needs would help.
1.2 Problem statements
Board of management of the banks are aware of the critical role of talent
workforce and striving to attract and retain their bankers by various measures such
as increasing salary and allowance, conducting intensive training courses, offering
more opportunities for career promotion and incentive abroad trips for high
performance bankers. However, the high turnover rate still exceeds their
expectations in spite of bank efforts. Why is turnover still high after those efforts?
What are bankers’ demands? How much percent are the bankers satisfied with
their current job? Is there relationship between job satisfaction and employee
retention?
Literature on human resource management provides some general hints in coping
with this managerial problem of employee retention (e.g. Maslow, 1943, 1954;
Bame, 1993; Becker & Gerhart, 1996; Hom & Griffieth, 1995). Nevertheless, the
right solution under the current social-economic context, organization leaders need
to understand in more details as higher salary, promotion opportunities, and related
other factors as motivation, recognition, working environment, good relationships
with the manager and colleagues, corporate culture. What are the affected
important factors?
Due to answer these questions, management board not only has an insight into the
issue of HRM in Vietnam, but also provides specific formation for managers in the
fields to solve the problem of retaining their talent bankers.


RETENTION OF PROFESSIONAL BANKERS

1.3 Research objectives
In response to the above stated problems, this research is conducted with below
aims:


Determine quantitatively antecedent factors and their relative contributions to

the overall satisfaction of bankers in the local commercial banks.


Estimate the impact of job satisfaction on the retention (intent to stay) of

bankers in the field.
1.4 Scope of study


Given the limited resources and time, the empirical data for the research were

collected from the commercial banks in Ho Chi Minh City.


Examinees on this study include senior-officers, supervisors and managers

and who achieved bachelor, master degree and higher degree.


Only work – related factors will be investigated in this study. Other possible

factors (e.g. social or cultural factor) are beyond the scope of this study.
1.5 Thesis structure

This thesis is organized as follows:


Chapter 1 presents the research background, problem statements, research

objectives, scope of study and thesis structure.


Chapter 2 introduces research model and its hypotheses as well as its

literature review.


Chapter 3 illustrates the methodology conducted in this paper.



Chapter 4 presents research results is based on data collected.



Chapter 5 summarizes the research results, provide the findings and

recommendations.


RETENTION OF PROFESSIONAL BANKERS

CHAPTER 2
LITERATURE REVIEW

The literature clearly indicated that there are seven keys to employee retention.
They are work challenge, training and promotion opportunity, leadership support,
colleague relationship, salary, benefits, working environment. The model of job
satisfaction and retention will be proposed for this specific study, which provides a
basis for the development of hypotheses. Over the years, many studies relating to
personnel in terms of human needs, job satisfaction, organizational commitments
and retention have been conducted. In this literature review, Maslow hierarchy of
needs, retention, job satisfaction and its antecedent factors will be presented. Then,
the model of job satisfaction and retention will be proposed for this specific study,
which provides a basis for the development of hypotheses.

2.1 Maslow’s hierarchy of needs
One of the earliest and best-known theories of individual motivation, which is
applicable to the current study, is Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (Table 2.1). Maslow
advocates that within every human being lies a hierarchy of needs. These needs
are:


Physiological needs: related to essential factors to survival, such as food, water,

and shelter. In organization, these needs are mainly presented as monthly salary.


Safety needs: related to security, safety in workplace and life. At this level, the

individual strives to look for or form the safe environment from external dangers.
In organization, these needs are presented via hygiene factors, long-term
contribution, social and medical insurance policies…


Social needs: related to relationship with people, being member of teamwork,

being loved. In organization, these needs are identified by colleague relationship,
leader relationship….


RETENTION OF PROFESSIONAL BANKERS


Esteem: the drives for feelings of self-worth and individual importance, need of

respect in workplace and daily life are took place at this level. Organizations often
pay incentives through rewards, bonus, promotions…


Self-actualization: at the top of the hierarchy, the motivator is a sense of

fulfillment that allows individual to maximize their own growth and contribute. In
organization, these needs are satisfied by opportunities of training, development
and innovation.
Once each of these needs is satisfied, the individual moves up to the higher level
of the hierarchy.
Table 2.1: Maslow’s hierarchy of needs
Implemented
Out Of The Field
Education, religion,
habit, individual
development
Acceptance of family,
friend, community

Family, friend,
community
Un-fear about war,
pollution, conflict
Food, water, sexuality

Source: Mendenhall et al., (1995)

2.2 Retention
Over the past decade, the way in which people were managed and developed at
work has come to be recognized as one of the primary factors in achieving
improvement in organizational performance (BQF, 1998; Marchington and


Wilkinson, 1997; Phillips, 1997). This aspect was reflected by popular idioms such
as ‘people are our most important asset’ (Accenture, 2001). From the review of
extant literature, it was acknowledged that the employees of successful


RETENTION OF PROFESSIONAL BANKERS

organizations were shared a fundamental philosophy of valuing and investing
(Anand, 1997; Maguire, 1995). In fact, several studies have described human
resource management as a means of achieving competitive advantage (Delery,
1998; Walker, 2001). Consistent with this perspective, the retention of their critical
(core) employees is an equally important issue for organizations.
Retention is about developing strategies that reduce the number of people who
leave the organization for avoidable reasons. Organizations need to retain
employees with the required balance of skills and experience to ensure that
business can be maintained (Stucberry, 2003). Solutions to retain employees are

really not simple. There are many factors that affect the employee's reasons for
staying with the organizations, as well as how important those factors are to
employees. In order to retain employees, the organization must understand these
factors, which drives people to perform their jobs and monitor the job satisfaction
of bankers.
Most organizations today continue to struggle with retention hardly because they
are only relying on salary increases and bonuses to prevent turnover (Accenture,
2001; Gumbus and Johnson, 2003). Managing core employees effectively means
identifying their needs. Employees bring their needs, aspirations, and hopes to
their jobs and working environment where their abilities can be utilized and their
basic needs can be satisfied.
At the centre of some turnover models have been variables of job satisfaction and
organizational commitment (Steele, 2002) but tendency were mainly developed
from the vast amount of researches on job satisfaction (Porters and Steers, 1973).
In this research, job satisfaction is considered as antecedents as they have strong
direct influence to retention. Job satisfaction is a subjective emotional evaluation
made consciously or unconsciously by the employee and is defined as a
pleasurable or positive emotional state resulting from the appraisal of one’s job or
job experiences (Locke, 1976). Job satisfaction is multidimensional in nature with
specific facets including satisfaction with work, salary, promotion, colleague (Rice,
Gentile and McFarlin, 1991). Work is such a large part of an employee’s life and is
represented by a belief that organizations who are more satisfied with their work
experiences and environment will stay longer (Spector,


RETENTION OF PROFESSIONAL BANKERS

2000), will attend work regularly, and perform at an optimum level (Porters and
Steers, 1973). Job satisfaction is included in this research because many
researchers have shown that the level of job satisfaction is positively related to

retention (Koslowsky, 1991; Hom and Griffeth, 1991). Therefore, employees who
are satisfied with their job are more likely to stay in their organizations. From the
above, we could hypothesize that:
H1: There is a positive impact of job satisfaction on the retention of bankers.
2.3 Job satisfaction and antecedent factors
Job satisfaction is an employee's general positive attitude toward the job (Byars
and Rue, 2000). It is a commonly defined as the extent to which bankers like their
work (Agho et al., 1993). It is also an attitude based on employee's negative or
positive perception of their jobs or work environments (Reilly et al., 1991), the
degree to which there is a good fit between the individual and the organization
(Ivancevich et al., 1997). Simply stated, the more people's work environment meet
their needs including intrinsic and extrinsic needs (Abraham Maslow,1954),
values, or personal characteristics, the greater the degree of job satisfaction
(Ellickson, 2002) will be.
Recent studies have identified that job satisfaction of employees is defined and
measured in two aspects: overall satisfaction of job and satisfaction of job
components. Job satisfaction is one criterion for establishing the health of an
organization and overall satisfaction is a function of a combination of situational
characteristics and situational occurrences and it is also presented emotions
covered all aspects of work. Smith et al. (1996) developed a scale to measure job
satisfaction (JDI-index). It was also used in more than 600 researches among 20
years, however, JDI also had defects. Some of researches, which are even in
Western development countries, criticized that it was complex, imperfect (Buffum
and Konick, 1982). Some researchers had modified the scale to fit specific
contexts (Crossman and Bassem, 2003; Trần Thị Kim Dung, 2005). Considering
the above, seven factors are proposed in this study as antecedents of job
satisfaction. They are: work challenge, training and promotion opportunities,
leadership support, colleague relationship, salary, benefit, work environment.

RETENTION OF PROFESSIONAL BANKERS

Additionally, organizational and individual characteristics are included into the
model as moderating factors (age, gender, organization ownership and organization
size).


Work challenge: related to work nature, chances to use personal skills and

capacities, exciting feeling in work. Employees need to be stimulated with creative
challenges or they will go where the excitement is. It is very important to provide
employees challenging assignments with well-defined performance measures and
feedback on the high performance environment because of that, they can achieve
their personal objectives (Furnham, 2002) and reaching job satisfaction. The
necessity of mastering new skills keeps employees satisfied and innovative
(Ferguson, 1990; Walker, 2001). Employees want a job with broad duties and a lot
of variety tasks. In part, it is because they want to have more job skills on their
resume when they are forced to get another job (Jardine and Amig, 2001).
Organizations which did not give employees with challenging and interesting
work, freedom to be creative, opportunities to develop new skills, were usually
received express negativity and lack of loyalty from their employees. In such
organization, employees are more likely to report negative feelings and attitudes
toward the organization, lower levels of commitment, and greater intentions to
leave the organization (Phillips, 1997). Thus, the hypothesis is:
H2. There is a positive impact of work challenge on job satisfaction.



Training and promotion opportunity: related to employees’ perception to

opportunities of training, personal capacities development, promotion. Training is
considered a form of human capital investment whether that investment is made by
the individual or by the firm (Goldstein, 1991; Wetland, 2003). Training programs
enhance employee job skills when they are employed. Employees are expected to
acquire new skills and knowledge, apply to the current job, and share them with
other employees (Noe, 1999). Employees who participate in training course will be
provided specific skills or correct deficiencies in their performances, while
development is only an effort to provide employee abilities which the organization
will need in the future (Gomez-Mejia, Balkin and Cardy,


RETENTION OF PROFESSIONAL BANKERS

1995). Skill development could include improving basic literacy, technological
know-how, interpersonal communication, or problem solving abilities. According
to Storey and Sisson (1993), training and promotion is a symbol of the employer’s
commitment to staff. Training and promotion can also serve to lower turnover
(Frazis et al., 1998; Wetland, 2003). It is also reflective of an organizational
strategy based on adding value rather then lowering cost. Leading companies have
acknowledged that providing employees with a comprehensive range of career and
skills development opportunities is the key to attract and retain the kind of
flexibility, technologically sophisticated workforce that companies need to succeed
in the digital economy (Accenture, 2001; Bassi and Van Buren, 1999).Thus, the
hypothesis is:
H3: There is a positive impact of the training and promotion opportunities on
job satisfaction.



Leadership support: related to relationship between employees and leaders,

support of leader, behavior of leader, and leader’s skill on management. There are
many leadership definitions of researchers such as: leadership is conceptualized in
terms of four tasks that need to be accomplished in any organization: providing
orientation, assuring alignment, building commitment and facing adaptive
challenges (Risher and Stopper, 2002). Leaders are central to the process of
creating cultures, systems, and structures that foster knowledge creation, sharing,
and cultivation (Bryant, 2003). The impact of leaders have been examined by
numerous leadership studies in a wide variety of organizations, and results show
that leadership styles in a high-level of follower motivation and commitment as
well as well-above-average organizational performance (Bryman, 1992; Elby et
al., 1999; Podsakoff and Steyrer, 1998). Several researchers have thought highly of
the positive influence of leaders in organizational outcomes, which resulted in
lowered intention to leave and increased organizational behavior (Alimo-Metcalfe
and Alban-Metcalfe, 2001; Pillai, Shreissheim and Williams, 1999; Yammariono
and Bass, 1990), leading to stronger organizational commitment, higher intention
to stay of employees


RETENTION OF PROFESSIONAL BANKERS

(Alimo-Metcalfe and Alban-Metcalfe, 2001; Podsakoff et al., 1996). Therefore,
based on the literature review, the hypothesis is:
H4: There is a positive impact of leadership support on job satisfaction.



Colleague relationship: related to behavior, relation to colleagues at work and

teamwork. It is defined as the behavior of an individual that results in unforced

influence when that person is directing and coordinating the activities of a group
toward the accomplishment of a common goal (Bryman, 1992). Colleague’s
supportiveness refers to the friendliness and the extent to which colleagues pay
attention to comments and concerns (Campion et al., 1993; Hart et al., 2003).
Interactions with colleagues may serve an affective psychological function by
providing emotional support against the stresses of the organization’s socialization
initiatives and uncertainties of the work setting (Jablin, 1987). Employees stay
when they have strong relationships with their work colleagues (Clarke, 2001).
Organizations today encourage team building, project assignments involving work
with colleagues, and opportunities for social interaction both inside and outside the
job (Marchington, 2000). Fundamentally, employees who work as a team are more
likely to feel an increased commitment to the work unit's efforts and the
organization as a whole (Cohen and Bailey, 1997; Meyer and Allen, 1997).
Consequently, employees tend to remain in organizations due to the strong
teamwork relationship they have established at the workplace (Clark, 2001;
Marchington, 2000). Therefore, it is posited that:
H5: There is a positive impact of colleague relationship on job satisfaction.



Salary: related to employee’s perception on fairness of pay. Salary is related to

job satisfaction. Most managers believe that salary is the prior retention factor and
many employees leave the organization by better pay or higher compensation
(Mathis and Jackson, 2003). Salary continues to be important in determining
motivation to perform (McCallum, 1998). Past motivational theories such as
expectancy and equity theories have predicted variations in motivation because of
varying valences of outcomes as pay (Das, 2002). However, in practice, salary is
treated as just one of the outcomes and often measured with little precision

RETENTION OF PROFESSIONAL BANKERS

(Mitchell and Mickel, 1999). A fair salary is the cornerstone of the contractual and
implied agreements between employees and employers, the underlying assumption
being that money can influence behavior (Parker and Wright, 2001). Psychological
theory states that the importance of fairness is a basic need for the well being and
satisfaction of employees (Blau, 1989). Therefore, employees who perceive that
they are being treated fairness in pay are more likely to have a high degree of
satisfaction and continue their employment with the organization. This research
tests the hypothesis that:
H6: There is a positive impact of salary on job satisfaction.



Benefits: employee benefits, sometimes called Fringe benefits (medical

insurance, healthcare policy, accidence insurance…) are those rewards that
employees received for being members of the organization and for their positions
in the organization. Unlike salaries and incentives, benefits usually do not relate to
employee performance (Byars and Rue, 2000). Employee’s benefit packages
increase worker commitment to the organization and reduce the tendency to think
about other job opportunities (Mitchell et al., 2001). A commitment model
developed by Rusbult and Farrell (1983), based partly on job benefits, shows the
absence of adequate benefits is one of the main factors contributing to low job
satisfaction and employee intent to leave. They also found that portable benefits,
such as contribution pensions, reduced anxiety involved in intent to leave and
gaining job satisfaction. Therefore, it is posited that:
H7: There is a positive impact of benefits on job satisfaction.



Working environment: this factor refers to work equipments and resources

provided by the organization, work strain, work overload. Researchers have shown
that organizational obstacles in relation to inadequate equipment or insufficient
training may be important variables of employee motivation, attitude, and
performance, reducing job satisfaction. Research has also shown that work
overload contributes to employee strain, tension, job dissatisfaction, decreasing
organizational commitment and turnover (Spector and Jex, 1998). High workloads
have been shown to lead to negative outcomes, for example,


RETENTION OF PROFESSIONAL BANKERS

absenteeism, and low job satisfaction (Fox et al., 1993). According to Spector and
Jex (1998), a high workload may result in feelings of anxiety and frustration. So,
this research tests the hypothesis that:
H8: There is a positive impact of work environment on job satisfaction.
2.4 Moderating factors
This study examines the moderating affects of organization characteristics and
demographics on the impacts of job satisfaction on retention.


Age: The older employees have limited opportunity for changing the jobs and

are more costly hired than younger ones. However, they are likely to be more
involved in the organization and develop a better fit between personal needs and
their organization than the younger employees.


Gender: Studies have shown that job satisfaction is related to gender differences

but the research results are not consistent. The female has to overcome more
barriers than the male, and they are treated unfairly about personal matters.



Organization ownership: is able to affect job satisfaction. Researches showed

that employees in state organizations receive much more favors than those in
private organizations such as long-term recruitment, benefits, medical insurance,
low workload, low work strain (Truong Van Ban, 1996; Vo Dai Luoc, 1997) so
they have higher level of job satisfaction. This phenomenon becomes more distinct
in transformed economic countries such as Russia, China, Vietnam (Carl, Elbert et
al., 1995). In Vietnamese context, state-own organizations, in general, are broader
operational scope, larger structure, modern banking technology…
compared to private organizations.


Organization size: similarly, the big-scale organizations are more attract and

retain employees than that small ones.
Thus, the hypothesis will be:
H9: The impacts of antecedent factors on job satisfaction are moderated by
demographics

and

organization

characteristics

organization size, organization ownership.

such

as

age,

gender,


RETENTION OF PROFESSIONAL BANKERS

2.5 The research model
The antecedent factors that have been hypothesized to have influences on job
satisfaction and retention are illustrated in the following model:

Work Challenge

Training &
Promotion
Opportunity

Leadership Support

Colleague
Relationship

Salary

Benefits

Working Environment

H2

H3
-

H4

Demographics (gender/age)
Organization characteristics (size/ownership)

MODERATING

H9

H5
Job Satisfaction

H6

H7

H8

2.6 Summary of hypotheses
H1: There is a positive impact of job satisfaction on the retention of professional
bankers.
H2: There is a positive impact of work challenges on job satisfaction.
H3: There is a positive impact of opportunities of training and promotion on job
satisfaction.
H4: There is a positive impact of leadership support on job satisfaction.
H5: There is positive impact of colleague relationships on job satisfaction.


RETENTION OF PROFESSIONAL BANKERS

H6: There is a positive impact of salaries on job satisfaction.
H7: There is a positive impact of benefits on job satisfaction.
H8: There is a positive impact of working environment on job satisfaction.
H9: The impacts of antecedent factors on job satisfaction are moderated by
organization/employee characteristics such as age, gender, organization size,
organization ownership.


RETENTION OF PROFESSIONAL BANKERS

CHAPTER 3
RESEARCH METHOD
In order to test the model and hypotheses stated in the previous chapter, this
research adopts the quantitative approach in which the data were collected by
means of a questionnaire survey.
3.1 Research procedure
The research follows the procedure illustrated in Figure 3.1
Research objective

:
Literature review
Model

Research method
Secondary

data from

Collecting data previous

study

Primary data from
questionnaires/
interviews

Data analysis
Result

Conclusion &
Recommendation

Figure 3.1: Research procedure
3.2 Measurement scales
The research participants were asked to respond to the survey questions by using
five point Likert scale ranging from 1 equals totally disagree, 2 equals disagree, 3
equals either disagree or agree, 4 equals agree, 5 equals totally agree, or 1 equals

RETENTION OF PROFESSIONAL BANKERS

leave surely, 2 equals leave, 3 equals unclear intention, 4 equals stay, 5 equals stay
surely. Age was divided into 4 groups and coded such those 1 equals under 30
years old, 2 equals 31to 40 years old, 3 equals 41 to 50 years old, 4 equals over 50
years old. Gender was coded 1 equals male, 2 equals female. Codes of ownership
were 1 equals state ownership, 2 equals private ownership or other types of
ownership. Number of staff are divided into 4 groups and coded such those 1
equals 20 to 50 staffs, 2 equals 51 to 100 staffs, 3 equals 101 to 200 staffs 4 equals
over 200 staffs.
The scales for eight constructs in the model have been developed on the basis of
previously established studies, in conjunction with the adjustment for contextual
situation (i.e. banking industry in Vietnam). Multiple item scales were used in the
form of five point Likert type.
Accordingly, the items and sources of reference for each scale are presented in
Table 3.1.