Research structure & hypotheses

This section would be introducing the research structure of the quantitative method as well as hypotheses proposed for further analysis correlate to the topic.

3.2.1 Research method & structure

I am using quantitative research to investigate and to further evident and support my topic about the correlation between work value, job engagement and turnover intention.

This research mainly discusses employees’ working values in the chain store of 85℃ coffee brand and further understand whether working value and job engagement would affect turnover intention or not. Therefore, work values is independent variables, turnover intention is dependent variable while job engagement playing the role of mediating the relationship between both variables, and lastly, personal attribute is control variable. The structure chart is as following:   

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Figure 4. Conceptual framework

3.2.2 Hypotheses

In this section, I would be introducing 4 hypotheses, the first hypothesis is associated with the relationship between work values and turnover intention. Yet, the second and third hypotheses are related to personal attributes and turnover intention.

Last but not least, the fourth one is relevant to personal attributes, work value, job engagement and turnover intention, which offers a rather complicated, in-depth argumentation.

3.2.2.1 Work values & Turnover intention

According to the previously discussed literature review about the correlation between variables related to work values and job engagement, it is confirmed that both variables have a certain connection. As the mediating role, job engagement as work values represent the mindsets as well as attitudes of individuals so as to achieve goals which would effectively influence their level of dedication towards works (Super, 1970;

Wollack, 1971; 吳聰賢, 1983).

According to literature review, Fishbein (1986) states that work values influence

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ones’ working attitudes, which would consequently affect turnover intention, then resulting the final actual behavior of the intention (Fishbein, 1986; Locke & Henne, 1986). Especially for work values possessed by millennials in this generation, youngster between 1980 to 2000 are often depicted as confident to arrogant, which their unique characteristics somehow create vague boundary or contradiction to the trait of achieving their dreams, personal goals and ideality (Cekada, 2012). Therefore, this thesis paper proposes the first hypothesis as following:

H1: Work value held by millennials has a negative relationship to turnover intention.

3.2.2.2 Personal attributes & turnover intention

According to literature review, scholars claim that job engagement has negative correlation to the outcomes of turnover intention, such as job performance, absence rate, turnover rate and so forth (Rabinowitz and Hall, 1977; 石樸，1991). Besides, personal attributes like gender, age, educational level and many other elements are claimed to have distinctive relation with job engagement, which individuals are to be influenced by different personal attributes while engaging in occupation associated with their mindsets based on a variety of experience (洪瑞斌、劉兆明，2003; 黃同圳，1993;

劉博民，1990; 段宜廷，1999; Lincoln & Kallegerg, 1990; Loughlin & Barling, 2001).

With the characteristics of millennials being elaborated previously, it could be predicted that attribute factor of gender shows huge difference among others in terms of influencing the engaging level of millennials indulging toward job engagement.

According to overseas scholar Robinowitz & Hall (1977), it is assured that job engagement, personal attributes and working condition have inter-influence to some

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degree throughout literature review. The scholars deem that factors like personal attributes and working condition are the one of the most effective elements to make impact to job engagement (job performance, job satisfaction, etc.), lastly lead to actual turnover intention (Rabinowitz and Hall 1977). In accordance to the literature review, millennials, who are females have the tendency to place more importance on seeking independent on stability, sense of security and also the availability relating to occupation (洪瑞斌、劉兆明，2003). On the other hand, male are reported to possess the inclination of fulfilling personal career and ideality while female pursue economic independence as well as stability (黃同圳，1993). As a result, this paper proposes the second hypothesis:

H2: Personal attribute of gender of millennials has negative relationship to turnover intention.

What is more, in terms of educational level, people who received higher educational level are seemed to result in lower turnover intention because people with higher education received tend to care more about work independence instead of focusing on building social relationship or weaving connection with their colleagues (Lincoln & Kallegerg, 1990). However, youngsters in millennial generation have an opposite tendency of that compared to people in older generation at present state which most of them began to start gaining the work value mindset to seek for better position in better company. Although it is confirmed that the current state of employee market in service industry still countering the problem of high turnover rate in terms of employees, the phenomenon of seeking part-time job becomes one of millennial generation’s life-style spontaneously which could be explained that this group of people aims to achieve independence on economic term. And as they grow with advancing

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higher educational level, they seek even more merely than economic independence with engaging in part-time occupation which the higher achievement could be entering prestigious company or organization with better treatment as well as working environment. In this sense, the people under millennial generation with higher educational level received are inclined to create higher turnover intention in terms of service industry. Consequently, I would like propose the third hypothesis as following:

H3: Personal attribute of educational level of millennials has positive impact on turnover intention.

3.2.2.3 Personal attributes, work value turnover intention

In order to take the topic into deeper analysis, it is a necessity to discuss multiple variables involved in research paper, which aims to find the correlation between personal attributes of age, gender, educational level, work value and turnover intention as the fourth hypothesis. Unlike unitary analysis, this multiple discussion aims to hope for bringing valuable conclusion so as to achievement a certain degree of contribution in both management field as well as service industry in Taiwan. Consequently, the fourth hypothesis is proposed as following:

H4: Personal attributes of age, gender and educational level, work value, have significance correlation to turnover intention.