組織併購下職場靈性對工作投入之影響: 感知組織支持調節效果之探討

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(1)The Relationship Between Workplace Spirituality and Job Involvement Under Mergers and Acquisitions Circumstances: The Moderating Effect of Perceived Organizational Support. by. I-Lin Huang. 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: Yi-Chun Lin, Ph.D.. National Taiwan Normal University Taipei, Taiwan June, 2014.

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(3) ACKNOWLEDGEMENT The pyramid was not made by one man; it would have not been possible to writing this thesis without the support of the kind people around me. Hence, I would like to express my gratitude to all who has given me guides and advice. First and foremost, I would like give my appreciation to my thesis advisor Dr. Yi-Chun, Lin for giving me valuable advice from the very begin. Without her guidance, this thesis would not able to be completed. Also, I would like to thank my committee members, Dr. Rosa Yeh and Dr. Angela Chen, for their feedback and suggestions. I would also like to thank my classmates who have always besides me and offer the warmth encouragements when I faced the difficulties. Thanks Pei, Carol, Mandy, Sunny for all the sharing and happiness. Thanks Lydia and Louis for the long night accompanies fighting with the assignments. Thanks Ampi, Linh, Dian, Elisa for endure my foolishness and share their life experiences with me. All of the supports from them have given me strength and wisdom to accomplish all the tasks in my graduate life. Finally, I would like to give my sincere appreciation to my family, who has been there always to fulfill my need. Thanks for their endless, selfless love and support for all the decision I made. It is their understanding and love to make me become a better me. There are too many people to be thanked, two years graduate life has been bitter sweet. I appreciate everyone that I met in these two years. Thank you for bringing the joy into my life and giving me the lessons..

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(5) ABSTRACT The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships among workplace spirituality, job involvement and perceived organizational support under the Merge and Acquisition (M&A) circumstances. Hypotheses were to test the relationship between workplace spirituality and job involvement and the moderating effect of perceived organizational support. This study used a quantitative approach. A total of 281 respondents were valid sample. Hierarchical regression analysis was used to test hypotheses. The result indicated that workplace spirituality was positively related to job involvement, and perceived organizational support had a moderating effect on the relationship between workplace spirituality and job involvement. In conclusion, more support provided by the organization the employees were more involved in their work and create their own value with the organization.. Keywords: Workplace Spirituality, Job Involvement, Perceived Organizational Support (POS), Merger and Acquisition (M&A). I.

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(7) TABLE OF CONTENTS. ABSTRACT ................................................................................................ I TABLE OF CONTENTS ........................................................................... II LIST OF TABLES ................................................................................. ...IV LIST OF FIGURES ................................................................................... V CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION .............................................................. 1 Background of the Study ....................................................................................... 1 Statement of the Problem ....................................................................................... 3 Research Purpose ................................................................................................... 4 Research Questions ................................................................................................ 5 Definition of Key Terms ........................................................................................ 5. CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW .......................................................... 7 Mergers and Acquisition (M&A) ........................................................................... 7 Workplace Spirituality ........................................................................................... 8 Job Involvement ................................................................................................... 12 Workplace Spirituality and Job Involvement ....................................................... 13 Perceived Organizational Support ....................................................................... 15 Moderating role of Perceived Organizational Support ........................................ 16. CHAPTER III METHODOLOGY ................................................................. 19 Research Framework ........................................................................................... 19 Research Hypotheses ........................................................................................... 19 Samples and Data Collection ............................................................................... 20 Measurement ........................................................................................................ 21 II.

(8) Control Variables ................................................................................................. 23 Questionnaire Design ........................................................................................... 24 Translation and Back Translation ........................................................................ 24 Pilot Test .............................................................................................................. 25 Data Analysis ....................................................................................................... 26. CHAPTER IV FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS...................................... 31 Descriptive statistics ............................................................................................ 31 Correlation Analysis............................................................................................. 33 Hierarchical Regression Analysis ........................................................................ 35. CHAPTER V DISCUSSION AND SUGGESTIONS ................................ 41 Discussion ............................................................................................................ 41 Implication ........................................................................................................... 42 Research Limitations and suggestions ................................................................. 44. REFERENCES ........................................................................................................ 47 Appendix A: Distribution of Paper-based Questionnaire.............................. 54. III.

(9) LIST OF TABLES Table 3.1 Summary of Fit Indexes ............................................................................ 28 Table 3.2 Results of Confirmatory Factor Analysis .................................................. 29 Table 4.1 Descriptive Statistics ................................................................................. 31 Table 4.2 Mean, Standard Deviation, Correlations, and Reliability ......................... 33 Table 4.3 Result of Regression Analysis for Job Involvement ................................. 35 Table 4.4 Result of Hierarchical Regression Analysis for POS as a Moderator ....... 36 Table 4.5 Result of Hypotheses Testing .................................................................... 38. IV.

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(11) LIST OF FIGURES Figure 2.1 Conceptualizing spirituality in the workplace : individual, group, and organization level of interaction ................................................................ 11 Figure 3.1 Research framework ................................................................................... 19 Figure 4.1 Interaction plot for the moderating effect of POS .................................... 37. V.

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(13) CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION. This chapter introduces the background, purpose of study, and the research questions of this study. The background focuses on describing the psychological reaction of the employees who has being through the process of company’s business strategy and investigate the problem from it. The purpose of this study and significance of this study are addressed.. Background of the Study In the rapidly developing business world, companies have begun to adapt Merger and Acquisition (M&A) as their business strategy to achieve and maintain their competitive advantages under the current economic situation (Aguilera & Dencker, 2004). This strategy has been widely used in many different industries including: banking, manufacturing, postal services, and telecommunications to name a few. In the past two decades the adoption of M&A has been rising consistently. This is because that many firms have tended to enlarge their organizational capabilities to increase their competitive market position (Gaughan, 2010). This has also created incentive for small and medium-sized enterprises to resolve and address their problems of technological innovation, management practices and the structure of costs such as wages, land price, and transportation (Yasumaru, 2009). Due to the change that M&A brought, there will be new policies in the organization and some of the employees will get laid off. The uncertainties and ambiguities in a M&A situation generate a series of psychological reaction from employees (Bhal, Bhaskar, & Ratnam, 2009). These reactions become clear during the intense and drastic changes that occur during M&A. The non-determined outcomes of M&A to the employees will stimulate a series of psychological behaviors that may be perceived in a positive or negative way in many different circumstances. The common human emotions are anxiety, stress, anger, and lack of involvement in the work place (Astrachan, 1995). With the increase of M&A among organization, and the numerous psychological 1.

(14) behaviors associated with the change, helping employees to cope with the new working environment and engage themselves into the new job position are the difficult lessons for those working at a managerial level. One of the employees’ work attitudes is job involvement, and it can directly reflect employees’ status of coping the new workplace. Regardless of the external effect, the linkage between an employees’ internal emotional status and job involvement (and, consequently- job performance) bears an obvious significance. The concept of the employees’ sense of wholeness, connectedness at work, and deeper values can be considered as one’s workplace spirituality (Gibbons, 2000).The definition of workplace spirituality includes looking for the meaning in their work, developing a strong connection with the colleagues and the people who are related to the work, and having a clear consistency between one’s main beliefs and the values of their organization (Denton & Mitroff, 1999). After M&A, the atmosphere within the new organization will undoubtedly be altered from the original one. A new organizational climate can, and almost certainly will, have a profound effect on an employees’ working attitude. Organizational climate can be represented as the employees’ perceptions of their objective work condition, which include the characteristics of the organization and the interaction/relationships with other people in the workplace. Hence, the organizational support is conceptually either a trigger or moderator of employees’ affective evaluations and reaction toward their job and their work environment (Churchill, Ford, & Walker, 1976). As for the concept of workplace spirituality, employees’ core values are aligned with the organizational values and they find their work meaningful. Consider of the changes M&A strategy brought to the company; will the impacts of employees’ workplace spirituality help to accelerate the speed of adapting the new working environment and enhance employees’ job involvement? The phenomenon within the psychological reactions was addressed. Especially under the 2.

(15) changing environment, the relationship within those factors might have a unique and unpredictable result. When workplace spirituality affects job involvement, perceived organizational support might strengthen or weaken the relationship between them. Therefore, exploring the relationship between these factors could show pertinent in future M&A circumstances.. Statement of the Problem Several reasons that workplace spirituality has not been paid much attention on was because the society was not advanced in terms of leisure time, technology and communication of exchanging ideas. People did not think of to experience spirituality in their workplace before they can fulfill their need in their personal lives (Maynard, 1992; Neck & Milliman, 1994; Ray, 1992). It was getting more important in business in the 21st century and has been addressed in many business magazines, such as Businessweek (Conlin, 1999) and Fortune (Gunther, 2001) and has been the focus of several books (Giacalone & Jurkiewicz, 2003). As workplace spirituality has gathered an increasing level of attention, many growing studies provide valuable insights into the topic (Gibbons, 2000). Yet, still most of the studies were conducted in the western countries since it mainly originates in the U.S. (Conger, 1994). Very few of the studies were discussed from oriental viewpoints (Sheng & Chen, 2012). Jurkiewicz and Giacalone (2004) pointed out workplace spirituality has growing an interest in Eastern countries that promote integration between individual and environment. Also, the majority of the research conducted has concentrated on personal spiritual experiences at the workplace, as opposed to focusing on the impact of workplace spirituality on individual work attitudes and behaviors (Jurkiewicz & Giacalone, 2004; Konz & Ryan, 1999). Even though personal spiritual experience is an essential component in understanding job involvement, it is also important to conduct research on employees’ work attitudes under the changed working environment, which can help those at the managerial level better understand the potential positive impact when it occur on a 3.

(16) spiritual level (King & Nicol, 1999; Milliman, Czaplewski, & Ferguson, 2003). Positive impacts include enhance individual creativity (Freshman, 1999), increased honesty and trust within the organization (Wagner-Marsh & Conley, 1999), and enhanced sense of personal fulfillment of employees (Burack, 1999). Perceived organizational support has long been viewed as the recognition by the organization of an individual’s socio-emotional needs, commitment, efforts, and loyalty (Jain, Giga, & Cooper, 2013). Randall, Cropanzano, Bormann, and Birjulin (1999) found that perceived organizational support is positively related to affective commitment, job satisfaction, performance and OCB (Organizational Citizenship Behavior), and negatively related to turnover intentions. Job involvement has not been specifically studied much under perceived organizational support. In short, job involvement is the variable that has long been viewed as significant in examining a worker’s psychological reaction toward their workplace. However, workplace spirituality has recently been gaining steam as a suggested variable that might affect worker attitudes (Milliman et al., 2003; Pawar, 2009). Surprisingly, there has been a somewhat noticeable lack of these variables being tested within the industries being through the process of M&A. Therefore, there exists a necessity to examine the relationship between workplace spirituality and job involvement under the possible moderating effect of perceived organizational support on the employees who has experienced the M&A strategy empirically in Taiwan.. Research Purpose The purpose of the study was to investigate the relationships among workplace spirituality, job involvement and perceived organizational support through the employees who has experienced the M&A situation. The specific aims in this study were to identify the correlation of workplace spirituality and job involvement, to identify the impact of perceived 4.

(17) organizational support on the job involvement, and to examine the moderating effect of perceived organizational support between workplace spirituality and job involvement.. Research Questions In order to understand the relationships among workplace spirituality, job involvement and perceived organizational support, as well as fill in the gaps of previous research, the present study was designed to examine the following questions. 1. What is the relationship between workplace spirituality and job involvement? 2. Does perceived organizational support has a moderating effect on the relationship between workplace spirituality and job involvement?. Definition of Key Terms Merger and Acquisitions (M&A) Merger and acquisitions refers to a series of activities and agreements that integrate two firms into one, or absorbs a smaller firm into a larger one. This is obviously a complex event for both organizations involved, but is often necessary for companies to expand or develop their business to a broader operating level (Economics, 1976).. Workplace Spirituality Workplace spirituality refers to a personal belief that an individual can find spiritual satisfaction through experiencing meaningful work in a community, having a sense of connection with their colleagues, and sensing an alignment of their own values with those of the organization. In short, a feeling of completeness and wholeness that stems, in part, from their workplace (Ashmos & Duchon, 2000; Milliman et al., 2003).. Job Involvement Job involvement is a cognitive state of employees’ own psychological identification within their job, and the degree of which they actively engaged themselves in the workplace in order to fulfill their intrinsic needs (Allport, 1943; Kanungo, 1982). 5.

(18) Perceived Organizational Support Perceived organizational support is a construct to describe an employee’s perception of the organization’s commitment to him or her (Eisenberger, Fasolo, & Davis-LaMastro, 1990). Perceived organizational support is based on the experiences of the employee and leads to attributions “concerning the benevolent or malevolent intent of the organization’s policies, norms, procedures, and actions as they affect employees” (Eisenberger, Armeli, Rexwinkel, Lynch, & Rhoades, 2001, p. 42).. 6.

(19) CHAPTER II. LITERATURE REVIEW. This chapter reviewed the literatures regarding Mergers and Acquisition (M&A), workplace spirituality, job involvement, and perceived organizational support. Also, the research hypotheses were proposed base on the theories and the literatures.. Mergers and Acquisition (M&A) M&As are a series of activities to integrate two firms into one or the smaller firm that has been absorb to the larger firm. It is a complex event in the organization life for companies to lead the business into next totally different level. M&A has also been classified with a five-fold category system according to Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The system was designed based on the primary economic relationship established between the parent firm and the target firm. The five categories as followed behind. 1.. Horizontal. When the companies produce one or more than one of the same, similar or related products in the same geographic market, the acquisition is horizontal.. 2.. Vertical. At the period of time when the two companies involved had a potential buy-seller relationship before the action to merge.. 3.. Product extension. The type of acquisition has to be classified as product extension when the purchasing and the companies being purchased are functionally related in production and/or supplement but sell the products that do not directly compete with one another. An example of a product extension merger can be tile manufacture purchasing bowl and plate manufacture.. 4.. Market extension. The type of market extension of acquisition is that when the purchasing and the companies being purchased happened to manufacture the same products, but they sell them in different geographic market. For example, a market extension merger can be an automobile manufacture in Taiwan purchasing an automobile manufacture in Korea. 7.

(20) 5.. Unrelated. In this category it includes the partnership of two essentially unrelated firms. An example can be an air craft manufacture buying a flower supplier. Statistical Report on Mergers and Acquisitions, 1978 (1980: 108-109). Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) is an important business phenomenon, proven by the. large and increasing amount of M&A activities over the years. The number of M&A deals in the US started picking up in the mid-1990s (Yu, 2013) and in the early 20th century in Taiwan (Wu, 2008). Reasons to adopt M&A operation are because the company wants to improve overall performance (Lubatkin, 1983) to gain more competitive advantages compares to other firms (Appelbaum, Gandell, Yortis, Proper, & Jobin, 2000). The studies based on M&A are varied. For instance, studies found that in the post-acquisition process, employees who developed higher commitment to the organization lead to better job performance (Riketta, 2002; Wright & Bonett, 2002). Some studies focus more on the financial performance. The improvement in cost efficiency appeared to be transferred to the bank clients under the M&A operations has been proven (Beccalli & Frantz, 2009). Hence, the employees who has been experienced the M&A situation are chosen as the target sample in this study.. Workplace Spirituality The concept of spirituality in the workplace appeared in the 19th century and become a popular issue in the business world (Greenleaf & Center, 1973). Two main streams of business development generated the interest of workplace spirituality which are “economic-technological imperative” and “people centered management” (Burack, 1999). While the organization went through a downsizing and re-engineering process, under the similar technological driven environment, people were still confronted with decreasing economic problems. Hence, researchers indicated that people is the key element to make a difference (Burack, 1993). According to Maslow hierarchy, when the lower order needs 8.

(21) (physical, safety and belonging ) are satisfied , people seek for higher achievements such as self-esteem or self-actualization (Burack, 1999; Maslow & Lowry, 1968). In the downsizing era of the 1990s, people who have been helped to develop transferable skills and did not get cut out of the organization have received the need of security. As long as the basic needs are satisfied, the person desire for higher order needs which happened to be selflessness, loyalty, and public-spiritedness (Burack, 1999).The ultimate individual need in the workplace reflected on the sense of spirituality at work from person’s own being (Fox, 1994). The definitions of workplace spirituality were various with different researchers making different statements. It was first considered as religion related (Emblen, 1992; Helminiak, 2006). Some people believe that spirituality at work does not only involve a religious implication (Neck & Milliman, 1994). For instance, there are questions such as ‘What is the meaning of my work?’ and ‘Why am I doing this work?’ that, while not necessarily referring to any specific religious significance, speak to a rather large spiritual significance behind employees’ work (Krishnakumar & Neck, 2002). The researchers used this to develop more interest on religion based spirituality. However with the working environment forever evolving, workplace spirituality does not involve much connection with religious values, but rather individual ones (Cavanagh, 1999; Denton & Mitroff, 1999). Nowadays, there has been an increasing studies showed that workplace spirituality was not only be limited to the connection with various religions, but can be based solely on one’s personal belief and particular philosophy. These workers could be considered as independent spirits who are seeking for both meaning and purpose in their work, building the linkage with their coworkers and workplace community and expecting to enrich their enthusiasm at work (Ashmos & Duchon, 2000; Harrington, Preziosi, & Gooden, 2001; Milliman et al., 2003; Mitroff, Mitroff, & Denton, 1999). These brought out the existing connection between individuals and their workplace.. 9.

(22) The meaning of workplace spirituality is a highly personal and philosophical construct, which nearly all the academics defined as that of spirituality consisting of a sense of completeness, close connection with the workplace community and deeper personal values (Gibbons, 2000; Krishnan, 2008). Workers seek the ultimate purpose in life, eager to develop a connection with people they work with, or have consistency between their core values and organizational value (Denton & Mitroff, 1999). According to that, workplace spirituality can be define as “the recognition that employees have an inner life that nourishes and is nourished by meaningful work that takes place in the context of community”(Ashmos & Duchon, 2000, p.137). The survey of workplace spirituality was developed by Ashmos and Duchon (2000) with eleven dimensions and the component factors analysis are also being conducted. In this study, three dimensions which are meaningful work, sense of community and alignment with organization values is chosen due to the representation of job involvement in previous studies at three levels of workplace spirituality (Milliman et al., 2003; Milliman, Ferguson, Trickett, & Condemi, 1999; Mitroff et al., 1999; Neal & Bennett, 2000; Pawar, 2009). The elements of each dimensions are shown in Figure 2.1.. The reason those three dimensions have been chosen was because, as for meaningful work, it represents how employees dealing with their day-to-day work not only found the work interesting and challenging but also saw how they can live with their goal by seeking deeper meaning and purpose in their work, moreover, contribute to others (Ashmos & Duchon, 2000; Fox, 1994; Milliman et al., 2003). The sense of community represents how employees see themselves connecting with co-workers with the shared purpose. And the value of alignment with organization measures whether the employees acknowledge the strong sense of alignment between their personal values and the organization’s mission and value (Milliman et al., 2003; Rego & Cunha, 2008).. 10.

(23) Figure 2.1. Conceptualizing spirituality in the workplace: individual, group, and organization levels of interaction. Adapted from “Workplace spirituality and employee work attitudes: An exploratory empirical assessment ,”by Milliman, J., Czaplewski, A. J., & Ferguson, J., 2003. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 16(4), p.428. Copyright 2003 by MCB UP Ltd.. 11.

(24) Job Involvement One of the distinguished employees’ work attitudes is Job involvement. It represents the degree to which a particular employee was identified as psychologically engaged within the workplace or also the importance of work in his or her total self-image. It was also being defined as how much and how deeply a person put him or herself into their work. A person who puts more of his or herself into a particular job sees his/her work as a very significant aspect of his/her life. They devote themselves deeply to their specific work situation, which includes but is not limited to: the work itself, the colleagues the employee interacts with, and the organization at large (Moynihan & Pandey, 2007). In contrast, the non-job-involved workers do not put work at the center of their life. They keep their interests and work life in entirely separate spheres. But this attitude does not directly or greatly affect their job performance (Lodahl & Kejnar, 1965). One of the most distinguished measurements was developed by Lodahl and Kejnar (1965). The items included two issues which were the psychological identification of a person in their job and the intrinsic motivation to the person at work for fulfilling self-esteem needs. The meanings of job involvement were various and could be identified in four different ways. First, the controversial issue was about the intrinsic motivation on the job and job involvement (Gorn & Kanungo, 1980; Kanungo, 1981). Second, there were the concerns of identification of the state of job involvement and its following effects when dealing with the construct (Kanungo, 1979). Third, the description of job involvement can be considered as a cognitive and positive emotional state of the individual (Lodahl & Kejnar, 1965). Finally, there are two different contexts that individual shows their personal involvement, the two contexts were (a) specific or particular job context and (b) generalized work context (Kanungo, 1981). When in the specific or particular job context, it showed the degree of how much the job could satisfy one’s need .In another way, when the involvement was with the. 12.

(25) work in general, it is more about the value of the work in one’s life and the socialization (Kanungo, 1982). Bowen and Lawler (1994) noted that job involvement is connected with complex service organizations and it requires employees to share their job roles and responsibilities through teamwork supervisors, instead of giving demands by playing as a supportive role in the organization. They believed employees would find the work meaningful, engaging, and significant in this way (Bowen & Lawler, 1994; Eccles, 1993). The literature addressed that if and when employees recognize the possibilities for satisfying their psychological needs in the workplace; they engage themselves deeply and dedicate more time and effort in the organization to create greater profit for the organization (Brown, 1996; Kahn, 1990; Pfeffer, 1994; Zhang, Zheng, & Wei, 2009). Accordingly, this type of dedication helps to bring down absenteeism, numbers of turnover rate, and negative psychological reactions that could potentially occur within the organization.. Workplace Spirituality and Job Involvement Workplace spirituality represent as a spiritual well-being of an individual in working condition that include different factors which influence the satisfaction of an individual toward his or her life or job (Altaf & Awan, 2011). It helps to create an unique working environment that assists employees to foster their capacities (Daniel, 2010). Job involvement has been considered as a cognitive or belief of psychological identification toward one’s job concern about the degree to how actively they participate in their job and moreover consider their work performance to be important to their self-esteem. It also implied that the fulfillment of employees needs has been considered as an antecedent of job involvement (Blau, 1986; Kanungo, 1982). Studies has also been proposed that the organizations who has an environment that respond to their employees’ need and value rapidly will motive them engage in their work more (Catlette & Hadden, 2001; Hawley & Hawley, 1993). Employees 13.

(26) have been found to be more supportive to their organization and feel more involved in their work when they are strongly identify with their organization (Cable & DeRue, 2002; Smidts, Pruyn, & Van Riel, 2001) Those work attitudes were reflected in the workplace. However there are controversial discussions on the relationship between workplace spirituality and work attitudes. Komala and Ganesh (2007) and Neck and Milliman (1994) proposed that employees’ work attitudes are related to workplace spirituality. When it met one’s personal inner goals, it enhances the teamwork and helps the employees to be more committed to their organization. Additionally, Pawar (2009) pointed out individual spirituality only had marginal association with work attitudes and suggested to include workplace spirituality when examining whether individual spirituality has an effect on work attitudes or not. These findings aroused the motivation to examine the relationship between work attitude and workplace spirituality on the specific target sample, which are the employees who experienced M&A situation. And one particular work attitude that will focus on in this study is that of job involvement (O'Driscoll, O'Driscoll, & Randall, 1999). The dimensions that have been chosen for this study focus on fulfilling employees’ spiritual needs (Ashmos & Duchon, 2000; Fry, 2003, 2005; Fry, Vitucci, & Cedillo, 2005). Therefore, those dimensions should be positively associated with job involvement since they affect employees’ need fulfillment. Moreover, the greater engagement of employees at work will be created due to the intrinsic motivation that provided by workplace spirituality (Fry, 2003; Pawar, 2009). The relationship of one of the dimensions, meaningful work, has been examined to be positive related to job involvement (Milliman et al., 2003). And Milliman et al. (1999) purposed a positive organizational value can provide greater emotional engagement to employees. Thus, workplace spirituality should have a positive relationship with employees’ job involvement. It is important to note that in this study we would assess. 14.

(27) these dimensions at the individual level of analysis empirically. The hypothesis is proposed as below.. Hypothesis 1. Workplace spirituality has a positive effect on job involvement.. Perceived Organizational Support According to organizational support theory the development of perceived organizational support is encouraged by the tendency of employees to personify an organization as though it were with human-like characteristics (Eisenberger et al., 1990). It also addressed the consequences of perceived organizational support: some psychological reactions came along. For instance, perceived organizational support should provide the feeling of obligation, concern about the organization’s welfare and assisting the organization to achieve their objectives, based on the reciprocity norm. Also, perceived organizational support built up the employees’ expectation on organization performance-reward policy. These processes would have positive outcomes for both employees (e.g., enhance job involvement and strengthen positive working attitudes) and organization (e.g., increased affective commitment and performance, reduced turnover) (Pathak, 2012; Rhoades & Eisenberger, 2002). Organizational theorists and researchers indicated employment can be understood as the trade of the effort and loyalty for both impersonal benefits and socio-emotional benefits such as pay, fringe benefits, esteem and approval (Angle & Perry, 1983; Mowday, Porter, & Steers, 1982). Based on social exchange theory, any exchange activities can be viewed as a social behavior that may result in both economic and social outcomes (Lambe, Wittmann, & Spekman, 2001). It was developed to provide the possible conceptual basis for understanding the initiation, strengthening, and continued maintenance of interpersonal relationships between employees and their organization and given the norm of reciprocity that required. 15.

(28) people to respond positively to the favorable treatments they received from others (Blau, 1964; Gouldner, 1960). Perceived organizational support was defined as the degree to which employees perceive that the organization cares about their well-being and that their contributions are valued by their organization (Eisenberger et al., 1990; Rhoades & Eisenberger, 2002). And it is an important source that could help to reinforce employees’ confidence in their ability to cope with role demands (Lazarus, 1991). Perceived organizational support is considered to be developed through various interactions between the employees and their employers and to which degree that reflects by the employees perceived their organization is committed to them (Rhoades & Eisenberger, 2002). Moderating role of Perceived Organizational Support Studies have pointed out perceived organizational support was consistently related to the favorable outcomes to the organization (Pathak, 2012). For instance, perceived organizational support was positively correlated to organizational commitment (Shore & Wayne, 1993), in-role performance (Eisenberger et al., 1990), organizational citizenship behavior (Moorman, Blakely, & Niehoff, 1998), long-term obligations, organizational identification among employees, loyalty (Rhoades & Eisenberger, 2002) , job satisfaction, intention to remain in the organization (Stamper & Johlke, 2003) ,and trust in organizations (Chen, Aryee, & Lee, 2005). Also, perceived organizational support has been purposed it was negatively correlated to absenteeism (e.g., Eisenberger et al., 1986) and intention to leave (Allen, Shore, & Griffeth, 2003). In a recent study, there are three major categories which are fairness, supervisory support and organizational rewards, and favorable job conditions have been indicated to associate with perceived organizational support (Rhoades & Eisenberger, 2002). According to that, perceived organizational support has been pointed out to be related to those positive 16.

(29) outcomes for employees (e.g., job satisfaction, positive mood) and for organization (e.g., affective commitment, performance, and less withdrawal behavior) (Pathak, 2012; Rhoades & Eisenberger, 2002). Therefore, perceived organizational support was expected to bring better performance to the organization by increasing employees’ obligation to their organization, and more involved in their work (Jain et al., 2013). Moreover, perceived organizational support has been found a significant negative moderating impact on the relationship between prosocial behavior and unethical attitudes when unethical attitudes increased, reported frequency of prosocial behavior decreased (Adebayo, 2005). Prosocial behavior reflects to a human concern for others and organization, it include the behaviors such as helping others and volunteering in an organization which workplace spirituality share the similar concept in one of the dimensions, sense of community (Brief & Motowidlo, 1986; Milliman et al., 2003). Also, in Jain et al. (2013) perceived organizational support had been examined to have negative moderating impact on OCB and organizational stressors. It also noted that out of 56 significant interactions only one was significantly positive which is the individual initiative dimension of OCB was positively influenced by the interaction effect of the Job Security dimension of organizational stressors on perceived organizational support. Individual initiative refers to employees engage themselves in task related behaviors at a level that go beyond what an organization required or generally expected which job involvement also perform the similar concept (Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Paine, & Bachrach, 2000). According to the findings above, in this study the significant moderating impact of perceived organizational support between workplace spirituality and job involvement will be proposed. The hypothesis is shown below. Hypothesis 2.. The relationship between workplace spirituality and job involvement is moderated by perceived organizational support.. 17.

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(31) CHAPTER III. METHODOLOGY. This chapter covered the research framework, research hypotheses, research design, measurement, and data collection and analysis methods. This research adopted quantitative approaches to investigate the relationship among workplace spirituality and the job involvement under M&A circumstances. In addition, this study also checked the moderating effect on the perceived organizational support.. Research Framework The independent variable is workplace spirituality. The dependent variable is job involvement. Perceived organizational support serves as the moderator to examine the relationship between workplace spirituality and job involvement. The research framework was shown below, see Figure 3.1.. Perceived Organizational Support. Controls variables -Job position -Company type -Salary. H2 Workplace Spirituality. Job Involvement H1. Figure 3.1. Research framework. Research Hypotheses According to the previous literatures, the research purpose and the research questions, the hypotheses were developed below. 19.

(32) Hypothesis 1. Workplace spirituality has a positive effect on job involvement. Hypothesis 2. The relationship between workplace spirituality and Job involvement is moderated by perceived organizational support.. Samples and Data Collection The target sample in this study was all employees in the companies that have been through Merger and Acquisition process. The target sample was not limited in certain industry as long as he/she fulfilled the requirement of being through a certain period of time under M&A process and was still working in the companies that adopted M&A strategy. After the financial crisis, companies struggle to find a way to bring the victory back again. Many business strategies have been used and M&A strategy is one of the business approaches that have been wildly adopted. But those business moves affect the employees’ right. To cut down the cost, companies lay off some of the employees and downsized the original organization. The phenomenon M&A brought caused some of the strong psychological reactions from the employees and even aroused the protest from the labor union. Therefore, this study chose this specific group of people to conduct the study in order to investigate the relationship within the chosen variables. Paper-based questionnaire and online survey were used to collect as much data as possible to use in this study. In the beginning of the questionnaire, the respondents were asked whether they have been in the M&A process or not to identified the status of the respondents. Also in this study the HR personnel has been approached to deliver more questionnaires to the target sample in the companies. In this study, the snowball sampling strategy was adopted. Snowball sampling strategy was done by consulted with people who is acquaintance with the person who is working in a company undergoing the M&A process or has been through the process.. 20.

(33) The total distribution number of paper based questionnaires was 550 and 406 questionnaires returned back. The response rate is 74%, and 248 respondents (45%) fit the requirement of the study which were the employees who had M&A experiences and still working in the remain company. Moreover, 104 responses were received through online survey and total 33 fit the requirement of the study. The total amounts of valid responses were 281.. Measurement This study adopted well-developed measurement scales to measure all the variables and the precision of measurements were confirmed through the reliability analysis and use Cronbach’s alpha coefficient (Cronbach α) to show the “stability” and “consistency” of the instruments. The higher value of Cronbach α implies the better consistency of the instrument. The acceptable value is higher than 0.7 (Nunnally&Berstein, 1994).. Workplace Spirituality Workplace spirituality refers to one’s sense of meaning and purpose in their work and the connectedness to another person or their workplace community (Ashmos & Duchon, 2000). The scale was developed by Ashmos and Duchon (2000) and Milliman et al. (2003).In this study, we selected three dimensions, totally 21 items in the scale. The measures were designed on a 7-point Likert scale, ranged from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). The high score indicates that the person is highly agreed with descriptions of the items under the M&A process. The Cronbach’s alpha for workplace spirituality was 0.97. As below, the source and Cronbach’s alpha for each of the measures were described. Meaningful work. Meaningful work is a fundamental aspect of workplace spirituality which involves having a deep sense of meaning and purpose in one’s work (Milliman et al., 2003). In this dimension, six items were adopted from Ashmos and Duchon (2000). Example item included 21.

(34) “The work I do is connected to what I think is important in life.” The Cronbach’s alpha in this study was 0.92.. Sense of community. Sense of community implies to the belief that employees see themselves are deeper connected with others in their workplace, feel supportive and are able to express their feeling freely (Miller, 1992; Milliman et al., 2003). Seven items were developed by Milliman et al. (2003) to focuses on the sense of community experienced by workers. Example item was “I believe people support each other.” The Cronbach’s alpha in this study was 0.93.. Alignment with organizational values. Alignment with organizational values indicates the employees believe their organization is sharing the same or similar purpose and value with them (Ashmos & Duchon, 2000). There are eight items in this dimension, adopted from Ashmos and Duchon (2000) spirituality scale. The example item was “I feel connected with the organization’s goals.” The Cronbach’s alpha in this study was 0.97.. Job Involvement Job involvement indicated to the degree that individuals psychologically identify with their present job (Kanungo, 1982). For highly involved employees, their jobs seem to be more important and they tend to develop more interest in it (Mudrack, 2004)..The scale was developed by Kanungo (1982) which contains 10 items and designed on a 5-points Likert scale, ranging from 1(strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). The high score of the scale implied that people have higher level of job involvement. The example item included “I am very much involved personally in my job.” The Cronbach’s alpha in this study was 0.90.. Perceived Organizational Support Perceived organizational support indicate that the employees form a general perception 22.

(35) concerning the degree to which the organization values their contributions and cares about their well-being (Eisenberger et al., 1986). The scale was developed by Eisenberger et al.(1986) which contains 36 items. In this study, the short version from Eisenberger et al. (1997) which contains 8 items was used. The example item was “Help is available from my organization when I have a problem.” The Cronbach’s alpha was 0.90 in this study. Respondents indicate their agreement with each item on a 7-point Likert scale, ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree).. Control Variables The literatures revealed several demographic variables that had possibly influence on job involvement. Hence, in this study those demographic variables were put in the questionnaire as personal information in order to get the data to clarify the relationship between dependent and independent variables by controlling the influence of demographic variables.. Job position The person who works in the higher position (manager) has indicated to develop higher job involvement (Mckelvely &Sekaran, 1977). The respondents were asked to provide their job position during the M&A process happened. Answers was coded as 1 (general employee), 2 (junior manager), 3 (mid-level manager), 4 (senior manager), and 5 (others).. Company type The level of job involvement will change with different type of organizations (Brown, 1996). The respondents were asked to identify their company before M&A. The company type was coded as 1 (domestic company), and 2 (foreign company).. Salary It has been proved there were positive correlation between salary and job involvement, indicated that better salary payment cause stronger job involvement (Ruh, White, & Wood, 23.

(36) 1975). The annual salary was asked with different set of range and coded as 1 (Under 500,000 NTD), 2 (500,001 NTD ~ 700,000 NTD), 3(700,001 NTD ~ 800,000 NTD), 4 (800,000 NTD ~ 1,000,000 NTD), 5(Above 1,000,000 NTD).. Questionnaire Design The questionnaire of this study was generated by several well-developed measurement scales with valid items that match each target variables. Each scale was originally written in English. Considering the target population are Taiwanese in order to make sure the target participants can understand each items. In this study, the questionnaire was translated into Chinese. Because in this study all the scales were put in one questionnaire, each of the variables was answered at the same time from the same person, this might cause common method variance (CMV) situations. In this study, some methods were applied to avoid the CMV problem. Based on the suggestion mentioned in the behavioral research: A critical review of the literature and recommended remedies (Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Lee, & Podsakoff, 2003), the research purpose and the variables in this study were concealed in the questionnaire. Also, this study adopted different point Likert scale for different variables in the questionnaire. For instance, workplace spirituality adopted 7-point Likert scale while job involvement adopted 5-point Likert scale. To prevent the respondents from filling the questionnaire randomly in the study, the reverse items were also being adopted in the questionnaire.. Translation and Back Translation Since the measurement scales this study adopted were all written in English, in order to fit target sample of this study. The questionnaire was translated into the language that the participants are familiar with, which is Chinese. The self-translated items were compared with the published translated items and consulted with the expert to ensure the items could 24.

(37) well represent this study. In order to ensure the translation of Chinese has the consistent meaning with the original English version. Back translation was conducted in this study. The main purpose of doing back translation is to make sure the translated questionnaire contains the same meaning with the original questionnaire. Therefore, an MBA student who is a native speaker of English and fluent in Chinese was approached to assist in translating the question items back into English. The consistency of the questionnaire was ensured through adopting this technique.. Pilot Test The purpose of conducting pilot test was to confirm the reliability of the measurement and to examine the relationship between all the variables before the big amount of the questionnaires were distributed. The questionnaires were first being translated into Chinese, to be able to let the target sample be able to response the questions. First, the descriptive statistics analysis was applied to understand the demographic information about the samples. It indicates that most of the respondents were female (69.1 %). Most of them were aged from 36 to 55 (66 %). As for the educational background, 89 % of the respondents got the bachelor degree. Most of the respondents were general employees (83.6%) and the total tenure is around 1 to 5 years (61.8%). Secondly, the reliability and Pearson correlation analysis were also conducted for the pilot test to confirm the reliability of the instruments and briefly observed the relationship among each variable. The mean, standard deviation, correlations, and reliability for pilot test have been examined. The Cronbach’s alpha above 0.7 is acceptable (Nunnally&Berstein, 1994). In this study the Cronbach’s alpha for each instrument were: 0.98 for workplace spirituality, 0.92 for job involvement and 0.87 for perceived organizational support. The result of the correlation analysis indicated that workplace spirituality and job involvement were significantly positive correlated (r=.67, p<.001).. 25.

(38) Data Analysis This quantitative study was constructed by delivered and analyzed the questionnaire. The statistical software of Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) v21.0 and AMOS v22.0 were used to analyze the data collected from the target samples. The whole analysis methods included reliability and validity, descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation analysis confirmatory factor analysis, and hierarchical regression analysis.. Cronbach’s Alpha To examine the internal consistency and stability, the reliability was conducted in the study. Reliability is a concept to determine the precision of the measurement. Use Cronbach’s alpha coefficient to show the stability and consistency of measurements in order to present the degree of precision. The higher value of Cronbach’s alpha indicates a higher consistency of each dimension (Nunnally & Berstein, 1994). When the Cronbach’s alpha value was over 0.7, it is reliable and acceptable. The reliability analysis using Cronbach’s alpha was conducted to determine the reliability of all scales. The Cronbach’s alpha of workplace spirituality in this study was .98. The Cronbach’s alpha of perceived organizational support serving as a moderator was .90. Cronbach’s alpha of job involvement was .90.. Descriptive Statistics This study adopted descriptive statistics which included percentages and frequency distribution to describe the characteristics of participants. The percentage and frequency report were used to identify the participants’ distribution pattern in gender, age, educational level, company type, position, salary, and tenure.. Pearson Correlation Analysis The correlation analysis was conducted in this study in order to investigate the direction and strength of linear relationship between the independent variables and dependent variables. With the result, it can then explain the relationship between workplace spirituality is 26.

(39) positively or negatively related to job involvement. It is important to note that a high correlation coefficient may not necessarily imply multicollinearity existed between the variables. Since the data were confirmed by CFA, the constructs investigated in the study are also confirmed as distinct constructs. Hence, if CFA is confirmed and the correlation coefficient value is still high, it means that the variables are highly related, and the value of regression can still be accepted. Correlations analysis was tested by using SPSS 20.0 software.. Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) The Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) were conducted to examine the validity of the questionnaire by using AMOS 22 before the proposed hypotheses has been tested, in order to confirm whether the data suit a hypothesized measurement model that based on theory or previous researches. In this study we adopted indicators that had been proposed in previous study to examine the construct validity of the workplace spirituality, job involvement and POS. The indexes were presented as below: Chi-square (χ²) test was to determine the overall model fit and showed the difference between expected and observed covariance matrices. The value lower than 3 implied a good model fit (Jöreskog & Sörbom, 1993) . Except the chi-square test there were still many other statistical analysis to test the goodness of fit of the experimental value and theoretical value. Root Mean Square error of approximation (RMSEA) used as an additional statistics to determine fit in the large sample sizes. If the value of RMSEA equals to 0 indicates a perfect model fit. The value range from 0.05 to 0.1 indicates a medium model fit and the value that is higher than 0.1 indicates a bad model fit (Browne, Cudeck, Bollen, & Long, 1993). Goodness of Fit Index (GFI) higher than 0.8 represents the observed data fit in the experimental distribution well (Carmines & McIver, 1981) . Normed Fit Index (NFI) shows the ratio of the difference in the value for the model and the independent model. Comparative Fit Index (CFI) 27.

(40) and Tuckers-Lewis index (TLI) = Non Norm Fit Index (NNFI) account the sample size in based on NFI. CFI, NNFI, and NFI were higher than 0.9, which then represent desirable indexes (Bentler & Bonett, 1980; Tucker & Lewis, 1973) . To conclude all, the above indexed range from 0 to 1. To be precisely, the value close to 1 represents a better model fit. The summarized fit indexes were shown as below in Table 3.1 Table 3.1 Summary of Fit Indexes Fit Indexes. Threshold. References. Chi-Square/ df. <2 or 3. Jöreskog and Sörbom (1993). RMSEA. <0.08. Browne et al. (1993);. GFI. >0.9 or >0.8. Carmines and McIver (1981). NFI. >0.9. Bentler and Bonett (1980). CFI. >0.9. Bentler and Bonett (1980). TLI/NNFI. >0.9. Tucker and Lewis (1973). In this study, the original 21 items of workplace spirituality was divided into three parcels and the fit indexes were presented as follows: Chi-square (χ2)= 643.96, RMSEA=0.10, CFI=.93, NFI=.90, IFI=.93, TLI=.92, GFI=.82. The chi-square (χ2) of POS was 55.27, it presented good fit indexes while it’s RMSEA=.83, and the rest of the indexes were: CFI=.98, NFI=.97, IFI=.98, TLI=.97, GFI=.95. And as for the chi-square (χ2) of job involvement was 144.05 .The other fit indexes of job involvement were: RMSEA=.11, CFI=.93, NFI=.91, IFI=.93, TLI=.90, GFI=.90. The results of CFA for each variable were shown in Table 3.2.. 28.

(41) Table 3.2. Results of Confirmatory Factor Analysis (n=281) χ2. df. χ2/df. RMSEA. CFI. NFI. IFI. TLI. GFI. WS. 643.96. 183. 3.51. .10. .93. .90. .93. .92. .82. POS. 55.27. 19. 2.90. .83. .98. .97. .98. .97. .95. JI. 144.05. 32. 4.50. .11. .93. .91. .93. .90. .90. 3-factor model. 2669.9. 696. 3.84. .10. .80. .76. .80. .80. .61. Notes. RMSEA = Root Mean Square Error of Approximation; CFI = Comparative Fit Index; NFI = Normed Fit Index; IFI = Incremental Fit Index; TLI = Taker–Lewis Index, GFI = Goodness of Fit Index. WS represents workplace spirituality, POS represents perceived organizational support, and JI represents Job involvement.. Hierarchical Regression Analysis Since both of the dependent and independent variables were continuous variables. Baron and Kenny (1986) suggested the moderation effect can be tested with hierarchical regression analysis. Three steps were conducted to examine the moderation effect of perceived organizational support in this study. First we entered the control variables, following up to enter the workplace spirituality and perceived organizational support simultaneously to test the two variables’ impact on the dependent variable. Before calculated the interaction terms of workplace spirituality and perceived organizational support, those two variables were entered by subtracting the mean from the original ones to reduce the multicollinearity problem (Aiken & West, 1991). The last step was to enter the multiplication of workplace spirituality and perceived organizational support to test the interaction effect on job involvement.. 29.

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(43) CHAPTER IV. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS. In this chapter, the findings of the study hypotheses were presented. The descriptive statistics analysis was presented in the first part. The result of the correlation analysis among workplace spirituality, job involvement and perceived organizaitonal support was showed as follow. The third part showed the validity of the study. The final part focused on the findings of hypothesis testing by using hierachical regression anaylsis.. Descriptive Statistics The data was collected from 550 participants who had been through M&A circumstance in their working experience, 281 of the samples fit the requirement of the study which are the one who is still working in the company even they have been through M&A. To collect the information of the respondents, gender, age, education level, position, tenure, yearly income and company type were included. The gender of the respondents was pretty equal. Most of them were aged from 26 to 35 years old (40.2%). When it came to the education background, over 65.1% participants had bachelor degree. Regarding their working position, most of them were general employees (56.6%) and their tenure was principally for 1 to 5 years (33.8%). The frequency and percentage of the demographic information are summarized in Table 4.1.. 31.

(44) Table 4.1. Descriptive Statistics (n=281) Item. Sample characteristics. Frequency. Percentage. Gender. Female Male Total. 143 138 281. 50.9 49.1 100. Age. 25 and below 26-35. 11 113. 3.9 40.2. 36-45 46-55 56-65 Total. 99 48 10 281. 35.2 17.1 3.6 100. 4. 1.4. Middle school High school College Graduate school and above. 4 51 183 39. 1.4 18.1 65.1 13.9. Total. 281. 100. Company type. Local Foreign Missing value Total. 165 115 1 281. 58.7 40.9 0.4 100. Position. General employee Supervisor Mid-level manager High level manager. 159 76 36 6. 56.6 27.0 12.8 2.1. Missing value Total. 2 281. 0.7 100. Educational level. Elementary and below. (Continued). 32.

(45) Table 4.1 (continued) Salary. 500,000NTD and below 500,001NTD-700,000 NTD 700,001NTD-800,000 NTD 800,001NTD-1,000,000 NTD Above 1,000,001NTD Total. 97 81 38 25 40 281. 34.5 28.8 13.5 8.9 14.2 100. Tenure. Less than 1 year. 10. 3.6. 1-5 years 6-10 years 11-15 years 16 years and above Total. 95 78 37 61 281. 33.8 27.8 13.2 21.7 100. Correlation Analysis In order to understand the relationship among workplace spirituality, job involvement and perceived organizaitonal support, the Pearson correlation analysis was demostrated. The means, standard deviations, reliabilities, and correlations among all the variables are shown in Table 4.2. Workplace spirituality was postively correlated to job involvement (r=.43, p<.001) and perceived organizaitonal support was positively and significantly related to workplace spirituality (r=.70, p<.001). Job involvement was moderately correlated with perceived organizaitonal support (r=.39, p<.001).. 33.

(46) Table 4.2. Mean, Standard Deviation, Correlations, and Reliability (n= 281) Mean. SD. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 1. Company type. 1.41. .49. 2. Job Position. 1.62. .84. .22**. 3. Salary. 2.40. 1.40. .17**. .46***. 4. Workplace spirituality. 4.98. 1.07. .21***. .35***. .29***. (.97). 5. Perceived organizational support. 4.48. 1.00. .03. .26***. .09. .70***. (.89). 6. Job involvement. 3.61. .62. .22***. .30***. .28***. .43***. .39***. Note. Numbers parentheses represent the Cronbach’s Alpha values of the variables. *p<.05, **p<0.01, ***p<0.001. 34. 6. (.90).

(47) Hierarchical Regression Analysis Workplace Spirituality and Job Involvement Hierarchical linear regression analysis and was used to examine the hypothesis and the result was summarized in Table 4.3. In the first step, the control variables such as company type, job position and salary were entered. In the second step, the independent variable was entered in order to test the hypothesis. Hypothesis 1 proposed that workplace spirituality had a positive effect on job involvement. In Model 1, all the control variables showed significant effect on job involvement except the experienced time. As in Model 2, workplace spirituality was added to examine its relationship with job involvement. The result showed that workplace spirituality was significantly positive related to job involvement (β=.34, p<.001). Therefore, workplace spirituality had a positive effect on job involvement. It implied that employees who develop higher workplace spirituality have higher job involvement in their current job. Thus, Hypothesis 1 was supported.. 35.

(48) Table 4.3 Result of Regression Analysis for Job Involvement (n=281) Variable. Job involvement Model 1. Model 2. β. β. Step 1: Controls Company type Job Position. .15** .19**. .11* .10. Salary. .17**. .12. Step 2: Main Effect Workplace spirituality R² Adj. R² ΔR² F ΔF. .34*** .14 .13 .14 14.65*** 14.65***. .24 .22 .10 21.05*** 34.81***. Note.***p< .001 **p< .01 *p< .05. Moderating Effect of Perceived Organizaitonal Support on The Relationship Between Workplace Spirituality and Job Involvement Hypothesis 2 in the study proposed that perceived organizaitonal support positively moderates the relationship between workplace spirituality and job involvement. In order to test the moderating effect of perceived organizaitonal support, the three steps were conducted in hierarchical regression analysis. In step 1, the control variables such as company type, job position and salary were entered. In step 2, the independent variable and moderating variable were entered. In step 3, the interaction term of workplace spirituality and perceived organizaitonal support was entered and the beta coefficient as well as the significance of the interaction was examined. Table 4.5 summarized the regression results of testing Hypothesis 2.. 36.

(49) Model 3 presents that the interaction of workplace spirituality and perceived organizaitonal support was significant when job involvement was entered as the dependent variable, and the beta coefficient was positive (β=.13, p<.05). Base on the result, Hypothesis 2 was supported. It meant that the degree of perceived organizaitonal support would moderate the relationship between workplace spirituality and job involvement.. Table 4.4. Result of Hierarchical Regression Analysis for POS as a Moderator (n=281) Variable. Job involvement Model 1. Model 2. Model 3. β. β. β. Step 1: Controls Company type Job Position. .15** .19**. .14* .08. .15** .08. Salary. .17**. .15*. .14*. .17* .23**. .19* .24**. Step 2: Main Effect WS POS Step 3: Interaction WS x POS R² Adj. R² ΔR² F ΔF. .13* .14 .13. .26 .25. .28 .26. .14 14.65*** 14.65***. .12 19.32*** 22.83***. .02 17.35*** 5.78*. Note.***p< .001 **p< .01 *p< .05, WS= Workplace spirituality, POS= Perceived organizational support. To interpret the moderating effect in detail, perceived organizaitonal support was divided into high and low level group based on the mean. Figure 4.1 showed the interactional graphs 37.

(50) between workplace spirituality and perceived organizaitonal support. As expected, workplace spirituality had a relatively more positive effect on job involvement for individuals when the perceived organizaitonal support getting higher; however, workplace spirituality had a more slightly positive effect on job involvement for individual when the perceived organizaitonal support is considerately lower. Hence, perceived organizaitonal support showed significantly positive moderating effect between workplace spirituality and job involvement. In conclusion, the summary of hypotheses testing results was shown in Table 4.5.. Figure 4.1. Interaction plot for the moderating effect of perceived organizational support. 38.

(51) Table 4.5 Result of Hypotheses Testing Hypotheses. Result. H1.. Workplace spirituality has a positive effect on job involvement. Supported. H2.. The relationship between workplace spirituality and job Supported involvement is moderated by perceived organizational support.. 39.

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(53) CHAPTER V DISCUSSION AND SUGGESTIONS This chapter is made up of two sections. The first section includes the discussion of this study and the implications for theoretical and practical fields .The second section includes the limitation of this study as well as the suggestions for the future research.. Discussion First, it is important to examine the first hypothesis. Hypothesis 1 predicted that workplace spirituality is positively associated with job involvement. More specifically, individuals with a higher degree of workplace spirituality have higher levels of job involvement. The result of this study indicated that when an individual considers their work as a meaningful part of their life, they are willing to build the connection with the people that they are working with and have the consistency between their core values and organizational values. Thus higher job involvement results. This demonstrates that people consider the components of their work to be as important as the job itself, which is why employees with a high level of workplace spirituality align themselves with the organization’s values, staff, and core competencies. In this way the employees are extending the breadth and depth of their connection to the company by increasing their involvement to include all facets of the organization. In order to understand Hypothesis 1 more clearly, it is best to define the origin of workplace spirituality. By definition, the sense of workplace spirituality is mostly developed based on the person himself/herself. A person’s motivation and attitudes are important in evaluating their development of workplace spirituality. Additionally, the degree of job involvement that is also created depends on the employees themselves. Hence, when one demonstrates a closer relationship with the organization, the more devoted they can be in their workplace. After establishing the first hypothesis and the positive association workplace spirituality 41.

(54) has with job involvement, the next step is to examine the second hypothesis related to perceived organizaitonal support. Hypothesis 2 predicted that perceived organizaitonal support had a moderating effect on the relationship between workplace spirituality and job involvement. As shown from the results of data analysis, the interaction effect (workplace spirituality and perceived organizaitonal support) were positive and significant to job involvement. The degree of perceived organizaitonal support moderated the relationship between workplace spirituality and job involvement. The finding not only confirmed Hypothesis 2 but also indicated that individuals who received support from the organization usually perceive that their organization is giving them certain level of concern. In this way, it is almost a reciprocal relationship between the employee and employer that is based on the employee’s perception of organization’s attitude and concern for their own well-being. This characteristic of perceived organizaitonal support generated the employees to have higher degree of job involvement than the employees did not receive the support from the organization. Also, the control variables that discussed above were also being examined, however the experienced time showed no impact on job involvement. The possible reason might because employees take their job seriously regardless the organizational change; they only determined to just focus on their work itself. In contrast, company type showed the significant effect on job involvement. The organizational climate that foreign and domestic companies formed are dissimilar, this creates different influence on the employees. The organizational culture might develop different impact on employees’ job involvement.. Implication. In this section, theoretical implications and recommendations for future management were provided.. 42.

(55) Theoretical Implications Human capital has been considered to be an important asset in an organization. However research based on workplace spirituality toward the work attitude, job involvement is lacking. In short, job involvement is the variable that has long been viewed as significant in examining a worker’s psychological reaction toward the workplace and merits further study. To contribute to the theoretical perspective, this study not only explored the relationship between workplace spirituality and job involvement but also tried to explore the moderating effect of perceived organizational support on the relationship between workplace spirituality and job involvement. According to the result of this study, workplace spirituality has been examined it is positively correlated to job involvement. In the other words, when individual developed high workplace spirituality, the higher job involvement resulted. Furthermore, the result of this study also showed that there is a positive moderating effect of perceived organizational support on the relationship between workplace spirituality and job involvement with the participants who has experienced M&A process.. Management Implications This study provided the evidences showing that workplace spirituality positively associated with and perceived organizational support served as a moderating link between workplace spirituality and job involvement. According to participants in this study were the employees who have been through M&A circumstances. Hence, this study advises that organizational management and human resource practitioners can look close on this finding. The finding could reflect employees’ reaction when they were facing uncertainty and a dynamic working environment the organization decision brought. It has been proven that employees are more dedicated and involved in their work when they build a strong connection with their organization and self- approve of their current work, feel satisfied with their work and remain positive while facing the challenge their organization brings. 43.

(56) In practice, when the company recruits new talent. It is ideal to enroll the candidates who share the same or similar values as the organization. Since workplace spirituality has been proven to have a positive relationship with job involvement, it implies the individuals who align their personal value with the organization are more likely to engage themselves in their work. To increase the profit and save the cost for the company, it is better for the organization to bring in the people who consider their work is meaningful and agree with the vision of the organization. Although the concept of workplace spirituality begins with the individual himself/ herself, the result also indicated that perceived organizational support played an important role in this relationship of workplace spirituality and job involvement. When the organization is being supportive to their employees, the relationship between workplace spirituality and job involvement is strengthened. It can also help the individual to align their core values with their organizational value in order to create a better profit for own and for all. Compared to the other studies, it is unique that the participants in this study were employees who had the experience of M&As. It gave an insight for the organizational management and human resource practitioners when the M&A strategy has become one of the trends that cannot be ignored in the business world. The findings in this study can be taken as a reference when making the organizational management plan when facing a M&A circumstance. The result might be different applied on different group of participants, it is highly likely that the degree to which the employees felt unsure from the M&A strategy was a main reason making organizational support became so important. With different background of the participants, the degree of importance of the factors might produce a different result.. Research Limitations and Suggestions This study focuses on the relationship between workplace spirituality and job 44.