THE CAUSAL MODEL OF EMPLOYEE WELL-BEING IN THE THAI AIRLINE COMPANIES Sakon ...

207 Pages·2013·4.19 MB·English

THE CAUSAL MODEL OF EMPLOYEE WELL-BEING
IN THE THAI AIRLINE COMPANIES

Sakon Bunsin

A Dissertation Submitted in Partial
Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of
Doctor of Public Administration
School of Public Administration
National Institute of Development Administration

2012

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ABSTRACT

Title of Dissertation The Causal Model of Employee Well-Being in the Thai
Airline Companies
Author Mr. Sakon Bunsin
Degree Doctor of Public Administration
Year 2012
_____________________________________________________________________

The objectives of the study were 1) to ascertain the level of well-being of the
employees working for Thai airlines, 2) to find out the variables or factors affecting
their well-being, and 3) to identify the factors that have the most, moderate and no
effect on their well-being.
A survey was conducted to collect the data from employees of five Thai
airline companies: Thai airways, Bangkok Airways, Air Asia, Nok Air, and Orient
Thai Airline. The sample of 400 employees was selected from the total population of
24,631 employees by systematic random sampling. A questionnaire was used as the
instrument. The data were processed by SPSS for Windows. The statistics for data
analysis were percentage, mean, standard deviation, maximum and minimum values,
Chi-square, Gamma, Multiple Regression, and Path analysis.
It was found that 1) most of the respondents had a healthy well-being and
2) the factors significantly affecting their well-being were age, education, number of
working years, organizational climate, work characteristic, work environment,
compensation, and work-life balance. When gamma (G) was calculated to measure
the rigor of the relationship between variables, the factors found to be significantly
related to the employee well-being were compensation, work characteristic, work-life
balance, organizational climate, work environment, number of working years, age and
education, with the G value of .75, .73, .72, .66, .57, .37 , .20, and .19, respectively.
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3) There were four factors that could predict the employee well-being at the .05 level
when Multiple Regression Coefficient was calculated. These factors, which had a
positive effect on the employee well-being, were work characteristic, compensation,
work-life balance, and work environment, respectively. On the contrary,
organizational climate had no significant relationship the employee well-being and
thus could not account for their well-being. All the independent variables could
account for 61.6 percent of employee well-being (R2 = .611) When the hypothesized
correlation model was tested, it was found that the R2 of the full model (R2 ) was
FM
.8068 while the R2 of the hypothesized correlation model was .0849 (Q= .9903 and
W = 3.8606), which had no statistical significance. The finding indicated that the
hypothesized correlation model was not significantly different from the empirical
data; in other words, it had goodness of fit with the empirical data.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The dissertation entitled “The Causal Model of Employee Well-Being in the
Thai Airline Companies.” was completed with the assistance of a number of
individuals, particularly Associate Professor Dr. Chindalak Vadhanasindhu, major
advisor, and Professor Dr. Pichit Pitaktepsombat, co-advisor, who have kindly shared
their invaluable comments, suggestions, and guidance with the researcher through
every step of this dissertation, in addition to their moral support and encouragement.
I would also like to take this opportunity to extend my sincerest gratitude to Professor
Dr. Boonton Dockthaisong, the committee chair, for his constructive advice and
consultation.
My profound thanks go to the administrators and staff members of different
airlines who have provided me with the data and assisted me with a variety of issues.
I am also indebted to all staff members who were the participants of this study for
their time and effort generously shared with me during data collection.
I am deeply grateful for the knowledge passed on to me by the School
members of the School of Public Administration, National Institute of Developmental
Administration which benefited the completion of the dissertation. My gratitude is
also extended to the scholars and researchers whose concepts, theories, and research
findings are cited in my study.
I would like to extend my thankfulness to the staff members of the School of
Public Administration for all their assistance as well as to the staff members of the
Library and Information Center who helped me with the formatting of the dissertation.
Last but not least, I would like to express my most profound gratitude and
dedicate this dissertation to my father and my mother who are the source of the
immense support and encouragement that enabled me to successfully complete my
program of studies.

Sakon Bunsin
March 2013
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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

ABSTRACT iii
ACKHOWLEDGEMENTS v
TABLE OF CONTENTS vi
LIST OF TABLES viii
LIST OF FIGURES xi

CHARPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1
1.1 Background and Significance of the Problem 1
1.2 Research Objectives 4
1.3 Scope of the Study 4
1.4 Expected Results 5
CHARPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW AND CONCEPTUAL 6
FRAMEWORK
2.1 Concepts Related to Employee Well-Being 6
2.2 Models Related to Employee Well-Being 13
2.3 Concepts, Theories and Research Related to Factors 47
Affecting Employees’ Well-Being
2.4 Conceptual Framework 86
CHARPTER 3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 88
3.1 Research Method 88
3.2 Population and Samples 88
3.3 Data Collection Procedure 89
3.4 Data Analysis 91
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3.5 Variables, Operational Definition, Questions and 91
Measurement Scale
3.6 Hypotheses 101
3.7 Data Analysis 101
CHARPTER 4 DATA ANALYSIS AND RESEARCH RESULTS 105
4.1 Description of Personal Information as well as Other 105
Variables, and Employee Well-Being
4.2 Variables or Factors Affecting Employee Well-Being 127
4.3 Variables or Factors Affecting Employee Well-Being 135
Ranked in order of Significance from The Most,
Moderate, and No Relationship
4.4 Test of Causal Model of Employee Well-being 137
4.5 Suggestions from Employees 143
CHARPTER 5 CONCLUSION AND DISCUSSION 147
5.1 Summary and Conclusion 148
5.2 Discussion of the Research Findings 152
5.3 Suggestions 156

BIBLIOGRAPHY 158
APPENDICES 169
Appendix A Questionnaire 170
Appendix B The Relationship between the Direct 179
Question and the Indirect Questions
BIOGRAPHY 196
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LIST OF TABLES

Tables Page

2.1 Summary of the Organizational Health Model 33
2.2 Summary of the Elements of Employee Well-Being Based on the 44
Review of Concepts, Theories and Various Models
2.3 Alternatives in Balancing Work Life 82
3.1 Number of Population and Samples Categorized by Airline 88
3.2 The Offices of each Company both in Bangkok and Provinces 90
3.3 Variables, Operational Definition, Questions and Measurement 92
Scale
3.4 Conventions for Describing Q Values 102
4.1 Percentage of the Employees with Different Personal Factors 106
4.2 Percentage of Responses to Different Aspects of the 108
Organizational Climate
4.3 Percentage of Different Responses on the Overall Organizational 109
Climate
4.4 Scores of Organizational Climate Given by the Respondents 109
4.5 Percentage of Responses to Work Characteristics 110
4.6 Percentage of Respondents Who Ranked Their Satisfaction with 111
Work Characteristics Differently
4.7 Percentage of Respondents Who Assigned Different Scores to 112
Work Characteristics
4.8 Percentage of Respondents with Different Opinions on Work 113
Environment
4.9 Percentage of Different Responses on the Overall Work 114
Environment
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4.10 Percentage of Respondents Who Gave Different Scores on Work 115
Environment
4.11 Percentage of Respondents with Different Degrees of 116
Satisfaction with Compensation
4.12 Percentage of Respondents Who Ranked Their Satisfaction with 117
Compensation Differently
4.13 Percentage of Respondents Who Assigned Different Scores to 118
Satisfaction with Compensation
4.14 Percentage of Respondents with Different Opinions on Work- 119
Life Balance
4.15 Percentage of Respondents with Ranking Work-Life Balance 120
Differently
4.16 Percentage of Respondents Who Assigned Different Scores on 120
Appropriateness of Work-Life Balance
4.17 Percentage of Employees Well-Being in terms of Physical health 122
4.18 Percentage of Employees Well-Being in terms of Mental Health 123
4.19 Percentage of Employee Well-being in terms of Job Satisfaction 124
4.20 Percentage of Employee Well-Being in terms of Employee 125
Engagement
4.21 Percentage of Employees with Different Degrees of Well-Being 126
4.22 Percentage of Overall Employee Well-being 127
4.23 Percentage of Employee Well-Being by Gender 128
4.24 Percentage of Employee Well-being by Age 128
4.25 Percentage of Employee Well-Being by Education 129
4.26 Percentage of Employee Well-Being by marital status 130
4.27 Percentage of Employee Well-Being by Experience 130
4.28 Percentage of Employee Well-Being by Organizational Climate 131
4.29 Percentage of Employee Well-Being by Satisfaction with Work 132
Characteristics
4.30 Percentage of Employee Well-being by Work Environment 132
x
4.31 Percentage of Employee Well-being by Satisfaction with 133
Compensation
4.32 Percentage of Employee Well-being by Work-Life Balance 134
4.33 Summary of Results from Hypotheses Testing 134
4.34 Correlation Matrix 136
4.35 Independent Variables that could Explain or Predict Employee 136
Well-Being
4.36 Results of the Analysis of the Correlation of Hypothesized 142
Correlation Model and the Empirical Data
4.37 Direct and Indirect Effect of Independent Variables on Employee 143
Well-Being