The Relationship Between Well-being and Serious Leisure-travel with Social Support and Intercultural Communication Competence as the Moderator

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(1)The Relationship Between Well-being and Serious Leisure-travel with Social Support and Intercultural Communication Competence as the Moderator. by Wen-Hsuan Wu. A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate Faculty in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION Major: International Human Resource Development. Advisor: Wei-Wen Chang, Ph. D.. National Taiwan Normal University Taipei, Taiwan June, 2015. 1.

(2) ACKNOWLEDGEMENT Finally, I complete this thesis! During doing this master thesis, somehow I got lost or didn’t know how to continue. Sometime I sat in front of laptop for many hours but no ideas came out which was the most suffering moment. I appreciate all the help from my thesis adviser, committee members, IHRD office and friends. Dr. Chang supported my idea about my thesis, always gave me some new approaches to help my thesis go more smoothly and tried her best to have a discussion with me no matter how busy she was. My thesis partner, Christina, spent much time revising my format and sharing ideas. We finally painfully complete our well-being thesis. Committee members, Dr. Lai and Dr. Chan, provided useful suggestion to make this work better. Our dear IHRD office dealt with many chores hard to make we students less pressure. It is the best office ever. Also, I thank the friends who encouraged me during graduate school time although I couldn’t list all your names but I remembered in my mind. Wish other future student could complete your thesis smoothly. It was not that easy but one day when you complete and then look behind, it was not that difficult, either.. 2.

(3) ABSTRACT More and more developed countries focus on people’s well-being and even take well-being into consideration when they make policies. In Taiwan, government also set up a unit to measure and examines Taiwanese well-being every year. Besides, recently, Taiwanese employees value employee welfare when looking for jobs and among various welfares, travel allowance is at top three. In this study, the purpose was to examine the relationship among serious leisure-travel, well-being, intercultural communication competence (ICC) and social support. A total of 302 Taiwanese employees with overseas travel experience from 2013 to 2014 participated in this study and quantitative approach was adopted.. A pilot study, item. analysis, peer review and expert review were used to examine validity and reliability of this study. Besides, descriptive statistics, correlation analysis and regression analysis were conducted to analyze hypotheses. The results show serious leisure-travel is positively related to well-being but ICC and social support have no moderating effect on the relationship between serious leisure-travel and well-being.. Keywords: Serious leisure, travel, well-being, intercultural communication competence (ICC), social support. I.

(4) TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ..................................................................................................... I TABLE OF CONTENTS ...................................................................................... II LIST OF TABLES ............................................................................................... IV LIST OF FIGURES ............................................................................................. VI CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION ......................................................................... 1 Background of the Study .................................................................................................... 1 Statement of the Problem .................................................................................................... 4 Purpose of the Research ...................................................................................................... 5 Significance of the Study .................................................................................................... 6 The Definition of Terms ...................................................................................................... 6. CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW ............................................................8 Well-being ........................................................................................................................... 8 Serious Leisure.................................................................................................................. 11 Serious Leisure-Travel and Well-being............................................................................. 17 Serious Leisure-Travel, Social support and Well-being.................................................... 19 Serious leisure-travel, Intercultural Communication Competence (ICC) and Well-being20 Serious Leisure-Travel, Well-being and Demographic Characteristics ............................ 22. CHAPTER III RESEARCH METHODS ................................................................... 24 Research Framework ........................................................................................................ 24 Research Hypothesis ......................................................................................................... 25 Research Sample ............................................................................................................... 26 Research Instrument.......................................................................................................... 27 Research Procedure ........................................................................................................... 34 Data Collection ................................................................................................................. 34 Pilot Test ........................................................................................................................... 34 Data Analysis .................................................................................................................... 41. CHAPTER IV RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS .................................................... 43 Descriptive Statistics ......................................................................................................... 43 Correlation Analysis.......................................................................................................... 51 Regression Analysis .......................................................................................................... 53 Discussions ....................................................................................................................... 57. CHAPTER V CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS .......................... 59 Conclusions ....................................................................................................................... 59 Implications....................................................................................................................... 60 Research Limitation .......................................................................................................... 64 II.

(5) REFERENCES ................................................................................................... 65 APPENDIX A. QUESTIONNAIRE .................................................................... 70 APPENDIX B. QUESTIONNAIRE REVIEW ................................................... 76. III.

(6) LIST OF TABLES Table 2.1 Domains and What Are Measured in Better Life Index ........................................... 10 Table 2.2 Other terms of backpacker and the characteristics ................................................... 15 Table 2.3 The Comparison Among Tourist Group, Independent Travel and Semi- independent Travel. ...................................................................................................................................... 16 Table 2.4 The Previous Literatures about Well-being and Demographic Characteristic ......... 23 Table 3.1 Research Questions and Research Hypothesis of This Study .................................. 25 Table 3.2 Background of Experts and Peers ............................................................................ 27 Table 3.3 Questions in OHQ .................................................................................................... 29 Table 3.4 Serious Leisure-Travel: Questions in 6 Dimensions ................................................ 30 Table 3.5 Questions in 3 Dimensions of Social Support ......................................................... 32 Table 3.6 Questions in 2 Selected Dimensions of ICC ............................................................ 33 Table 3.7 The Evaluation Standard Criteria of Cronbach α ..................................................... 35 Table 3.8 Reliability Analysis: Serious Leisure-Travel ........................................................... 36 Table 3.9 Item Analysis of Serious Leisure-Travel .................................................................. 36 Table 3.10 Reliability analysis: Well-being ............................................................................. 37 Table 3.11 Item Analysis of Well-being ................................................................................... 38 Table 3.12 Reliability analysis: Social Support, ICC-BF and ICC-IR .................................... 39 Table 3.13 Item Analysis of Social Support and ICC-IR ......................................................... 40 Table 3.14 Item Analysis of ICC-IR ........................................................................................ 41 Table 4.1 Demographic Information of Sample ...................................................................... 44 Table 4.2 Item Analysis of Serious Leisure-Travel .................................................................. 45 Table 4.3 Item Analysis of Social Support............................................................................... 46 Table 4.4 Item Analysis of ICC-IR .......................................................................................... 47 Table 4.5 Item Analysis of Well-being ..................................................................................... 48 IV.

(7) Table 4.6 The Evaluation Standard Criteria of Cronbach α ..................................................... 49 Table 4.7 Reliability Analysis: Serious Leisure-Travel ........................................................... 50 Table 4.8 Reliability Analysis: ICC-IR .................................................................................... 50 Table 4.9 Reliability Analysis: Well-being .............................................................................. 51 Table 4.10 Strength of Correlation Coefficient ........................................................................ 51 Table 4.11 Correlation of Well-being and Serious Leisure-Travel .......................................... 52 Table 4.12 Correlation of Well-being, ICC-IR and Social Support ......................................... 53 Table 4.13 Hypotheses Results for Correlation Analysis......................................................... 53 Table 4.14 Regression Analysis of Serious Leisure-Travel ..................................................... 54 Table 4.15 Regressions analysis of Moderating Effect of Social Support on the Relationship between SL-travel and Well-being ........................................................................................... 55 Table 4.16 Regressions analysis of Moderating Effect of ICC-IR on the Relationship between SL-travel and Well-being ......................................................................................................... 56 Table 4.17 Hypotheses Results for Regression Analysis ......................................................... 57. V.

(8) LIST OF FIGURES Figure 2.1 The number of outbound Taiwanese citizens and foreign visitors to Taiwan over the past decade. ........................................................................................................................ 14 Figure 3.1 Research framework ............................................................................................... 25. VI.

(9) “The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.” – St. Augustine. VII.

(10) CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION. The following chapter includes background, statement of the problem, purpose of the research, significance of the study and definition of terms.. Background of the Study With economy development becoming fast and more competitive markets showing up, to retain human capitals and avoid brain drain are important issues for organizations. More and more organizations are starting to notice the benefits which well-being can bring to employees. In the World Happiness Report 2013 (Helliwell, Richard, & Jeffrey, 2013), people begin to focus on which country or region is the happiest one in the world. In this report, as to region part, the happiest ones go to North America, Australia and New Zealand (ANZ) and the least happy one is Sub-Saharan Africa. This report also divided Asia into three parts, East Asia, Southeast Asia and South Asia. The happiness level of East Asia and South Asia is lower than that of world average but Southeast Asia was slightly higher than the world average a little bit. Besides, if we shift the focus from region to individual country, the top three countries of happiness are Denmark, Norway and Switzerland which are all in the European area. In contrast, in East Asia, quick economic growth seems not to enhance happiness. This region includes China, Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, Macau, Mongolia and Taiwan where there are powerful and stronger economic environments. In the table of happiness ranking, China ranks 93, South Korean 41, Japan 43 and Taiwan is 42. Compared to other regions such as Europe and America, Asia’s economy has been booming with high speed for years but people in this area do not feel equal happiness. Asians earn much more money than before but feel less happiness. Like Xi (2009) said that the money brings limited happiness. However, Taiwan, as a small island country with a population 23 million, the workers’ 1.

(11) happiness has already come to Taiwanese government’s notice since 2011. To encourage companies to focus on employees’ happiness and create a harmonious workplace, the Department of Labor of Taipei City Government (2011) began to evaluate Taipei employees’ happiness level and reward the best companies every year as well. Besides governmental units, the two famous human resource agencies, 104 Job Bank and 1111 Job Bank, also did many surveys of Taiwanese best companies since 2005. Happier employees could have more productivity, higher efficiency and better performance in the workplace (Lin , Lu , Wu & Wu,2012; Taris & Schreurs, 2009), so organization should be concerned for their employees’ well-being for increasing organization performance. In fact, 104 Job Bank, as the biggest job bank in Taiwan (Li, 2009), even set up a database to share best companies’ information and their employee welfare with job hunters. Also, in its survey of best companies in 2012, 104 Job Bank let female employees vote for the best company in terms of employee welfare. In review of this database and survey, employee welfare has become an important indicator when employees choose the best companies. According to survey of 1111 Job Bank (2011), the top three welfare for employees are travel allowance, opportunities for advanced study and pension for transportation, accommodation and meals. Compared to other kinds of welfare, it is more crucial for organizations to understand why travel is placed at top one by employees. Nowadays, travel has become a popular and important leisure activity for Taiwanese. Based on statistical data of the Tourism Bureau, M.O.T.C. Republic of China (2013), the number of outbound Taiwanese citizens has been booming from 5,923,072 to 10,239,760 and the number of domestic travel was from 102,399,000 to 142,069,000 over the past decade. Chen (2007), the author of Global Views Monthly, showed that the majority thought the dominant function of travel is sufficient relaxation and pressure release, which employees most require nowadays because in this quickly changing society, employees work in exceedingly pressured condition. The sources of pressure come in several forms such as 2.

(12) unfriendly environment, unequipped skills and abilities, indifferent interpersonal relationship or expectation difference between employees and organization. Many employees are experiencing high workloads, long working hours and job insecurity (Burchall et al., 1999). In addition, poor job permanence and poor stability would be brought about by employees who have worked under excessive pressure (Yu, 2007). However, based on the Tourism Bureau, M.O.T.C. Republic of China‘s report (2012), the top reason for why people cannot travel is having no time, reported by 43.1% while money problems are reported by 16.1%. Both time and money are barriers. The same report indicated that the average length of travel time was 1.47days for domestic and 9.26 days for overseas. As to the ideal length of overseas travel, Global Views Monthly (2007) shown 54.9% people prefer five to seven days and 22% prefer eight to fourteen days. For Taiwanese, travel is not only a leisure activity but also one important part of their lives. In the definition of serious leisure, seeing some leisure activities as a part of lives is one main characteristic. Serious leisure became an issue since the 1970s and recent literature showed that people having conspicuous characteristics of serious leisure and great involvement in what they like will have higher well-being level than others (Heo, Stebbins, Kim, & Lee, 2013). However, in the review of literature, travel, as important employee welfare in Taiwan, is less studied and less linked to well-being. In addition, independent travel has become an international trend (Chesshyre, 2002) and Taiwan is not an exception. More and more Taiwanese like overseas travel and it is very possible to meet culture shock or intercultural communication barriers when they are in another country. Those overseas problems and barriers might further affect their well-being. Whether or not people have better intercultural communication competence might affect their happiness level during overseas travel. For example, if they could communicate with locals, understand their ideas, solve problems they encountered or even make friends with foreigners, the happiness level might be elevated. In addition to serious leisure-travel and intercultural communication competence, 3.

(13) another factor is social support. Cohen & Syme (1985) pointed out the research on social support has been booming because it affects people’s well-being positively or negatively. Social support comes from friends, families and important others. In this context, besides families and friends, the researcher assumes that an important other would be supervisors. In a speech at the Happy Labor Forum, which was held by Department of Labor of Taipei City Government in 2013, the relationship between supervisors and employees is always the top one reason of employees’ leaving. Therefore, support from supervisors (important others) might affect employees’ well-being. Based on information and data, this study links the serious leisure-travel, social support, intercultural communication competence and well-being together to explore the relationship among them.. Statement of the Problem Well-being is a continuous and personal feeling toward entire lives which means how people feel today influence how they feel on following days (Wright & Cropanzano, 2004) and employees with higher well-being can show better job performance (Judge, Thoresen, Bono, & Patton, 2001). In other words, employees with low level of well-being would decrease their performance and job satisfaction in workplace. Therefore, to increase employees’ well-being is always an important issue in organizations. A well-designed welfare can not only meet employees’ need but also increase employees’ well-being. The 1111 Job Bank survey in 2011 shown Taiwanese employees value travel pension most in terms of welfares so that the travel issue should be taken seriously by organizations when they revise employee welfare. Also, with more and more people emphasizing the quality and outcome of travel, it is clear that travel is already becoming one part of their daily necessaries. When people have more involvement in what they like, they would have a well-planned schedule to develop the related skill and knowledge, which is called serious leisure. Like the study 4.

(14) mentioned above, more significant the characteristics of serious leisure are, then the higher their well-being will be. That is, with travel as an example, if employees involve themselves in travel and then they are willing to develop related knowledge and skills, they will feel higher well-being. Since travel could be classified into different types, including tourist groups, independent travel and semi-independent travel, the researcher takes all of them into consideration. In addition to serious leisure-travel, two other factors are also taken into account, which are social support and intercultural communication competence. In this study, the researcher explores the relationship among serious leisure-travel, social support, intercultural communication competence and well-being.. Purpose of the Research For those who are desirous of travelling, travel has become replaceable and is the main thing to increase their well-being. Even if they do not feel entirely rebirthed after travelling, at least they could feel energy is recharged because having some opportunities to experience different lifestyles could be helpful for people to observe themselves and reflect on their own lives and choices (Kottler, 1998). Besides, social support has always been considered as a factor when it comes to well-being and pressure release (Diener & Biswas-Diener, 2002; Taris & Schreurs, 2009; Wong & Lin, 2006; Wright & Cropanzano, 2004). On the other hand, when people go abroad for travelling, they could easily feel emotionally down if they cannot overcome culture shock, which could decrease their well-being (Zapf, 1991). Therefore, intercultural communication competence could also play an important role. Based on the background discussed above, the purpose of this study was to examine the relationship among well-being, social support, intercultural communication competence and serious leisure – travel. Here are three research questions, (1). What is the relationship between serious leisure - travel and well-being? 5.

(15) (2). Does social support have a significant moderating effect on the relationship between serious leisure-travel and well-being? (3). Does intercultural communication competence have a significant moderating effect on the relationship between serious leisure-travel and well-being?. Significance of the Study Many literatures have talked about well-being and what kinds of factors will affect it. However, some topics are less discussed. First, few literatures linked well-being, serious leisure-travel, social support and intercultural communication competence together. Second, few literatures are discussed if intercultural communication competence affects well-being. Third, many literatures studied serious leisure but few of them involved travel and employees in. Forth, some Taiwanese companies might take incentive tours into consideration when they design their employees’ welfare. Companies might provide customized tourist groups, independent travel pension or extra holidays for employee to travel. Actually, according to an Insightxplorer survey (2005), more and more people, especially young people aging from 22 to 29, prefer independent travel to tourist groups. This study showed there was a positive relationship between serious leisure-travel and well-being. Different groups of employees need different types of incentive tours so that the well-being level could increase. However, travel has been discussed in different articles but few of them link it to well-being.. The Definition of Terms Well-being Well-being is a term, reflecting how people’s integral evaluation about health and satisfaction with work and life is. Because well-being is an internal feeling, another term called it as subjective well-being, SWB (Diener, 1984). In organizations, well-being is used to evaluate employees’ psychological health in workplace and taken job satisfaction, job pressure and job depression into consideration (Warr, 1987). In this study, the researcher 6.

(16) adapts well-being to evaluate Taiwanese employee’s happiness.. Serious Leisure-Travel Stebbins (2001) pointed out that serious leisure means people have well planned schedule to join one or more leisure activities systematically outside workplace. Those activities make people feel interested and gradually develop the related skills and knowledge through continuous experiences. Further, people with characteristics of serious leisure will see those activities as a part of their lives. Serious leisure has six dimensions called perseverance, career, personal efforts, individual benefits, identification and unique ethos. Leisure activities will be various depend on different personalities. In this study, the researcher focuses on travel activity.. Social Support Social support is defined as the resources provided by other persons such as family, friends and important others and it may affect well-being and health positively or negatively. The resources could be tangible or intangible. Besides, the importance and meaning will vary when people is at different life cycles (Cohen & Syme, 1985). In this study, the support from supervisors, families and friends are mainly considered.. Intercultural Communication Competence (ICC) Intercultural communication competence or cross-cultural communication competence means a process of conveying messages among different cultures and those messages include spoken language, written words, facial expression or body language. The goal of ICC is to understand how people from different cultures communicate with each other.. 7.

(17) CHAPTER II. LITERATURE REVIEW. This chapter was to review the literatures about each term, including serious leisure-travel, well-being, social support and intercultural communication competence. Besides, the relationships among them were also discussed.. Well-being In most countries, governments often focus on development of economy, which they thought is to pursue people’s happiness and improve people’s life quality. Such a situation is not only in the developed countries but also in the developing countries. Therefore, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is always over-emphasized and even seen as a standard of showing nation’s advancement, prosperity and happiness. Lin (2007), the author of Businessweekly, pointed out that in the World Map of Happiness 2006, people living in rich countries doesn’t feel relatively happier than those who living in poor countries such as the Kingdom of Bhutan where government takes Gross National Happiness (GNH) more seriously, not GDP. Even the world’s largest economy, USA, only ranked No.17, falling behind top 10. The second biggest economy, Japan, ranked No.88. Happiness is a goal which human beings is keen to search for, and can also be a measure of social progress (Helliwell, Richard, & Jeffrey, 2013). Although money is a way to pursue happiness throughout the world, it is not the only way. In review of studies on well-being, Diener and Biswas-Diener (2002) pointed out that the correlation is larger between well-being and income in poorer countries because money in those countries is for avoiding being in poverty and living in better condition. However, in the long-term, income increases little well-being if it is obtained by well-off individuals. In wealthy nations, people might have more risk of unhappiness than that of poor people. Diener and Biswas-Diener (2002) also indicated high well-being might increase chances 8.

(18) for high income. Indeed, there are more and more national leaders and scholars advocate the importance of well-being. The Economist (2009) reported that Joseph Stiglitz, a chairman of Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress and also one of laureates with Nobel prizes in economics, suggested countries should emphasis on people’s subjective feeling and well-being instead of GDP fetishism through a 292-page report. In Beaumont (2011), British Prime Minister, David Cameron, with his impetus to value national well-being, the Office of National Statistics started with a project called Measuring National Well-being (MNW) program for fuller and further understanding of national well-being from November 2010. Each quarter, the office will send questionnaires to investigate individual well-being and the assessment is not just individual’s feeling but also how much meaning related to the activities they do in daily lives. In Canada, “Collectively, this index (well-being index) helps us to determine trends in our overall quality of life, giving us a powerful tool for action.” said the Governor General and Commander-in-Chief of Canada, David Johnson. Obviously, well-being is also attached great importance to Canada’s policy. Canada government, working with University of Waterloo, builds a conceptual framework to measure the Canadian Index of Well-being (CIW). Their definition of well-being is “The presence of the highest possible quality of life in its full breadth of expression focused on but not necessarily exclusive to: good living standards, robust health, a sustainable environment, vital communities, an educated populace, balanced time use, high levels of democratic participation, and access to and participation in leisure and culture.” To follow the international trend, Taiwanese President Ma also declared in 2012 that National Well-being Indicators will be published in each following August. Therefore, the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) adopts framework of Better Life Index which was fully studied and identified as essential by Organization for Economic Co‐operation and Development (OECD) to measure Taiwanese well-being. Based 9.

(19) on Taiwanese culture and characteristics, DGBAS added 38 extra indicators. Better Life Index includes eleven domains which are housing, income, jobs, community, education, environment, civic engagement, health, life satisfaction, safety and work-life balance. Here is a table showing 11 domains and 24 indicators of Better Life Index below, Table 2.1. Domains and What Are Measured in Better Life Index Domain. Indicator . Housing expenditure.  . Dwellings with Basic Facilities Rooms per Person.  . Household Net Adjusted Disposable Income Household Financial Wealth. 3. Jobs.    . Employment Rate Long-term Unemployment Rate Job security Average Earnings. 4. Community. . Social Support Network. 5. Education.   . Educational Attainment Years in education Students’ skills. 6. Environment.  . Air Pollution Water Quality. 7. Civic engagement.  . Voter Turnout Consultation on Rule-making. 8. Health.  . Life Expectancy Self-Reported Health. 9. Life satisfaction. . Life Satisfaction. . Homicide Rate. . Assault Rate.  . Employees Working Long Hours Time devoted to Leisure and Personal Care. 1. Housing. 2. Income. 10. Safety. 11. Work-life balance. Retrieved from http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/ 10.

(20) Organizations also notice the benefits of well-being so that many organizations are trying to highlight employee well-being and harmonious working environment to attract potential job hunters. In workplace, well-being also plays an important role not only in positively affecting employees’ job performance, job satisfaction but also increasing productivity, organization identification and job involvement ( Lin, 2008; Lin, Lu, Wu & Wu. 2012; Hsieh, 2012;Wright & Cropanzano, 2004). Each company deservedly wishes the employees have high productivity and good performance. Generally speaking, employees with high job satisfaction don’t mean they have high well-being. Actually, well-being is an overall concept and is a positive feeling toward personal lives, not just limited in workplace.. Summary In this part, the researcher pointed out the importance of well-being in nations and workplace. Highly developed countries such as British and Canada also take people’s well-being as one part of policy implementation and Taiwan government started to measure people’s well-being in 2012, too. In workplace, employees with high well-being could have more productivity.. Serious Leisure Systematic pursuit of an amateur, hobbyist, or volunteer activity sufficiently substantial, interesting, and fulfilling for the participant to find a (leisure) career there acquiring and expressing a combination of its special skills, knowledge, and experience (Stebbins, 2008). Both work and leisure are essential for people’s life (Iso-Ahola & Mannell, 2004). Compared to normal leisure, serious leisure focuses more on the involvement and shows that pursuing sense of achievement and self-growth is more crucial. When people are attracted by those interesting and challenging leisure activities, they are willing to involve more and try to obtain more skills, knowledge and experiences. Besides, for those participants, continuous 11.

(21) pursuit of what they like is very necessary. Stebbins (1982) pointed out the concept of serious leisure and stated six characteristics of it, including perseverance, career in their endeavors, durable individual benefits, personal efforts, unique ethos and strong identification with the activity.. 1. Perseverance When facing some difficulties or barriers such as weather, fear, anxiety, tiredness or getting hurt, participants will endeavor to overcome the problem to join the leisure activities. For example, volunteers are willing to play a part in relief activities even if that area is dangerous. Backpackers would spare no efforts to experience the exotic lifestyles even if they will never know what will happen, they still try it. 2. Career Through continuous involvement and barriers they confront in the pursuit of the leisure activities, participants gradually find out their life goals and will see those activities as one part of their lives even if they brings no extra income. They will set up some different goals at different life stages. For example, joggers will train themselves and set up goals on a regular time schedule for challenging marathon competition. 3. Durable individual benefits Participants will obtain long-term benefits during the endless pursuit of leisure activities they join. These benefits include personal enrichment, self-actualization, self-expression, enhanced self-image, self-gratification, re-creation, financial return, group attraction, group accomplishments and group maintenance. 4. Personal efforts Participants will keep spending much time gaining related knowledge, skill and experience. For example, people who like photography would join clubs, related lectures or register training courses for improving themselves. 12.

(22) 5. Unique ethos Participants will have their unique social world where people with the similar interests are willing to share their experience and help each other. Those participants will have their own norms, beliefs, morals and values which other people may not understand. This unique ethos is also called subculture. For example, cosplayers have their own subculture and enjoy their social world which other people might think weird. 6.. Strong identification with the activity Participants will feel greatly excited and interested when people discuss the related. topics. They have strong identification with the leisure activity they are involved in, often feeling proud of it and also like to share and promote the activity.. Travel Travel has become a way for modern people to relax and release pressure. According to Tourism Bureau, M.O.T.C. Republic of China‘s report (2012), some statistics are listed as follows： 1. More than 90% Taiwanese traveled domestically and more than 20% traveled overseas. 2. The average expense for personal domestic travel is 1,900 NTD per time and for overseas is 4, 8740 NTD per time. Besides, total amount of travelling fee is 2,699 billion NTD for domestic travel and 4,991 billion NTD for oversea travel. 3. The length of domestic travel is 1.47 days and of overseas is 9.06 days per time. 4. The top one reason about why people cannot travel is having no time, occupying 43.1% while money problem occupies 16.1%. Besides, refer to figure 2.1, Tourism Bureau, M.O.T.C. Republic of China‘s report (2013) shows the number of outbound departures has been booming from 5,923,072 to 10,239,760 since 2003.. 13.

(23) Unit of measurement: person-time. (Outbound). (Inbound). 2003 2004 2005 2006. 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 (year). Figure 2.1 The number of outbound Taiwanese citizens and foreign visitors to Taiwan over the past decade. Copyright 2013 by Tourist Bureau, M.O.T.C. Retrieved from http://admin.taiwan.net.tw/public/public.aspx?no=315. Shen (1995) groups overseas travel into three types which are tourist group, independent travel and semi-independent travel. 1. Tourist group Normally, it is a group which is organized by tour companies. The tour schedule will be fully arranged and company would assign a tour guide to stay with the tourist group for being in charge of daily necessaries and any emergency. 2. Independent travel (Backpacker) Loker-Murphy, & Pearce (1995) depicted a figure showing the evolution framework of backpackers. From that figure, it pointed out the backpacker phenomenon began since 17th century, and there are lots of similar terms such as wanderer (Vogt, 1976), budget traveler (Riley, 1988) or backpacker/youth budget traveler (Loker-Murphy & Pearce, 1995). Each term is a little bit different form another so here, the researcher creates a table, showing the characteristics, author of each term and the common characteristic out of these four terms. 14.

(24) Table 2.2. Other terms of backpacker and the characteristics Term. Characteristic. Author. Wanderer.    . Youthful adventurer Western middle-class youth Tight budget Pursue the values of novelty, independence, risk, spontaneity and multitude of options. Vogt ,1976. Backpacker.  . Focus on meeting people Budget accommodation. Laurie Loker-Murphy. Youth budget traveler. . Like informal and participatory holiday activities Independently organized and flexible travel schedule Longer rather than brief holidays. Philip L. Pearce, 1995. Living on limited budget Like to extend the travel (1 year) Reject tourist label Meet new people. Riley,1988.   budget traveler      . Prefer to travel alone Avoid mass tourist destination Common points of all the terms. 1. 2. 3. 4.. Limited budget Independence Flexible schedule Traveler , not tourist Nowadays, the most commonly used term is “backpacker” even in Taiwan. However,. what is the specific definition of limited budget? How independent should a backpacker be? How flexible schedule should a backpacker need? Do backpackers really need to use backpacks? Those questions are not well defined in most literature and actually, each traveler has their own definition of backpacker. In Li-Ru Huang’s opinion, a Chinatimes travel reporter, she pointed out backpacker is the traveler who could design her/his own plan 15.

(25) independently regardless of the length of travel or where she/he lives. “The definition should be focus on autonomy.” said she. 3. Semi-independent travel Semi-independent travel is different from independent travel (backpackers). Some people might not have backpacker experience or are too busy at work so that they can’t arrange each detail of their travel. For that reason, another travel type appears in the market. According to Shen (1995), people purchase the travel products from airline companies or travel agencies, which include flight tickets, accommodation, pick-up service and city tour. However, other travel schedule should be arranged by themselves. Besides, Liu (2008) created a table, clearly showing the comparison among tourist group, independent travel and semi-independent travel. Here, the researcher translates his Chinese table into English which was shown below, Table 2.3 The Comparison Among Tourist Group, Independent Travel and Semi- independent Travel Items. Tourist group. Independent travel. Semi- independent travel. Schedule arrangement. Fully fixed schedule. No much personal time. Should follow group’s rules.. Arrange your own schedule fully and independently.. Plan independently but also with tour company assistance.. Safety. High. Low. Medium. Language ability. No limitation. Should have basic language ability. Should have better language ability. Transportation. Fully arranged by. Plan by yourself. A shuttle bus from. tour company. airport to hotel as service. Accommodation. Fully arranged by tour company. Plan by yourself. Fully arranged by tour company. Meals. Fully arranged by tour company and. Plan by yourself. Only breakfast provided by hotel.. 16. (Continued).

(26) Table2.3 (Continued) should eat with group. Flexibility of schedule. Fully fixed schedule.. Items Expenses. The length of travel is long. Can adjust anytime.. Tourist group Payment includes meals and. Independent travel. The length of travel is longer than tourist groups. Can decide which place to visit or join local tours. Semi- independent travel. Plan by yourself. Pay for what items or schedules you choose.. High. Medium. accommodation. Extra service should be paid individually. Level of independence. Low. Adapted from “A study of using overseas backpackers' metaphor to construct consensus map,” by Journal of Management & Systems, 15(2), p.241. Copyright 2008 by Department of Business Administration, China University of Technology.. Summary In this part, the researcher discussed what serious leisure is and then travel’s categories. Serious leisure is people’s attitude toward their leisure activities and it has six characteristics which are perseverance, career, durable individual benefits, personal efforts, unique ethos and strong identification. Travel could be classified into tourist group, independent travel and semi-independent travel.. Serious Leisure-Travel and Well-being In World Happiness Report, those who are emotionally happy and satisfied with their lives and environment will be possibly healthy and productive but mental illness, as a crucial cause of unhappiness is often ignored by policy makers. Actually, 10% of the world’s population suffers from depression or anxiety disorders, which will result in absenteeism and being money-consuming in nations, families and workplace (Helliwell, Richard, & Jeffrey, 17.

(27) 2013). Besides, Canada, ranking No.6 in the World Happiness Report 2013, measures the CIW (Canadian Index of Well-being) every year and the framework includes eight domains, one of which is leisure and culture. In definition of leisure in CIW, it means formal and informal, active and passive, including examples as cycling, hockey, fishing, reading for pleasure, playing games, and spending time with family and friends. In this report, it shows Canadians have spent more than 21% of income on leisure and culture and this percentage is going steady. CIW has tracks the changes in amount of time and money that Canadians are willing to spent on so that it appears leisure activities are essential to people’s well-being. Even in table 2.1, showing the domains of Better Life index, leisure is also considered in Taiwanese well-being measurement. Having therapeutic recreation is beneficial to raise personal growth, decrease negative emotion, increase positive thinking and life satisfaction (Carruthers, & Hood, 2004). Studies also showed that more obvious characteristics of serious leisure that participants possess, higher well-being they have. For instance, in the study (Heo, Stebbins, Kim, & Lee, 2013), it proved that higher level of involvement in leisure activity is able to positively strengthen aged people’s life satisfaction and health. When exploring the relationship between the involvement level of bike participants and well-being, Chen, Ou, & Ou, (2009) pointed out greater serious leisure leads to a higher well-being. To know the level of leisure activity involvement, the six dimensions of serious leisure, perseverance (overcoming problem to keep leisure activity), career (seeing leisure activity as part of lives), durable individual benefit (obtaining continuously intangible benefit), personal effort (spending time on activity-related knowledge), unique ethos (specialized social world), strong identification (feeling proud of the activity) was used in this study.. Summary Appropriate leisure activities could bring happiness and more involvement of leisure 18.

(28) activities could bring more happiness. Therefore, the hypothesis 1 and sub-hypotheses are showed below, H1：Serious leisure – travel positively related to well-being. H1-1：Perseverance is positively related to well-being. H1-2：Career is positively related to well-being. H1-3：Durable individual benefits are positively related to well-being. H1-4：Personal efforts are positively related to well-being. H1-5：Unique ethos is positively related to well-being. H1-6：Strong identification is positively related to well-being.. Serious Leisure-Travel, Social support and Well-being Social support is resource others provide makes you feel and conscious of people’s concern but it is not always consistent. To be more specific, this resource mostly comes from family members, friends and special others. Through interpersonal interaction, people would feel meaningful comments, support, messages and assistance. Besides, social support has different functions and meaning when people at different period of life such as childhood, adulthood or even when their roles change (Cohen, & Syme, 1985). Cohen & Syme (1985) pointed out the interest in social support has been on the increase because it affects people’s well-being positively or negatively. Social support comes from various groups of people. In workplace, organizational support is one resource of social support. When employees feel themselves are concerned about by colleagues or supervisors, they will feel more happiness and have better performance. Like what Taiwanese researchers already mentioned that perceived organizational support has a positive effect on employees’ well-being and this wellbeing also moderates the relationship between job performance and perceived organizational support (Lin, Lu, Wu & Wu. 2012). Besides, the relationship between line supervisors and employees is more important. Most reasons that employees 19.

(29) often leave organization are because of inharmonious relationship with line supervisors. Like Department of Labor, Taipei City Government (2013) shows in Taipei Best Company Monograph that salary and welfare could attract human capitals but fine organization culture and line managers’ management style are the most important key to retain those talents. Based on the literature review and to fit the research purpose, the researcher is thinking whether or not social support from line supervisors, friends and families could moderate the relationship between serious leisure-travel and well-being.. Summary Social support was widely discussed when researchers studied well-being. In this study, the researcher considered the support from supervisors, friends and families. Social support was to be a moderator in the conceptual framework. Therefore, the hypothesis 2 was showed below, H2：Social support has positive moderating effect on the relationship between travel and well-being.. Serious leisure-travel, Intercultural Communication Competence (ICC) and Well-being With quick development of technology, the convenience of communication tools, transportation and globalization, it is easier to meet different people from various cultures. In workplace, communication is the basic of management, especially in cross-cultural organizations. In the review of Chang et al.,(2009), the founder of Acer, Stan Shih, also emphasizes the importance of international talents. He recommended that besides creativity and leadership, the international talents should have communication skill, language skill and the ability to absorb different cultures. In fact, before any strategy implementations, it is very crucial to let all employees on the same page and have the same ideas with organization. To lead a global team of diverse employees smoothly and successfully, the intercultural 20.

(30) communication competence and style are the keys for managers. In terms of ICC, it has always been discussed in cross-cultural organizations, expatriates, teaching system in many literatures (DeVoss, Jasken, & Hayden, 2002; Jameson, 2007; Lauring, 2011) or the discussion about international talents are focused in business field (Chang, 2009). However, ICC is also available during the overseas travel. It is common that travelers must meet some problems during cross-cultural adaption or cultural conflict, which possibly results in happiness decrease. Kang & Chen (2004) pointed out intercultural communication refers to message transmission from one culture to another one. The message includes hand gesture, language and facial expression. Through the process of encoding and decoding, messages could be sent out. However, intercultural communication is also complicated because different cultures have different meanings and definitions of the same message and the conflict possibly happens during the communication. The conflict of intercultural communication is mainly from communicators’ bias and perception, racism, values, various backgrounds, motivates and cultures. Chen & Chen (2010) thought the so-called intercultural communication means interaction among two or more cultures and then both cultural infusion and cultural clash might be created. Yeh (2009) reviewed literatures and classified four characteristics of intercultural speakers : (1) eliminate ethnocentrism and can understand other cultures with local’s viewpoints (2) understand self culture very well (3) can keep the balance between self culture and other cultures (4) introspect self culture and other cultures through absorbing and understanding different cultures and then try to build a harmonious relationship among them.In terms of travel, when people go to different countries, there is a must to experience local cultures. During the acculturation process, people might feel emotional down or well-being decreasing, this beginning phase called culture shock (Zapf, 1991). In the same literature, it found out that people would feel their well-being increasingly afterwards because they are getting used to the new environment, feeling that strange thing becomes normal and 21.

(31) pressure decrease or disappear. This period is called recovery period, which Ruben and Kealey (1979) think this recovery period is a time of psychological adjustment. To understand a new culture group is a way to improve intercultural ability. In the previous part, the relationship between serious leisure and well-being is discussed in some literatures. In this part, the researcher assumes ICC plays an important role to affect well-being when employees travel to different countries with various cultures. That is, ICC might moderate that relationship between serious leisure-travel and employees’ well-being.. Summary Intercultural communication competence (ICC) is an important skill not only for employees in cross-cultural organizations but also for people who travel in diverse cultures. Therefore, the researcher assumed ICC might affect employees’ well-being and based on this study’s need, the researcher chose one dimension called interaction relaxation from Portalla & Chen (2009). Therefore, the hypothesis 3 was showed below, H3: Intercultural communication competence- interaction relaxation (ICC-IR) has positive moderating effect on the relationship between travel and well-being.. Serious Leisure-Travel, Well-being and Demographic Characteristics In the literature review of well-being, most demographic characteristics were about gender, age, marriage, job position, seniority, income and education. In this study, based on the researcher’s need, it restricted the characteristics which could reduce uncertainties at the end of research, including gender, age, working experience, travel experience, education level, marriage and income.. 22.

(32) Table 2.4. The Previous Literatures about Well-being and Demographic Characteristic Author. Demographic characteristic. Result. Wu, Wan-Yu (2011). Gender, age, marriage, job position, seniority and education.. 1. Managerial position has higher well-being than non-managerial. 2. Married person has higher well-being than non-married.. Lin, Hui Yen Lu, Luo Wu, Pei Yu. Gender, age, marriage, job position, seniority, education and industry.. The employees working in the level three industry such as high technology or financial industry care high level needs like. Wu, Wan-Yu (2012) Lu, Luo (1997). self-esteem and self-fulfillment. Through appropriate policies, their well-being might increase. Gender, age, marriage, education and income.. 1. The age and gender has indirect impact on well-being through social support. 2. To any age, family satisfaction is always an important factor to affect well-being. 3. To female, family satisfaction is the most significant factor to predict well-being; to male, work and leisure are the significant ones.. 23.

(33) CHAPTER III. RESEARCH METHODS. This chapter was composed of research framework, research hypotheses, research sample, approach, procedure, pilot test, data collection and data analysis.. Research Framework This framework was designed according to the research purpose and literature review. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship among well-being, social support, intercultural communication competence and serious leisure – travel. Therefore, there were an independent variable (serious leisure-travel), two moderators (social support and ICC-IR) and one dependent variable (well-being). First, serious leisure has six characteristics which are perseverance, career, durable individual benefits, personal efforts, unique ethos and strong identification with the activity (Stebbins, 1982). Different literatures focused on different leisure activity. In this study, the researcher focused on overseas travel. Second, the social support was from families, friends and supervisors. Third, this study focused on overseas travel so ICC would be viewed as another moderator.. 24.

(34) Social Support (1) Supervisors (2) Families (3) Friends Serious Leisure-Travel (1) Perseverance (2) Career (3) Durable individual benefits. Demographic Variables (1) Age (2) Gender (3) Education Level (4) Marriage (5) Income. H2 H1. (4) Personal efforts (5) Unique ethos (6) Strong identification. Well-being H3. Intercultural Communication Competence- Interaction relaxation (ICC-IR). Figure 3.1 Research framework. Research Hypothesis Based on the purpose of the study and the research questions, hypotheses were generated as in table 3.1 to explore the relationship among serious leisure-travel, well-being, social support and ICC. Table 3.1. Research Questions and Research Hypothesis of This Study Research Questions & Research Hypothesis Q1: What is the relationship between serious leisure - travel and well-being? H1: Serious leisure – travel positively related to well-being. 25. (Continued).

(35) Table3.1 (Continued) H1-1: Perseverance is positively related to well-being. H1-2: Career is positively related to well-being. H1-3: Durable individual benefits are positively related to well-being. H1-4: Personal efforts are positively related to well-being. H1-5: Unique ethos is positively related to well-being. H1-6: Strong identification is positively related to well-being. Research Questions & Research Hypothesis Q2: Does social support have significant moderating effect on the relationship between travel and well-being? H2: Social support has positive moderating effect on the relationship between travel and well-being. Q3: Does the ICC-IR have significant moderating effect on the relationship between travel and well-being?. H3: ICC-IR has positive moderating effect on the relationship between travel and well-being.. Research Sample This study focuses on Taiwanese employees’ well-being so the population must have a full-time job at present. For testing ICC-IR, their travel experience must be abroad but the travel type (tourist group, independent travel or semi- independent travel) and length were not limited. The different travel types and length could stand for different levels of activity involvement which is for testing serious leisure – travel. Moreover, based on this study’s need to test if social support affect the well-being, social support resource is mainly considered with friends, families and supervisors. Therefore, the population possesses the following conditions, (1) Taiwanese and have full time job now. (2) Have overseas travel experience in the last one year. (3) Meet with the defined range of social support resource (friends, families and supervisors).. 26.

(36) Research Instrument The quantitative approach was adopted in this study. This questionnaire was divided into four scales: serious leisure-travel, social support, ICC-IR and well-being. These four scales were adopted from literatures and wildly used so that the measurement of validity meets the standard of content validity and Cronbach alpha value was used to test reliability. In the complete questionnaire, the researcher decided to conduct 5 point Likert scale in each scale because of study’s need. The complete questionnaire was distributed to Taiwanese so that translation was needed. The original scales of well-being, social support and ICC-IR were English version and the original statement of serious leisure characteristics was English, too. The researcher used expert review and peer review to do the translation and revise. Both two peers studied master degree, majoring in human resource development and were English majors as bachelor degree. Two experts have full-time working experience and intercultural experience, which were appropriate for this study. As to the experts and peers, the table 3.2 is shown to indicate the main background of them. Table 3.2. Background of Experts and Peers Expert 1 Nationalities Taiwan  Speak fluent English and Chinese  lived in London for 10 years Education. Imperial College London Major : Business Administration. Expert 2 U.S.A  Speak fluent English and Chinese  lived in California. Peer 1 Taiwan. Peer 2 Taiwan. for 25 years University of California, Los Angeles Major : English teaching 27. National Taiwan Normal University, Mater Degree Major : Human Resource Development. (Continued).

(37) Table3.2 (Continued) Travel. . experience . Working experience. . Travelled to. . more than 20 countries. Travelled independently or on business trip over 8 times every year. Full-time overseas sales representative.. . Travelled in States No oversea. Travelled. and Central America more than 10 times.. travelling experience. overseas around 5 times. Full-time English teacher.. No. HR Internship experience for 2 months. Demographic Characteristics This study used the following five demographics as control variables: age, gender, education level, marriage and income. Gender was divided into male and female. Age was divided in an interval of five years. Education level began from junior high school to Ph.D. Marital status included single, married and divorced/separated/other. In income part, the researcher used personal evaluation (low, medium, average and high) to define their income instead of number. Using these demographic characteristics was for better understanding of the relationship among serious leisure-travel, social support, ICC-IR and well-being.. Well-being Oxford Happiness Questionnaire (OHQ) was organized by Hills & Argyle (2002) , using 6 point Likert scale and the cronbach alpha value is 0.91. OHQ is widely adopted in many literatures to measure people’s well-being (Huang, 2006; Hsieh, 2012; Huang et al., 2011; Lin, 2000). OHQ includes 29 items and 12 out of 29 are negative worded items. This study also adopted this scale but with 5 point Likert scale to measure employees’ well-being. The table is shown below, 28.

(38) Table 3.3. Questions in OHQ α. Question Items 1. I don't feel particularly pleased with the way I am. (R). 0.91. 2. I am intensely interested in other people. 3. I feel that life is very rewarding. 4. I have very warm feelings towards almost everyone. 5. I rarely wake up feeling rested. (R) 6. I am not particularly optimistic about the future. (R) 7. I find most things amusing. 8. I am always committed and involved. 9. Life is good. 10. I don't think that the world is a good place. (R) 11. I laugh a lot. 12. I am well satisfied about everything in my life. 13. I don't think I look attractive. (R) 14. There is a gap between what I would like to do and what I have done. (R) 15. I am very happy. 16. I find beauty in some things. 17. I always have a cheerful effect on others. 18. I can fit in everything I want to. 19. I feel that I am not especially in control of my life. (R) 20. I feel able to take anything on. 21. I feel fully mentally alert. 22. I often experience joy and elation. 23. I do not find it easy to make decisions. (R) 29. (Continued).

(39) Table3.3 (Continued) 24. I do not have a particular sense of meaning and purpose in my life. (R) 25. I feel I have a great deal of energy. 26. I usually have a good influence on events. 27. I do not have fun with other people. (R) 28. I don't feel particularly healthy. (R) 29. I do not have particularly happy memories of the past. (R). Serious Leisure-Travel Serious leisure has six characteristics (Stebbins, 1982). To design this scale which table 3.4 shows, the researcher referred to other related literatures whose leisure activities might be golf, riding bikes, role play windsurfing, dancing or being volunteers. In previous literatures, the items of each dimension were created according to the six characteristics and research’s needs. Most previous researchers used 5 point Likert scale. Here, the researcher also viewed previous literatures as reference and used travel as example. Table 3.4. Serious Leisure-Travel: Questions in 6 Dimensions Dimension Perseverance (3 items). Question Items Even if the life is busy, I still try every means to travel. Even if I have to spend much time and put much effort into searching information before travel, I still enjoy it. Even if there are some other difficulties, I still want to travel.. Career (3 items) Personal efforts (3 items). Travel is already one part of my life. I think travel could help me find my life goals. If I can’t travel, I will feel life is boring. To improve travel skills, I am willing to spend money buying related books or magazines. During the travel, I become more capable of dealing with the problems. To plan an ideal travel, I am willing to spend time and energy 30. (Continued).

(40) Table3.4 (Continued) planning it. Durable individual. Through travel, I make more foreign friends. Through travel, I obtain opportunities of self-fulfillment.. benefits (3 items) Strong identification with the activity (3 items). Through travel, I obtain more mental feedback such as identification or sense of achievement. I enjoy travel-related websites, blogs or programs. I am willing to share my travel story with others. I think travel is meaningful. No other leisure activities could replace it.. Dimension. Question Items. Unique ethos. Gathering with people loving travel makes me speak my mind.. (3 items). I like to join activities with those who love travel. After getting alone with those who love travel for a long time, we have similar values.. Social Support In this study, social support was divided into three parts, including supervisors, families and friends. Supervisors’ items were adopted from Anderson et al. (2002) and the other two were from Zimet et al.(1988). The original scale of supervisor’s part has 6 questions with cronbach alpha value 0.89 and 4 point Likert scale was used to measure. To meet this study’s need, the researcher chose 4 items out of 6 and conducts 5 point Likert scale. Besides, there are total 12 items in the scale of Zimet et al. (1988) which are classified into significant others, family and friends and the total cronbach alpha value is 0.88. The researcher deleted the 4 items of significant others and adopted 6 out of 8 to measure family and friends sections. The table 3.5 is shown below. The original scale conducted 7 point Likert scale and here the researcher used 5 point Likert scale.. 31.

(41) Table 3.5. Questions in 3 Dimensions of Social Support Dimension Supervisors. Question Items . (3 items). α. My supervisor is supportive when I have a work 0.89 problem.. . I feel comfortable bringing up personal or family issues with my supervisors.. . My supervisor really cares about the effects that work demands have on my personal and family lives.. Families. . My family really tries to help me.. (3 items). . I get the emotional help and support I need from my. 0.87. family. . I can talk about my problems with my family.. Friends. . My friends really try to help me.. (3 items). . I can count on my friends when things go wrong.. . I have friends with whom I can share my joys and. 0.85. sorrows.. Intercultural Communication Competence (ICC) The scale was adopted from the study of Portalla & Chen (2009). Original scale consisted of 20 items and six dimensions are behavioral flexibility, interaction relaxation, interactant respect, message skills, identity maintenance and interaction management. The original scale was measured by 5 point Likert scale and the complete scale showed Cronbach alpha value was 0.85. Based on the need of this study, the researcher chose two dimensions to conduct, which 32.

(42) were behavioral flexibility and interaction relaxation. Table 3.6 is shown to indicate questions of these two dimensions. Table 3.6. Questions in 2 Selected Dimensions of ICC Dimension Behavioral. Question Items . Flexibility (4 items). I am afraid to express myself when interacting with people from different cultures.(R). . I am not always the person I appear to be when interacting with people from different cultures. (R). . I often act like a very different person when interacting with people from different cultures.. . I find the best way to act is to be myself when interacting with people from different cultures.. Interaction. . I find it is easy to talk with people from different cultures.. Relaxation. . I find it is easy to get along with people from different cultures.. (5 items). . I always know how to initiate a conversation when interacting with people from different cultures.. . I feel relaxed when interacting with people from different cultures.. . I find it is easy to identify with my culturally different counterparts during our interaction.. 33.

(43) Research Procedure This study followed this guideline to conduct the research. Throughout the whole process, related literature were reviewed to strongly support this study. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.. Discuss with adviser and develop the Topic Search the background information Review the literature Design the framework Develop the questionnaire Conduct the pilot study of the final questionnaire Revise the questionnaire. 8. 9.. Data collection Data analysis. 10. Conclusion and suggestion. Data Collection Convenience sampling and snowball sampling were conducted to collect questionnaires. First, posting online questionnaires in different travel forums was performed from March to May in 2014. Glancing over blogs of those forums and send questionnaires to those bloggers who shared oversea travelling experience from 2013 to 2014. Travel forums included Taiwan backpacker forum and Bulletin Board System (BBS). Second, via friends’ help to send emails to the samples who met this study’s requirements. 340 copies were returned and after checking the validity, the researcher used 302 valid questionnaires out of 340(88%). All response questionnaires were confidential and completed by anonymity.. Pilot Test Newly established questionnaire was reviewed content validity by experts and then conducted reliability analysis and item analysis to examine. Questionnaire of pilot test was composed of 73 items. The sample size of pilot test was 60 people. The researcher invited two experts to review and revised the adequacy and two peers to check English/Chinese translation and did back translation. The background of experts is shown in table 3.2 and 34.

(44) peers are Taiwanese, English major in college and majored in human resource in graduate school. The result of expert and peer review is listed in the appendix B.. Independent Variable: Serious Leisure-Travel Refer to table 3.7; the coefficient of Cronbach α is from 0 to 1. Higher α means higher reliability and in researches, α value has to be more than 0.7. There were 18 items within six dimensions of serious leisure-travel and the result of pilot study is shown in table3.8. The α values of three dimensions (personal efforts, durable individual benefits and identification) were lower than 0.7 and the others were higher than 0.7. However, the integral Cronbach α was 0.889 and to keep questionnaire integrity so all items were remained in the final questionnaire.. Table 3.7. The Evaluation Standard Criteria of Cronbach α The range of α. Meaning. 1.0 > α ≥ 0.9. Excellent. 0.9 > α ≥ 0.8. Good. 0.8 > α ≥ 0.7. Acceptable. 0.7> α ≥ 0.6. Questionable. 0.6> α ≥ 0.5. Poor. 0.5 > α ≥ 0.0. Unacceptable. Note: Adapted from “The Evaluation Standard Criteria of Cronbach α,” by Li, J. Q. 2011, SPSS PASW statistics analysis. Copyright 2011 by Chuan Hua Book Co.. 35.

(45) Table 3.8. Reliability Analysis: Serious Leisure-Travel (N=60) Dimension. Number of Items. Cronbach’s α. Serious leisure-travel. 18. .889. Perseverance. 3. .801. Career. 3. .747. Personal efforts. 3. .513. Durable individual benefits. 3. .571. Strong identification with the activity. 3. .447. Unique ethos. 3. .820. Table 3.9 shows item analysis of serious leisure – travel and the sample was 60. The critical ratio (CR) of all items was significant with P value less than 0.01, which meant items could discriminate the two groups (high scores and low scores). Therefore, the researcher kept all items in the questionnaire. Table 3.9. Item Analysis of Serious Leisure-Travel (N=60) Dimension Perseverance. Item. t Value (CR). Even if the life is busy, I still try every means to travel. Even if I have to spend much time and put much effort into searching information before travel, I still enjoy it. Even if there are some other difficulties, I still want. 3.321** 4.523***. 2.882**. to travel. Career. Travel is already one part of my life. I think travel could help me find my life goals. If I can’t travel, I will feel life is boring.. 7.726*** 7.218*** 2.100*. Personal efforts. To improve travel skills, I am willing to spend money buying related books or magazines.. 7.444***. 36. (Continued).

(46) Table3.9 (Continued) During the travel, I become more capable of dealing 3.161** with the problems. To plan an ideal travel, I am willing to spend time and energy planning it. Durable individual benefits. 6.482***. Through travel, I make more foreign friends. Through travel, I obtain opportunities of self-fulfillment. Through travel, I obtain more mental feedback such as identification or sense of achievement.. 3.763*** 4.228***. Strong identification. I enjoy travel-related websites, blogs or programs. I am willing to share my travel story with others.. 2.976** 2.750**. activity. I think travel is meaningful. No other leisure activities could replace it.. 6.721***. Unique ethos. Gathering with people loving travel makes me speak 6.479*** my mind. I like to join activities with those who love travel. 4.107*** After getting alone with those who love travel for a 5.002*** long time, we have similar values.. 2.753**. Notes: The dimensions of serious leisure-travel include perseverance, career, personal efforts, durable individual benefits, strong identification with the activity and unique ethos. * p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.. Dependent Variable: Well-being There are 29 items in this section and the result of reliability analysis was shown in table3.10. The integral Cronbach α was 0.897 for this pilot study. Table 3.10. Reliability analysis: Well-being (N=60) Dimension. Number of Items. Cronbach’s α. Well-being. 29. .897. 37.

(47) In table 3.11, this study conducted item analysis to examine all items of well-being and the result showed one item was not significant (I am intensely interested in other people). The researcher kept this item because of questionnaire integrity. Table 3.11. Item Analysis of Well-being (N=60) Dimension Well-being. Item. t Value (CR). I don't feel particularly pleased with the way I am.. 5.106***. (R) I am intensely interested in other people.. -3.024. I feel that life is very rewarding.. 6.000***. I have very warm feelings towards almost everyone. 5.251*** I rarely wake up feeling rested. (R). 2.904**. I am not particularly optimistic about the future. (R) 6.924*** I find most things amusing.. 4.620***. I am always committed and involved.. 4.171***. Life is good.. 4.834***. I don't think that the world is a good place. (R). 2.277*. I laugh a lot.. 2.945**. I am well satisfied about everything in my life.. 13.645***. I don't think I look attractive. (R). 2.904**. There is a gap between what I would like to do and. 4.392***. what I have done. (R) I am very happy.. 4.775***. I find beauty in some things.. 1.701**. I always have a cheerful effect on others.. 2.958**. I can fit in everything I want to.. 3.229**. I feel that I am not especially in control of my life.. 5.987***. (R) I feel able to take anything on.. 7.077***. I feel fully mentally alert.. 3.396**. I often experience joy and elation.. 4.125***. I do not find it easy to make decisions. (R). 5.530***. 38. (Continued).

(48) Table 3.11 (Continued) I do not have a particular sense of meaning and. 3.467**. purpose in my life. (R) I feel I have a great deal of energy.. 6.363***. I usually have a good influence on events.. 2.488*. I do not have fun with other people. (R). 5.223***. I don't feel particularly healthy. (R). 4.845***. I do not have particularly happy memories of the. 8.134***. past. (R) Notes: *. p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.. Moderators: Social Support and ICC-IR There were 9 items in social support, 4 items in ICC-Behavioral Flexibility (ICC-BF) and 5 items in ICC-IR. The result of pilot study was shown in table 3.12 Table 3.12. Reliability analysis: Social Support, ICC-BF and ICC-IR (N=60) Dimension. Number of Items. Cronbach’s α. Social Support. 9. .665. Supervisors. 3. .720. Families. 3. .806. Friends. 3. .817. 4 5. .303 .837. ICC ICC-Behavioral Flexibility ICC-Interaction Relaxation Notes:. The dimensions of social support include supervisors, families and friends In social support, the Cronbach α value was 0.665 and all dimensions were higher than 0.7. Therefore, the researcher decided to remain all items. In ICC’s dimensions, the alpha value of behavioral flexibility was too low. These two items - “I often act like a very different person when interacting with people from different cultures” and “I find the best way to act is 39.