The Effects of the Personal Characteristics, Cross-Cultural Adaptation and Work Satisfaction of Foreign Workers in Taiwan on their Organizational Commitment and Employee’s Performance

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(1)The Effects of the Personal Characteristics, Cross-Cultural Adaptation and Work Satisfaction of Foreign Workers in Taiwan on their Organizational Commitment and Employee’s Performance. by Thomas Thierry Locqueneux. A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate Faculty in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of. MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION Major: International Human Resource Development Advisor: Cheng-Ping Shih, Ph. D.. National Taiwan Normal University Taipei, Taiwan July 2017.

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(3) ACKNOWLEDGEMENT. In first place, I would like to thank to my friends, because without them I may not have reached the results I was aiming at; they are a source of strength and hope during this long and hard journey. They helped and supported me to seize the opportunity of receiving a degree in this prestigious university and they stood by side throughout all the process. I can’t be thankful enough for them, and for all the blessings I’ve beneficiated during my stay in Taiwan. In second place, I am extremely grateful to my family whom has supported me during each step of my degree and thesis. They kept motivate me, and I felt encouraged to continue until the end. My parents and siblings both helped me to hold me through difficult times, and have been as the most important role model in life, I dearly thank them for always believing in me. I am also grateful to my girlfriend, whom has kept me strong and pushed me to do more every day. My relatives, aunts, uncles, grandparents, and cousins, each of them have been believing in me and stand for a part of my success during this journey. Through their words of encouragement, I have understood how important family can be during my journey in Taiwan. In third place, I would like to give all my gratitude to Dr. Tony Shih for all his precious recommendations, guidance and knowledge, that I could beneficiate in order to complete this thesis. Also, I greatly appreciate all the professors in the program for their help, for all the time and patience they have shared with me, especially my defense committee Dr. Lai and Dr. Lee, thank you for all the care and attention that you gave to my research, and for your help toward the completion of my thesis. Every course I have taken has made me grow as a person, and I want to thank personally each teachers for their contribution to the success and completion of this project. In fourth place a very special thank you to classmates. Thank you so much for being by my side during times of need, it has been my great pleasure to overcome all the hardships together, for every experience shared, we made it! I also want to say thank you to the IHRD family program managers, always cheerful, warm and available for doing more than is asked for in your duties and for caring of for us like only family does. I have greatly appreciated living this adventure with you, always welcoming us into the IHRD family, helping us out in order to spend a great stay in Taiwan..

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(5) ABSTRACT Although it is true to say that globalization is a quite new phenomenon, sending workers to fulfil mission overseas is not. Nowadays, multinational firms have understood that managing human resource around the world gives them great competitive advantages (Caligiuri, 2001). In the last decades, a lack of manpower emerged in Taiwan following the lack of foreign manpower. The continuously increasing education level is an example of factor that has encouraged Taiwanese government to open its borders. Indeed, the Council of Labor Affairs (CLA) took the decision to open up Taiwan’s job market to foreign workers from October 1989. Often used as coordinator or to transfer knowledge to subsidiary, these foreign workers have key roles. Their usage can vary from filling important positions in subsidiary, developing the organization by expending its network, and providing managers the international experience they required to foster their commitment to the organization. This study sought to understand the relationship between the cross-cultural adaptation, foreign worker characteristics and work satisfaction of foreign workers in Taiwan and their organizational commitment and performance. It comprises foreign workers of different nationality and various industry, without focusing on any of them. This research was conducted through quantitative approach. A survey questionnaire was administered, and data were collected from a population of 210 foreign employees from numerous organizations, all located in Taiwan. The results indicated that commitment of foreign workers is positively influenced by their work satisfaction, crosscultural adaptation and their personal characteristics. Variables such as their language proficiency and compensation have the strongest influence over their commitment. On the contrary, foreign worker normative commitment is not as much impact by these variables. Keywords: work satisfaction, organizational commitment, employee’s performance, crosscultural adaptation, stress. I.

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(7) TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT …………………………………………………………………………. I. TABLE OF CONTENTS …………………………………………………………. III. LIST OF TABLES …………………………………………………………………. V LIST OF FIGURES ……………………………………………………………….. VII CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION ……………………………………………….... 1. Chapter Overview …………………………………………………………………. 1. Background of the Study …………………………………………………………. 1. Problem Statement ……………………………………………………………….. 2. Purposes of the Study ……………………………………………………………. 3. Research Questions ………………………………………………………………. 4. Significance of the Study …………………………………………………………. 5. Delimitations and Limitations ……………………………………………………. 6. Definition of Terms ………………………………………………………………. 7. CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW ………………………………………. 11. Chapter Overview …………………………………………………………………. 11. Literature on Work Satisfaction …………………………………………………... 12. Literature on Cross-cultural Adaptation …………………………………………... 16. Literature on Foreign Worker Characteristics …………………………………….. 20. Literature on Organizational Commitment ………………………………………... 23. Literature on Employee’s Performance ……………………………………………. 24. Hypotheses Building ………………………………………………………………. 27. CHAPTER III METHODOLOGY ………………………………………………. 35. Chapter Overview …………………………………………………………………. 35. Research Framework ………………………………………………………………. 35. Hypotheses …………………………………………………………………………. 36. Research Procedure ………………………………………………………………... 36. Measurement Instrument …………………………………………………………... 37. Sample and Participant Selection ………………………………………………….. 38. Validity and Reliability of Instrument ……………………………………………... 39. CHAPTER IV RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS …………………………….. 49. Chapter Overview ………………………………………………………………….. 49 III.

(8) Distribution summary ……………………………………………………………… 49 Data Collection …………………………………………………………………….. 49. Descriptive Statistic Analyses ……………………………………………………... 50. Discussion for Descriptive Statistics Analysis …………………………………….. 58. Results of Hypotheses Testing …………………………………………………….. 63. PLS Findings Summary ……………………………………………………………. 65. CHAPTER V CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS ………….. 67. Research Conclusions ……………………………………………………………… 67 Research Limitations ………………………………………………………………. 68 Recommendations for Further Research …………………………………………... 69. REFERENCES ………………………………………………………………………. 70. APPENDIX A: RESEARCH QUESTIONNAIRE ……………………………. 83. APPENDIX B: PLS MAIN STUDY TEST FIGURES ………………………. 101. IV.

(9) LIST OF TABLES Table 3.1. Reliability of Instruments ………………………………………………. 40 Table 3.2. Pilot Study Constructs’ Reliability Analysis …………………………… 41 Table 3.3. Pilot Outer Loading of All Items via PLS (n=45) ……………………… 43 Table 3.4. Reasons for Dropping Items …………………………………………… 43 Table 3.5. PLS Path Analysis Results (Pilot Test n=45) ………………………….. 44. Table 3.6. Cronbach’s Alpha Results for All Dimensions (n=210) ……………….. 45 Table 3.7. Constructs' Reliability Analysis for this Study…………………………. 45. Table 3.8. Heterotrait-Monotrait Ratio (HTMT) Results for All Dimension ……… 46 Table 3.9. Fornell-Larcker Criterion Results for All Dimension …………………… 47 Table 4.1. Characteristics of Sample Population Based on Demographic Variables. 50 Table 4.2. Work Satisfaction; Likert Scales, Mean, and SD……………………….. 52 Table 4.3. Cross-Cultural Adaptation; Likert Scales, Mean, and SD ……………… 53 Table 4.4. Foreign Worker Characteristics; Likert Scales, Mean, and SD………… 54 Table 4.5. Organizational Commitment; Likert Scales, Mean, and SD …………… 56 Table 4.6. Employee’s Performance; Likert Scales, Mean, and SD ………………. 57. Table 4.7. Correlation Analysis …………………………………………………… 59 Table 4.8. Factor Loadings and Internal Consistency Reliability Analysis via PLS. 60 Table 4.9. PLS Cronbach’s Alpha, Internal Consistency and R2 in this Study ……. 64. Table 4.10. PLS Path Analysis Results ……………………………………………. 65. Table 4.11. PLS Hypotheses Testing Results ……………………………………... 66. V.

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(11) LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1.1. Maslow's hierarchy of needs …………………………………………. 12 Figure 1.2. U-Curve theory ……………………………………………………… 18 Figure 3.1. Research general framework ……………………………………….. 35 Figure 3.2. Research procedure …………………………………………………... 36 Figure B.1. PLS analysis after bootstrapping …………………………………… 101 Figure B.2. Cronbach’s alpha …………………………………………………… 102 Figure B.3. R square …………………………………………………………….. 104. Figure B.4. Composite reliability …………………………………………………. 103 Figure B.5. Path coefficients ……………………………………………………… 103 Figure B.6. Total effects work satisfaction=organizational commitment ………. 104. Figure B.7. Total effects work satisfaction=employee’s performance …………. 104 Figure B.8. Total effects cross-cultural adaptation=organizational commitment.. 105. Figure B.9. Total effects cross-cultural adaptation=employee’s performance …… 105 Figure B.10. Total effects foreign worker characteristics=commitment ………… 106 Figure B.11. Total effects foreign worker characteristics=employee’s performance106 Figure B.12. Total effects organizational commitment=employee’s performance. 107. VII.

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(13) CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION Chapter Overview The first chapter will give the audience an introduction of the study. The background of the research, the issue statements, the goals and value of the research, the study’s questions, the hypothesis, the importance of the study, the delimitations and limits, and finally a definition of the terms are all addressed, in order to introduce a thorough and comprehensive focus by the researcher.. Background of the Study In consideration of the globalization and the growth of the international market and exchanges, borders have been gradually opening. The occurrence of a free-market is often said to be inevitable and steady by many specialists. Nowadays it results in a commercial reality. Foreign companies operating everywhere in the world are proliferating and cross-cultural management of foreign workers is getting more and more important. The interdependence between economies is increasing through the flow of goods, services, technology. As a result, global economy has become a complex set of markets, national development strategies and competitive corporate strategies (Borrus & Zysman, 1997).This flow of capital between nations has been highlighting the importance of international assets in different dimensions. For instance, research and development should be strengthened in order to make companies more adaptative to the environment continuously changing g. The goal is to make the globalization beneficial for all (Axmark, 2006). In this environment, the human resources needs haves changed, and having an adaptable human capital has become a must-have. Nowadays, there are only a limited number of organizations that are able to fully utilized them successfully to reach the place of leaders in the markets (Ulrich, 1987). Currently, lots of multinational organizations require employees with an experience abroad and full proficiency in two or even three languages According to statistics released by the Ministry of Labor, the total number of foreign workers in Taiwan rose to more than 440,000 in October 2014. The manufacturing sector is the one that has seen the most important increase of foreign workers. More than 100,000 of them have entered the sector over the past four years, and statistics show that there are now more than 300,000 foreign workers in this sector. The figures are a sign of a booming economy, and companies are getting more and more orders, leading to a huge demand of workers, MOL said. In this condition, the 1.

(14) important stake of their adaptation and their integration to Taiwanese culture on the long-term can not be ignored. Lots of organizations recruit foreign workers in Taiwan in order to implement their global strategies culture (Tung, 1999). However, they are expensive (Tung, 1999), and the paradox is that they also have a failure rate of 20%-40%, much higher than the average of nationals (Black & Gregersen, 1999). This is mostly due to their adjustment problems to the cultural environment and local, and nearly a 25% of them decide to leave the local company within one year (Mendehall & Oddou, 1995). It has thus become an important issue to stimulate their commitment in their new environment, so they can reach a productivity level that can justify their employment. Recent researches (Wiedmer, 2006) has suggested that the solution could in part come from the selection process, assuming that some workers are more likely to perform well in a foreign environment, due to their personal traits and their background. For this reason, a special attention should be paid to their profile and characteristics during the hiring process. Even though many studies relate about the work satisfaction of foreign workers in Taiwan, only a limited number of them indicates whether their characteristics as human have an influence on their organizational commitment. In this sense, this study acts as a pioneer. The stake of this research is to examine and review the difficulties that this human capital encounters to perform well in their organization. The research aims at determining to which extent their satisfaction at work, personal traits and adaptation in Taiwanese culture is important for a full organizational commitment, and how their commitment has an influence on their productivity.. Problem Statement As Taiwan has been attracting more and more foreign workers over times, the diversity of their nationality and background is also more and more diversified. Although these workers come from different continents, such as Europe, America, Africa or southern Asia, they all share one common problem to face, the cultural adaptation. There are some of these workers coming from a culture similar to the Taiwanese one, and others coming from remote culture, encountering even more problem to adapt and integrate themselves. In recent years, the foreign labor has greatly increased, and for instance sectors such as the manufacturing industry has been more and more relying on a manpower essentially coming from southern Asia. A strong dependence on certain markets have appeared, and it has raised alarms for some institutions and industry experts. As the number of foreign workers has been continuously increasing these last years, the landscape of main city centers in Taiwan has changed, it has gradually adapted to host this new 2.

(15) demand. Yet, these cross-cultural opportunities have also introduced numbers of cultural tensions and visible exclusionary practices, which has led to a rejection of these newcomers by Taiwanese nationals (Kim, 2005). In order to successfully take a full advantage of this foreign labor and hold on with the international competitive market, Taiwanese government has recently been trying to attract highskill workers, such as engineers. The stake of protecting their competitive advantage has grown more and more important as the country is striving in order not to lose field to neighboring countries in Asia. Both recently developed and developing nations lean on foreign workers to ensure credibility in their economic advantages and knowledge sharing. The loss of the opportunity for the government to host multicultural organizations to stay in the top in a globalized world, would undoubtly place Taiwan behind in this international and economical competition. Every organization are aiming at keeping teams focused, motivated and committed in order to perform perfectly and achieving the organization's mission and goals. The goal of any organizations and institutions is the well-being through satisfaction, and successful performance of its workers. Thus, the internationalization of working condition and opportunity should provide the workers with the appropriate tools to perform well while reaching the satisfaction from an international point of view.. Purpose of the Study The significance of this research and its purpose is to study the factors having an influence over foreign worker commitment and performance in Taiwan. These factors and the extent of their impact has not been widely studies, as globalization and the booming of foreign workers has occurred relatively recently in Taiwan. It is becoming more and more popular in this era of interdependence between economies and standardization of a free-market, with numerous organizations operating in different countries. There are many issues connected with the adaptation of foreign workers to their assigned job and their actual performances. Thus, this study concentrates on full-time foreign workers working in Taiwan for at least one year. The research aims at identifying how to improve and enhance the commitment and performance through motivation of these foreign workers. The researcher also aims at providing solutions to organizational entity to preserve and improve an appropriate working environment and support to foreign workers in order to fulfil their assignment. Both empirical and 3.

(16) new theories are going to be used to demonstrate a new perspective permitting more openmindedness and more acceptance of the numerous differences between people and employees, in order to highlight their capacities to participate of intellectual, aesthetic, and emotional experience with others. The study also provides suggestions about which profile of foreign worker is more likely to perform better and successfully achieve his mission. Indeed, the personal characteristics of those workers is also considered as variable wielding influence on their own motivation and commitment, the researcher determined and studied the different competencies that can affect the performance of foreign workers in Taiwan. There are different level and grade of competencies existing, and they can be separated into different dimensions: traits, motives, self-image, social roles, skills, specific actions or behaviors, and environmental factors (Boyatzis, 1998). Accordingly, foreign workers individual personality and characteristics are the means by which an organization will invest in them and decide to deliver him a mission, making important decisions in the long run.. Research Questions The continuous rise of direct investments is fostering the globalization, and companies have begun to worry about their cultural values and turnover rate. The culture they originate, their values and even their personality should be taken into account during the process of selection of those foreign workers by their companies. Their recruitment represents a risky challenge for companies, as a fail of his integration could have harmful consequences on them psychologically resulting in a lack of commitment, sabotaging their performance and failing to their mission. Research questions are addressed to determine the extent to which the cross-cultural adaptation, the personal characteristics, values and work satisfaction of those foreign workers are wielding an influence over their organizational commitment, as well as the degree of relationship between their commitment and their work performance. Four main questions are addressed to reach this issue. Deriving from the research purposes, the research questions were formulated as follows: To which extent does cross-cultural adaptation has an impact on commitment? What is the part its variables such as compensation, organizational culture, or perspective of evolution are playing in this influence? Does cross-cultural adaptation affect the commitment of foreign workers in Taiwan? What is the part its variables such as language proficiency, social integration and adaptation to the daily life are playing in this influence? 4.

(17) Do the personal attributes of these foreign workers (traits, motives, self-image, social roles, skills, gender, age, or behaviors) and their values have and influence over their commitment and motivation at work? What influence does the commitment of foreign workers have over their productivity? What its dimensions such as affective, normative and continuance are playing in this influence?. Significance of the Study The significance of this study is to highlight the factors having an influence over foreign workers commitment and their productivity in Taiwan. Many multinational organizations, wanting more homogeneity in their own organizational culture among their subsidiaries, may attempt to export themselves to other subsidiaries culture by staffing foreign workers. Most of this job assignment are concerning key positions of their foreign subsidiaries. Multinational organizations using this strategy actually believe that foreign workers are able to wield an important impact and influence over the culture of subsidiaries (Kobrin, 1988). Thus, the researcher will aim at determining which typical profile are the foreign workers likely to perform well abroad. This research is relevant to practitioners and academics. The study will provide three important contributions. First, it theoretically connects cross-cultural adaptation, one’s personal background and work satisfaction with the commitment at work. This one will be expressed through dimensions such as affective, normative and continuance commitment. Second, this research will develop a model that supports this theory. The final contribution of the study is to provide information about to how extent Taiwanese culture can be friendly to foreign workers. The two different points of significance brought by the research are: 1: This study is significant to academicians in that it provides a structural model highlighting the different variables wielding an influence over commitment and performance of foreign workers in Taiwan. This model is the first attempt of its kind, because it is including and addressing the limitations of many scholars and researchers though the variable taking in account the personal characteristics of foreign workers, and in a smaller extent their level of adaptation to Taiwanese culture. 2: This study is also significant for HR practitioners and multinational organizations, because it searches to address the current research gap existing in the integration spectrum on how to effectively manage foreign worker difficulties. It enhances the burning issues of adaptation as key for long term commitment, and enables multinational to makes benefit of this multicultural 5.

(18) environment. The assignment of foreign workers might facilitate and enable intersubsidiary communication and coordination (Rosenzweig, 1994) by helping the transfer of the corporate philosophies, culture and vision of the company along with the foreign worker.. Delimitations and Limitation The present study has three different delimitations and also limitations that were used as frame to set a scope for the research. This scope is necessary in order to rend the study feasible for the researcher and facilitate a more manageable research process.. Delimitations The study is delimited to Taiwan and do not include other country. Also, it is delimited to foreign workers and no national Taiwanese are taken in account. These foreign workers must have a full-time job and working in Taiwan for at least one year. No other population are taken in account.. Limitations It should also be noted that this research contains several limitations. Actually, by addressing their identification, the researcher aimed at providing suggestion for future studies. Due to some constraints of time and budget, a questionnaire has been made by the researcher and was used in the present research. This questionnaire was based on empirical theories. Furthermore, 42 foreign employees working in Taiwan has participated to develop the pilot test. The final research has been built through a total of 210 participants. As people are naturally dubious, to find an appropriate population willing to fulfill the survey has been slightly challenging because they may be afraid to be identified or notified to their employers. For this reason, the survey was made anonymous so that the participants felt protected from what they have said, and also in order to have more accurate responses. In order to bring more relevant and additional information to the questionnaire, interviews have also been conducted as well. One more limitation that can be brought is the obstacles that cross-cultural studies often encounter. Indeed, researchers often fail to “recognize the differences between analysis at the societal level and at the individual level… which led to numerous errors of interpretation and application” (Hofstede, 2011). It is also relevant to remind that the study isn’t delimited to one particular ethnic group or county. Thus, there is no cultural bound between participants. Some of the participants may have 6.

(19) inborn or cultural similarity with Taiwanese culture, others may not have any link of encounter a real cultural gap when being hired. Their common point is that they eventually all have to adapt and work in a relatively foreign environment. It comprises foreign workers working in Taiwanese company, and also in multinational and global corporations, foreign workers who happened to find a work after coming to Taiwan by themselves, and also workers assigned to different mission in countries that they are not familiar. Also, young executives and new CEO, who beforehand had the experience of working abroad for some missions oversea are included. Since this approach is slightly intruding into other disciplinary, the researcher paid a very special attention and care to obtain a general research that represents and stand for multitude of methodologies and abundant disciplines.. Definition of Terms In this section of the study, the researcher will provide both conceptual and operational (or theoretical) definitions of the key terms used. The operational definitions will outline the way variables will be considered and used within the scope of the present research. The following terms are the definition of variables in this research:. Work Satisfaction Theoretical definition: In its conceptual notion, work satisfaction can be defined in various ways. According to Hoppock, work satisfaction is “any combination of psychological, physiological and environmental circumstances that cause a person truthfully to say “I am satisfied with my job” (Hoppock, 1935). Nowadays, the most traditional current defines the notion of work satisfaction as “attitude towards one’s job” (Brief & Robertson, 1989). Other authors gave a definition of the work satisfaction as “affective orientations on the part of individuals toward work roles, which they are presently occupying”. It is a determining factor of the organization's commitment (Meyer, Herscovitch, Stanley, & Topolnytsky, 2002). Another definition for work satisfaction: it is a ‘‘pleasurable or positive emotional state resulting from an appraisal of one’s job or job experiences’’ (Locke, 1969). Operational definition: It includes indicators such as the attitude toward present job, the satisfaction with pay, the satisfaction with promotion opportunities, the satisfaction with coworkers, and also the satisfaction with supervisor.. 7.

(20) Cross-Cultural Adaptation Theoretical definition: Theories claim that cross-cultural adaptation is defined as a dynamic that one’s human is struggling in order to acquire enough stability and internal equilibrium in order to face the external environmental working conditions. Most of the time, there are four broad streams on the cross-cultural adaptation process. The most popular and used during the last 20 years is the U-curve theory of cultural adaptation (Lysgaard, 1955). This curves takes into account the first steps of foreign workers and call it the honeymoon high. This phase is generally followed by a sudden decreasing of the curve, coming from difficulties to adjust oneself to the local culture. Finally, the curve will go up progressively and lead to a cultural acceptance and adaptation. More than a theory, the U-curve is a process that has emerged through the testimonies of numerous foreign workers. This acculturation process was reintroduced more recently by Hofstede (2005) and the academicians Pires, Stanton, and Ostanfeld (2006). Redfield, Herskovits and Linton (1936) defined the cross-cultural adaptation as the "Composed by individual of two groups which from different cultures. It had persistent and direct cultural impact, resulting in one or both of the original cultural patterns to change as an equilibrium”. Operational definition: The operational theory includes 3 indicators, such as the social integration, the adaptation to daily local features (food, weather and other features), and finally language proficiency.. Organizational Commitment Theoretical definition: The notion of organizational commitment is defined by the psychological attachment to a company of one given individual working in this organization. According to Meyer and Allen (1991), there are 3 forms of commitment.. The Affective. Commitment, that relates the perceptions of workers about their emotional identification with the organization they are working for. Then, the Normative Commitment, that relates worker way or perceiving their own responsibilities in the organization. To raise an example, if an organization helped out the employee or has supported him during his academic period, the worker is likely to have a high degree of normative commitment toward the organization. Finally, the Continuance commitment that relates employee perceptions about what it could cost for them to leave their company. Operational definition: In the present study, we will define commitment basing on it’s three 8.

(21) well-known dimension: Affective Commitment, Normative commitment, and Continuance Commitment.. Stress Theoretical definition: For academicians, stress is can be defined by in various way, depending on the type and the individual and the source of stress studied. It was first described as “the non-specific response of the body to any demand made on it” (Selye, 1980). Said in more general terms, “stress” is more of a mental response to a tension that may be caused by pressuring situations. Operational definition: In the present study, we will define stress using variables related with the organizational environment, and exclude outside indicators such as the stress that one worker may undergo when he has to struggle to understand contracts related to his rent, mobile phone, etc.. Employee’s Performance Theoretical definition: Most of authors agree to define performance highlighting the difference between an action (issued from the behavior) aspect and an outcome aspect of performance (Campbell, 1990). The behavioral aspect includes what a worker can do in his workplace. It comprises behaviors such as assembling goods, their trade and selling, the transmission of knowledge from a teacher to students, or even a doctor giving medicine to his patient (Kanfer, 1990). Some behaviors are not included in the concept of performance, only the ones that are relevant for the organizational goals: “Performance is what the organization hires one to do, and do well” (Campbell, McCloy, Oppler, & Sage, 1993). Furthermore, to be accounted as performance, actions have to be scaled. In that way, any action that can’t be scaled can’t be considered as an employee’s performance. Operational definition: In the present study, we will define performance using variable such as the attitude and stress of workers, their productivity, and the group /team cohesion in the within corporations.. Culture The researcher will consider the culture in the same way as Schein (1986) did. He defined Culture as following: ‘the control of behavior, setting the norm of behavior, values and belief that leaders wish to encourage in their subordinates’. Culture will then be defined and understood in 9.

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(23) CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW Chapter Overview This chapter provides a review of relevant literature reviews assisting the researcher in order to address the impact of cross-cultural adaptation, foreign workers personal profile and their work satisfaction over their commitment and performance in Taiwan. The researcher will provide an insight of each of these variables. Various theories and measurements of these variables will be presented, highlighting the sub-variables of each of them. Finally, the researcher will focus on describing the relationship between variables through the Hypothesis Building. To give a real sense to this literature review, all researchers have been listed and sorted into several categories. The competencies considered as cross-cultural coming from the different literature review collected will be clustered using a Q-sort methodology. Boyatzis (1998)’s Q Methodology is a research method used in psychology and in social sciences to study people's "subjectivity"—that is, their viewpoint. This way of clustering on a conceptual basis has been suggested because clustering based on conceptual thinking enables researchers to determinate more precisely the different anomalies lying in the data and to have more proactive role in the clustering itself. Moreover, review about the relationship between work satisfaction and job performance will be explained on both qualitative aspect and quantitative aspect. The study between this relationship is a kind of classic tradition of research in the field of the organizational psychology. This relationship has been well-described as the favorite topic of work of industrial psychologists (Landy, 1989). The reason is that the curiosity over the relation between the attitude individuals can have in their workplace and their actual productivity dates back to the study of Hawthorne (Roethlisberger & Dickson, 1939). Moreover, this subject keep being exposed and written even nowadays. This topic has abundant qualitative and quantitative (Laffaldano & Muchinsky, 1985) literature reviews to support the arguments of the research. It is also important to stress that those empirical reviews have to be examined with care. Plus, as lots of progress in the past decades that deserve to get the debate reopen over integration in this literature. 11.

(24) Work Satisfaction Economists such as Maslow and Herzberg, says that satisfied workers has a trend to be more performant and efficient in their work, creative in their task and committed to their own subordinates. The employee's commitment is directly linked with the improvement of the productivity, and the general growth of the company. For this reason, work satisfaction, skills, and motivation are different factors leading employees to a greater achievement.. Compensation and Work Satisfaction The humanist academician Maslow (1970) released the essay Motivation and Personality. He explained that based on his research as a psychologist, a regular pattern of needs of recognition and satisfaction is sought by humans. He raised that people could not identify and pursue the next higher need in the hierarchy their current needs are not completely satisfied. Maslow's hierarchy of needs is shown in the Figure 1. In all, it is composed of 5 levels: the physiological dimension (also called basic survival), physical and mental safety with a daily sense and need for security, sense of belonging, and most secondary levels, the sense of accomplishment (a need of reward through creativity and the feeling that we still « actual and available » for the growing market).. Figure 1.1. The Hierarchy of Needs. Adapted from "A Theory of Human Motivation", by A. Maslow, 1943, Psychological review, 50 (4), p370. Copyright 2006 by J. Finkelstein.. 12.

(25) On the other hand, we have the Herzberg's theory, that actually suggests that there are 2 main groups of reasons that can be used as 2 different factors: hygiene and motivation. The conclusion of his theory is that salary constitutes the strongest motivating factor, by far the most substantial of the 12 other factors of his survey. For the academicians Bellott and Tutor (1990), the problem with Herzberg's study is that it was done in 1959, and is no more relevant. Plus, they argue that he didn’t take into account some professions where they assume realization is important, such as teachers. Other literatures also disserted over the relationship work satisfaction and subjective wellbeing. Although the world’s Gross National Product (GNP) has generally increased over the past century, levels of well-being and work satisfaction didn’t increase since the 1950's (Diener & Oishi, 2000). The same study has been effected in Asia (Diener & Biswas-Diener, 2002). Furthermore, on a short span of time, people earning a lot of money at the lottery don’t feel happier than there was before (Brickman, Coates, & Janoff, 1978). These results bring up the conclusion that salary is not important to work satisfaction. The system of compensation of workers is parted into two categories: the intrinsic and extrinsic rewards (Bruvik & Gibson, 2010). The intrinsic rewards are issued from a psychological mindset that employees are experiencing in their workplace. In the other hand, the extrinsic reward relates the pay and benefit of employees, that they generally receive as an outcome of their contribution to the company. The most important way to bring value to a company is extrinsic compensation (Lai, 2012). The extrinsic compensation takes into account more than simply the salary. It also comprises the remuneration, benefits and allowances that workers earn for all their services (Bhattacharya & Sengupta, 2009). A research lead by Opkara (2004) and Samad (2007) has shown that if workers are fully satisfied with their work, and also feel satisfied with the organizational environment comprising their coworkers, compensation, and leadership they will be more committed in their company. In the same way, logic says that the higher the compensation will be, the more workers will be satisfied with their job and also strive for their company. From this assessment the researcher can safely rise the hypotheses compensation has a direct significant effect on organizational commitment.. 13.

(26) Culture and Work Satisfaction Culture itself is a product of a group of people living at the same place and having similar attitudes and behavior. People who belong to a certain culture share similar norms, history, religion, values and artifacts which distinguish them from others. Therefore, there are numerous national cultures and even more subcultures, providing certain types of organization and action. However, culture is considered to be a tangible or intangible environment in which a group of people live and work together (Gjuraj, 2013). On an organizational aspect, the term culture is defined by the influence and interaction between employees, and their relationship with their institution or organization. Because of that, current multinational organizations are regarded as being social groups. To lead research about an organization’s culture is important to describe and analysis this organizational phenomenon (Tharp, 2009). One important features to keep good organizational culture is the trust that share all the members of one same group of workers (Rotter, 1980). The organizational trust in the workplace is fostered when members can trust and lean on each other (Morgan & Hunt, 1994). This confidence is the base to say that actions team members will lead to good results and that those same team members would not act in an unexpected way (Narusn & Narus, 1991). With a huge number of multinationals across the world, it is normal that the well-being of foreign workers has value to the eyes of a lot of extensive researches. This well-being in the multinational can be defined as the way in which its function and quality are perceived by employees (Warr, 1992). It comprises the workers both physical and psychological health, feeling of happiness and well-being through social integration in the company. All of these features are leading to “job satisfaction” (Grant, Christianson, & Price, 2007). Work satisfaction is very often investigated and utilized as indicators and variables in organizational culture, behavior and numerous other phenomena related to work, including supervision (Warr, 1992). Most of the time, work satisfaction relates the feeling of a worker toward his job. Some theoricians has revealed that work satisfaction is a phenomenon with various dimensions, undergoing the influence of both internal and external factors (Schurr & Ozanne, 1985). To raise some example of these factors: values, principles, personality and expectations and the job’s nature, etc. Confidence and shared trust entail an honest communication of ideas, beliefs and group goals and topics, including satisfaction or dissatisfaction with information partners and finding solutions to issues through communication (Zand, 1972). Relationships based on trust can withstand more stress and more strongly adapt to challenges. Honest communication of ideas, and setting social 14.

(27) goals and collaboration increases target compatibility, foster link between people relationships and between key partners in organizations. However, the relationship of measuring confidence and organizational trust at any point in time can be misleading. The degree of trust is the result of immediate past experiences, that means it can change very quick and bring new positive or negative changes suddenly. For this reason, it is difficult to take the right measure of the degree of trust between two individuals (Zand, 1972).. Perspective of Evolution and Work Satisfaction The perspective of evolution and promotion also play an substantial part of an employee’s career and decision making. The academicians Feldman and Thomas (1992) put in light the Perceived Career Path theory. The state that there is a direct linkage between the work satisfaction of foreign employees and their perception of their career path and future career opportunities within the organization. Their dedication to their mission is then greatly impacted by their ideas of future career development after their assignment (Selmer, 1998). They represent an important reason of worker’s mobility and turnover rate, and they often bring interesting wage increases (Kosteas, 2009). They also have an important influence on other work characteristics such as responsibilities and sub assignments (Pergamit & Veum, 1999). Multinational organization are actually, through promotions, rewarding their most productive performers, producing an incentive for other employees to put in even more effort, and incenting perspective of evolution in the company. (Francesconi, 2001). Those promotions will have the desired outcomes only if workers are interested in a significant way to the promotion (or its perspective) itself. If employees don’t have high considerations of it, organizations would just increase the paycheck to reward workers that deserves it (Blau & DeVaro, 2007). Employees generally value promotions for the reason that they bring more important job amenities such as a larger office, or a better location. The need of acknowledgement of their task is also playing a role, that will flatter their ego (McCue, 1996). When promoted, in most of case, workers appreciate the increase in authority over their colleagues. With all the aspects of promotions that has an impact on worker career, only few focus has been put to the importance of promotions as an indicator of work satisfaction. Some studies have already searched over variables of work satisfaction, but relatively few focus was put to the impact of promotions and promotion expectations. The tournament theory argues that organizations use promotions as a way to exert employees to provide a greater effort (Francesconi, 2001). 15.

(28) Trying to assess to which extent promotions and promotion expectations on work satisfaction enables the understanding of the way their mechanism is working to foster more effort from employees. Assuming that those two notions are related supports the idea that employees have more interest in the promotion itself. It also enables companies to foster effort with other tools and have the positive behavior they wished from their employees. Along with promotions, promotion expectations have a strong incidence as well. An employee understanding that he is not going to earn a promotion may have negative effect on his behavior and decrease the total of his effort unless he thinks that there is still hope to get another promotion in the future (Pergamit & Veum, 1999).. Cross-Cultural Adaptation As the Council of Labor Affairs (CLA) took the decision to open Taiwan’s borders to more foreign workers from October 1989, their adaptation has become an important issue. The government and organization jointly strive to avoid them suffering from a “sense of unsettling discontinuity, malaise, and nostalgia for the age of certainty, permanence, and a fixed and unitary cultural identity”.. Social Integration and Cross-Cultural Adaptation The term adaptation refers to “changes that take place in individuals or groups in response to environmental demands” (Berry, 1997). It “implies the process of learning to function in or feel comfortable in a new environment” (Shaules, 2007). In order to study if foreign workers undertake psychological and mental changes and change their mindset from one cultural background to another, the term cross-cultural adaptation was used widely. In the first place, because of the huge influx of foreigners to developed countries from the 1930s’, the concept of cross-cultural adaptation (Kim, 2000) has been highlighted since this time. Little by little, foreign workers adopt some features from their new cultural environment their original cultural customs are gradually fading away (Kim, 2005). By adjusting their standards to the new host environment, this process reduces conflicts and enables an adjustment of their personal features a habits through reaction or withdrawal (Berry, 1980). Kim (2005) gave a definition of cross-cultural adaptation as follow: “the entirety of the phenomenon of individuals who, upon relating to an unfamiliar socio-cultural environment, strive to establish and maintain a relatively stable, reciprocal, and functional relationship with the environment.. 16.

(29) One of the most crucial features to keep going with good social relationships is the underlying trust between members of the social unit (Rotter, 1980). Similar to a social context, trust is fostered and sustained when people have confidence into each other regarding their reliability and independence (Morgan & Hunt, 1994). Trust supports beliefs that the actions of people will lead to beneficial outcomes and that people will not take unexpected actions that will result in benefits and outcomes (Anderson & Narus, 1991). Schumann (1978) wrote the Acculturation Theory and disserted about the learning process of a second language as a way to gradually integrate and adapt to a culture. Church (1982) addressed that to extend the cross-cultural adaptation, and individual should be as much as possible exposed to host environments, with different languages, behaviors, regulations, eating habits and educational systems (Schurr & Ozanne, 1985). The social network theory has recently been utilized in various researches, for more relational and contextual understandings (Borgatti, Brass, Labianca, & Mehra, 2009). Basically used in the field of sociology, this theory argues that people, groups, or organizations, as social actors, are linked into a network. It put the emphasize on their relationships and try to review what characteristics are arising from the relational system (Wasserman & Faust, 1994). There are various types of relation constituting the networks and they lead to different functions (a network of friends is not the same as network of coworkers, even though they may get closer is that it enables and facilitate the flow of information from a member to another. The advantage created from the relationships is called social capital (Burt, 2005).. Adaptation to the Lifestyle and Cross-Cultural Adaptation The theory supports the facts that even since the main goal is a plenty successful adaptation into the host society, a transformation of the personal identity has to be notified (even though this transformation is largely unconscious and may lead to significant changes into the intercultural personhood (Berry, 1997). The fact that cross-cultural adaptation occurs is something that can’t be denied, because time can forge anything according to Lysgaard (1955). He is also the author who first draw the well know U-curve.. 17.

(30) Figure 1.2. U-Curve theory of Cultural Adjustment. Adapted from "Adjustment in a Foreign Society: Norwegian Fulbright Grantees Visiting the United States.", by Lysgaard S., 1955, International Social Science Bulletin, 7, p45. Copyright 2007 by Culturosity.com.. Choices have to be made: the first one can be represented by the quantity of change that we could be willing to undergo and accept. In other word, how many percent of our own culture and education we will be willing to sacrifice in order to accept and be influenced by the new culture we are embracing. The second choice is that in the case we refuse the change, we can minimize the change by trying to ignore most of the things that are happening around us (Shaules, 2007). But in the other side, if we adopt the perfect opposite behavior, then we may put in even more adaptive efforts, and we can maximize it to achieve a full commitment in the task we are daily doing. When encountering obstacles in a new environment, putting aside one different small problems and even forgetting some of one common and basic cultural patterns can be a necessity. This is for a greater good that workers will in the end, overcome the change of the reality, and confront themselves to the globalizing world we are living in. The academician Oberg (1960) is usually credited for presenting the widely known concept of culture shock. He defines this notion as an “occupational disease...the anxiety that results from losing all of our familiar signs and symbols of social intercourse” such as customs and words. Other 18.

(31) authors such as Adler (1975) have rather dined this notion in a more general term and called it “transition shock,”. According to him, it is a slow process where people can experience “profound learning, self-understanding and change.” Another theorician, Zaharna (1989) added the notion of “self shock,” highlighting the “double-binding challenge of identity”. This new notion of “self shock” comprises a loss and a lack of communication ability because of our upset self-reflections. Ward, Okura, Kennedy and Kojima (1998) have point out the social stake and challenges that workers have to face with their “strange” new situation and host culture. They found more of a linear, progressive process of psychological adjustment versus the initial stage of the U-curve hypothesis of Lysgaard (1955). They argue that workers have more problems to adjust to the culture at the beginning of there stay, and will have less problem over time. As a result, integration is a long task that requires us to take important decisions and to be aware for the outcomes. It is up to people whether they want to feel integrate within the population taking them. People who integrated with success and overcome the cultural differences are the same ones who will decide in the end to adapt and to realize some changes on themselves. Language Proficiency and Cross-Cultural Adaptation In order to interact smoothly when having cross-cultural exchange, the communication plays the role of the major pillar (Tung, 1993). It is the only way to share objectives, feelings, and ideas in order to succeed in business (Ulijn & Strother, 1995), state that the key is that managers focus on behavioral aspect and the way they communicated. This ability is regarded as a precondition to management, especially between partners from different cultures (Limaye & Victor, 1991). Schumann (1978) wrote the Acculturation Theory and disserted about the learning process of a second language as a way to gradually integrate and adapt to a culture. He also argued that there is a relationship between the adaptation to a culture and the degree we master its language, because this level determines the level of understanding of the host language. Church (1982) addressed that to extend the cross-cultural adaptation, and individual should be as much as possible exposed to host environments, with different languages, behaviors, regulations, eating habits and educational systems. Yeh (1999) defined the social integration and adaptation as a psychological combination between the individual learning and what his is target. Thus, the social distances between learners and the culture he is living in is the most important variable, having an influence on the second 19.

(32) language. Plus, both learners and members of the host culture are hoping that the second language can be learnt as fast as possible. They share the same objective, according to Church (1982). Psychological distance can be defined as the influence of learning a foreign language on the learner's emotional state, including fear, intenseness, anxiety and culture shock caused by language barriers. Constantine (2004) argued that cross-cultural adaptation is a gradual process of adaptation that workers (and foreigners in a broader extent) agree to start to understand the new culture they are living in. When foreign workers encounter problem with the Taiwanese cultural standards, they will realize and figure out their own cultural orientation. People generally will try to enrich and broaden their behaviors and habits to include more than two cultural orientations. It enables them to readapt to a culture they were previously living. The larger the scope of the openness is, the higher the tolerability to their thinking being changed by external information will be Yeh (1999).. Foreign Worker Characteristics During the process selection, in spite of their importance, technical and managerial competency should not be the only criterion to assess. Interpersonal attributes should be taking into account, for a better cross-cultural-adjustment (Lee & Ashton, 2004).. Values and Foreign Worker Character Personal traits are deeply impacted by individual's values, beliefs, expectations and cultural background. They have an effect on the capacity of foreign workers to fit into a new environment. Depending on their private predisposition through their education, some will have more facilities to evolve and succeed in their assignment (Saroglou & Munoz-Garcia, 2008). The actual right of developing a very special pattern of personality which could change the type one’s features and cultural traits is not a weakness and a behavior of “surrendering”, it is a proof of respect toward the cultural gap that this employee is trying to embrace, and that will in the end, keep both the newcomer and host satisfied (Buss, 1989). Even if personality traits are commonly used for assessing of person characteristics, the personal values also play a role (Bilsky & Schwartz, 1994). Numerous academicians have argued that values should be included as indicator in a integrative model of characteristics of workers (McAdams, 1996). But in fact, researches that have been made over this suggestion are two few and lack of support (Schwartz, 2011). In order to put together traits and values in one single model, empirical relationship between those two variables should be exanimated. 20.

(33) The relationships between traits and values has been assessed in different way by researchers. They mainly differ on the on the degree of which those indicators have an impact over the conceptualization of characteristics of the individual (commonly said ‘’personality ‘’) (McClelland, 1996). These two indicators actually have the same kind of heritage according to most of dictionaries, and they have been examined in a different way only from 1940s by Allport (1937). He is the first researcher who remove value as component of personality when defining it. He defined traits as part of temperament, and values as part of the character (Allport, 1937). His model has been used by other researchers more recently (Cloninger, 1994), but even today it is not perfectly obvious to say that “personality” is only issued from one’s temperament, or from both temperament (traits) and character (values). Some academicians prefer not to make the differentiation between those two terms, and preferred to use them in an interchangeable way (Lee & Ashton, 2004). On the contrary, other researchers prefer to see traits and values as different characteristics coming from the same level of prediction (Parks & Guay, 2009). For them, the conception of personality is just an assemblage of traits (not values). According to the view of other academicians, traits and values have to be treat in a different way as component of a whole personality (Caprara, Alessandri, & Eisenberg, 2012). McAdams (1995) proposed 2 models to explain his theory. In the first model, he showed three levels of personality components, changing depending on the context). This model states that traits are non-contextualized components (first level) of one’s personality. In the second level, values are more contextualized elements one’s personality. The third level is related to one’s personal identity (McAdams, 1995). In the second model, McAdams suggests that traits are tendencies that are inborn, and on the contrary that traits appeared through the adaptations, which include values (McCrae & Costa, 2008). This model argues that values are impacted by traits and by external influences, such as culture and environment. Therefore, values undergo the influence of traits and are not solely determined by them (Roccas, 2010).. Personality and Foreign Worker Characteristics Several factors are probably more demonstrative than others in special cases of cross-cultural integration. For example in several cases, the success of adaptation is in the majority of cases due to the fact they are open-minded, mentally strength, and optimism of the foreign workers feature and behavior, it enables them to overcome any kind of hardship in a different environment (Dormann, 21.

(34) Fay, & Zapf, 2006). In the other hand, putting few efforts in trying to adapt to change might takes place in someone’s mindset. In this case, might have t strive all the more in order to overcome new challenge that Taiwanese culture will oppose him, resulting in a severe fail. Most of study about an employee’s attitude put the focus on the measurement of his attitude toward job aspects such as supervisors, promotion, payment, colleagues and even the job itself. Nowadays, more and more focus is put on the factors of individual characteristics on employees' attitudes. They are called personality traits, and recent studies state that they have an impact on job satisfaction (Rambur, Mcintosh, Palumbo, & Reinier, 2005). Other previous studies over the relationship between personality traits and job satisfaction were done too by academicians. According to House (1996) in his research over personality traits, an affective disposition is only one traits among other that should be taken into account. Chiu and Francesco (2006) built a cognitive model to measure the impact of positive affectivity and negative affectivity over job motivation and effects of mediator that perceptions of pay and work satisfaction wield on this relationship (Tziner & Latham, 1989). Some studies that have decided to use personality traits as way of measures that predict work satisfaction (Judge, 2002). These researches has been deepened when measuring the relationship between work satisfaction and personality traits with the commitment of workers. Personality of workers and their work satisfaction have been linked by several studies (Barrick, 1991). Other Studies related their relationship with organizational commitment (Abraham, 1997). This study aims at knowing the influence of self-efficacy over the commitment to job and work satisfaction.. Organizational Commitment Studies about commitment at work aim at finding how to do better and enable workers to feel better about the work they are doing and working condition so that they would feel grateful and put in more effort to commit to their company and this, in the end, provide better job performances. Organizational commitment can anticipate different job variables like the turnover, or even an organizational citizenship behavior that should be set up when an individual feel at ease in the environment. It is closely related with job performance. Several reasons such as the stress undertaken at work, empowerment, the lack of security and employability, and the way leadership is distributed are proved to be related with one worker's sense of commitment within his workplace.. 22.

(35) Affective Commitment According to Allen and Meyer (1990) it describes how workers are able to develop emotional attachment to the organization at time they are able to identify themselves with the goals of the organization and have a willingness to assist the organization in achieving the objectives. Identification with the goals of the organization occurs if the values of the individual in accordance with the values of the organization where they work so that they are able to internalize the values and goals of the organization. Thus, workers chose to stay working organization because they enjoy it.. Normative Commitment It is based in part on previous explanations of commitment that described the concept as an obligation or "moral responsibility". These earlier definitions described this type of commitment as "behaviors that are socially acceptable that exceed formal authority" (Wiener, 1982) or "the moral obligation to stay with the company. The current evolution of Normative Commitment describes individuals who stay in an organization because it is "the right and moral thing to do" (Meyer & Allen, 1997).. Continuance Commitment Becker (1960) proposed a definition of commitment that was rooted in a type of cost analysis between what the job can bring him and cost of leaving it. A similar construct was proposed, which included the "profit associated with continued participation and cost of leaving." Continuance Commitment in the Meyer and Allen model posits that individuals are aware of the costs of leaving an organization and they then stay at the organization because they are not able to leave (Meyer, Becker, & Van Dick, 2006).. Employee’s Performance. Attitude, Stress and Performance Rotter (1980) stated that psychologically, daily behavior and the experience of stress are indicators of the performance of foreign workers.. 23.

(36) A tremendous number of studies on work satisfaction has been realized, but theoricians have always been some kind of reluctant when studying variables concerning the job attitude. In his research over job satisfaction, Freeman (1978) explained this reluctance saying that: “first, [attitude] is subjective variable which measures “what people say” rather than “what people do”, and second, economists are wary about studying what purports to be measuring individual utility”. He also stated that this reluctance has to be overcome. After using gathering surveys and researches such as the National Longitudinal Survey from 1966 to 1971, he introduced the attitude as an indicator or the performance of a worker. In spite of its subjectivity, he argues that this variable can have a substantial economic impact. The work of Freeman and Hamermesh (1977) stirred up more theroricians and academicians to in the same way. More recently, economists have put more focus on the attitude as an indicator of performance, more and more studies over this relationship have been released. Even though, formal theories are still missing. Most of empirical works published before 1980s have stated the same thing and clarify the negative relationship between work satisfaction and turnover rate. The higher the turnover rate is, the worst the effect is for a company, because cost to hiring and training workers is increasing. Freeman (1978) also early stated that work satisfaction is the most important reason leading and employee to quit. Following this statement, he concluded that it should represent more than a simple subjective variable. He suggested to find other variables to explain it. His point of view was later shared by the economist Akerlof, Rose, & Yellen (1988). Other similar conclusions were done from researchers in outside developed countries (Clark, Georgellis, & Sanfey, 1998). The Danish accountant Kristensen and Westergard-Nielsen (2004) proposed the same theory using data from developed country in Europe. The main benefit of their study is that they brought up a classification of factors enabling the prediction of turnover rate: for instance, satisfaction with the type of Work (such as challenging) is, according to their conclusion, the most important indicator of job turnover rate. Also, satisfaction with Job Security is considered as the most reliable reason of job retention and work satisfaction. After researches over private school teachers, it was concluded that if the financial aspect of the job is not satisfied, it has a more important impact on reducing the turnover rates than improving satisfaction with financial rewards. Even though most of studies over the relationship between stress and performance focuses on their negative impact, the effects of stress can be ‘’less bad’’ that previously assumed by empirical researches (Selye, 1956). Selye actually highlighted the fact that stress is a necessary 24.