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CHAPTER 2

LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Introduction

This chapter is about literature review discussing on the quality of working life

or QWL and corporate culture dimension that affect the QWL. The literature is

divided into several segments in which the first segment consists of literature on

quality of working life or QWL. Second, the next focus is on the literature of work

autonomy, following with the discussion on literature of communication and then the

literature on supervisory and emotional support. This chapter is concluded with the

overview of conceptual framework along with the research hypothesis for this study.

2.2 Quality of Working Life

There are a lot numbers of researchers and theorist have been interested to find

out the meaning of the quality of working life (QWL) and have investigated factors

that can contribute to such experience at work. Davis and his team mate introduced

the term of QWL in the late of 1960’s. Year after year over the last 54 years that

have passed, there are unbelievable amount of QWL studies have increased among

researchers (Rai, 2013). Since 35 years ago, there is a large amount of QWL studies

have been conducted and presented many factors comprising QWL such job security,

reward system and career advancements opportunities (Saraji and Dargahi, 2006),
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working hours and freedom to offer feedback (Indumathy and Kalamraj, 2012),

compensation and benefits, working environment (Mohammad, 2012), adequate and fair

compensation, career growth and job security (Tabassum et al, 2011).

Chitakornkijsil (2010) who is one of the researchers in modern world identified

QWL as a positive value that experienced by employees in which it will affect employees

working condition, and play as an essential determinant of employees’ productivity and

satisfaction. Sharma and Verma (2013), have similar point view regarding QWL in

which in their research, both of them have identified QWL as factor to establish a good

working condition that can promote, improve and maintain employee satisfaction. The

positive value that can establish a good quality of working life derives from the aspects

such pay and benefits, working environment, job security and management behaviour

towards employees (Tabassum et al., 2011). In another study, it has been said that QWL

is a multidimensional construct that incorporates from various concepts like reward

systems, job security, career advancements opportunities and involvement in decision

making (Saraji & Dargahi, 2006). Normala (2010) in her study identified that there was a

relationship between QWL and organizational commitment by examine seven QWL

variables namely supervision, growth and development, physical environment, pay and

benefits, social relevance and participation.

Based on the previous studies, it can be seen that a good practicing of QWL in an

organization will create happy working environment. As mentioned by Indumathy and

Kamalraj (2012), employees who are happy and enjoy with their job, they can be

considered have a good quality of working life while employee who are not pleased with

their jobs and dissatisfied with the organization are considered to have a low quality of
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working life. Happy employees will motivate them to work hard in order to achieve the

organizational goal. As mentioned by Sinha (2012), in order to be successful and achieve

organizational objectives, it is important to ensure that the employees feel happy with

their works. Mohammad (2012) described that not only the productivity of the company

will be increased if the organization offers a better QWL towards their employees but

also the employees will feel emotional attachment, feel a part of the company and pride

in their works. Rafidah, Fuziah, Haslinda, Asmah, Salleh & Izhairi, (2011), agreed with

Shamir and Salomon (1985) ideas regarding quality of working life which is QWL is a

comprehensive construct consist of psychological and well-being of employees that relate

with rewarding, less of stress and other negative personal consequences.

Therefore, it is important for an organization to offer a good quality of working

life to their employees because it is proven that the success of an organization is depends

on the way organization retains their employees, attract and motivates them to give the

best towards the organization. Nowadays a good QWL is not only focusing on offering

career development, pay and benefits, job security and others extrinsic rewards but

instead of that, organization needs to go beyond this scope which it has to pay attention

towards intrinsic rewards, for an example of rewards which can motivate employees and

make them have a good feeling to the work and organization.

2.3 Work autonomy

Work autonomy can be defined as the work is providing freedom and

independence for the employees in deciding procedures and methods to perform a job,

control in scheduling and being able to change how the work is carrying out (Saragih,
 11

2011). Ju, Kai, Chieh, and Tse, (2011) identified work autonomy as “a practice or set of

practice involving the delegation of responsibility down the hierarchy so as to give

employees increased decision-making authority in respect to the execution of their

primary work.” According to Mastekaasa (2011), work that allows employees to

determine procedures and way on how the work activities have been carried out, provide

freedom and independence to schedule their work is considering as work autonomy.

Work autonomy will improve employees’ performance since employees feel that the

organization put the trust on them to perform the task. Thus, employees become more

effective and have high motivation in working. Employees that have lack of autonomy

will not be able to meet the work demands that put on them since they do not get

opportunity to make important decisions in order to accomplish the task (Adebayo &

Ezeanya, 2011). Both of them also mentioned that there is negative relationship between

work autonomy and burnout. Ovadia, Oren and Lavy, (2013) identified that employees

possess lack of work autonomy are likely to encounter job burnout because they do not

get the opportunity to involve or being part of the decision-making process and the

freedom to perform the work as they wish.

In the other hand, work autonomy can be seen as a positive element that influence

employees’ psychological state in which it will contribute for better work consequences

such work satisfaction, increase quality performance, establish higher intrinsic work

motivation and able to reduce absenteeism and turnover (Ju et al., 2011). Ovadia et al.,

(2013) in the study to find out attachment and autonomy in the workplace has identified

that;
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“A work environment that offers autonomy may diminish the

associations between avoidance and unwanted work-related outcomes,
because it enables avoidant individuals to work alone in an environment
that satisfies their need for independence. At the same time, autonomy
may increase the negative associations between attachment anxiety and
positive work-related attitudes and outcomes, because of the challenges
that it poses to anxious individuals’ independence. Thus, in high work
autonomy conditions compared to low work autonomy conditions,
avoidant employees are expected to be more engaged, more committed,
less burned out and less distressed as compared to low job autonomy
conditions, while anxious employees are expected to report lower positive
attitudes and feelings and higher negative attitudes and feelings.” (p.506).

Based on the findings that have been identified by previous researchers, it can be

concluded that work autonomy is possible to explain attitudes, feelings and functioning at

work. Most of the findings have shown that work autonomy will contribute positive

value in work engagement and career commitment and enable to decrease negative value

such work burnout and emotional distress among employees in organization. Therefore,

all these findings can be indicated that work autonomy may help employees to experience

a good quality of working life in their working environment.

2.4 Communication

Managerial Skill Development describes communication is a process consists of

planning, selecting and delivering the information using appropriate medium to ensure

that listener will receive and understand the meaning of the message that has been

delivered by the sender. Communication also defined as a face-to-face or voice-to-voice

conversation that occur in real time in which it allow either sender or receiver to give

feedback or respond immediately (Allen, Attner & Plunkett, 2007). Nancy (1992) in her

study mentioned that effective communication that has been practiced in workplace plays
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an important role to the improvement of quality. She also stated that a leader could not

expected employees to respond to any ideas for better quality unless they have been

communicated with full information. Nowadays most of the businesses have achieved

their success because of good practice of communication (Nando, 2007). Tamer, Awad

and Alhashemi, (2012), agreed that without communication, organization is nothing. It is

because management unable to receive information inputs, employees would not be able

to get instruction from supervisor, work coordination is impossible to be done and in the

end the organization will fail because of lack of communication. One of the purposes of

communication is to relate means to establish and maintain a good relationship as well as

the ability to communicate effectively (Devito, 2013). Communication can be seen as

important element in being able to relate to and work with other employees since by

communication it allows employees to share ideas, working with others, expressing one’s

feelings, explaining what one wants and find out what one needs to know (Tamer et al,

2012)

Effective communication plays a great role in quality of working life in order to

achieve a good result in organization performance (Sinha, 2012). An organization could

enhance the QWL by improving the process of communication such through small

discussion among employees which it look likes as an initial step to encourage employees

to involve and participate organization communication (Nancy, 1992). According to

Buchholz (2001), an organization should practise open communication since it can

encourage employees to express the ideas, complaints, give suggestions to the

management and freely speak out between themselves regarding the company policy and

their concern towards the organization. A good practicing of communication will support
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cooperation and problem solving between employees and managers, thus, this situation

will create an easy feeling among employees and make them experience positive value of

work life (Boyaci, Aksu, Tarcan & Atilgan, n.d). No matter how brilliant and smart the

employer manages the organization but without a good and effective communication

among employees, it will be worthless and will affect the organization performance from

time to time (Agarwal & Garg, 2012).

2.5 Supervisory and Emotional Support

Workplace health and safety Queensland (2012) mentioned that the way

employees are being supported is a key to reduce or moderate the stress experienced by

the employees. Support provided by supervisor will make employees feel pleasant and

able to overcome stress responses that come from work demand, therefore it helps the

employees to experience a good quality of working life. Support open communication

and encourage employees to share their concern about factors that cause them to feel

stress as (Workplace health and safety Queensland, 2012) stated in its report is one of the

ways on how supervisors want to show their support and concern to the others

employees. Emotional support is a form of social support that helps employee in

adapting and contributing to maintain well-being. Besides it can be described as action

or messages that make employee cared for affection, feel of confidence and valued

(Woohyun et al., 2013).

Sinha (2012), mentioned that emotional and supervisory support help the

employees in order to have a work life balance and it can contributes to the employee’s

energy level. Besides, research has demonstrated that a good support that has been given
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by supervision will influence employee commitment, retention and satisfaction

(Carpenter, Webb, Bostock and Coomber, 2012). Supervisor that shows their concern

and support to the employees will help organization to achieve goals. Carpenter et al

(2012), said that organizations are able to achieve its goals through employees who are

knowledgeable, skilful and have clear understanding about their roles associated with

emotional support from a supervisor with whom they have a good professional

relationship. There are three types of supervisory support that can influence employee

retention, as Kansas (2010) indicates namely task assistance, social and emotional

support and interpersonal interaction. Task assistance is refers to how supervisors give

support or facilitates employees in performing task such give clear instructions, support

training and learning activities, offer solutions to work related problem in which all these

assistances will contribute to employee having higher rates of retention. Those

supervisors that give social and emotional support are the people that listen to employees

regarding their job difficulties, give constructive and supportive statements and

understand emotional needs of the employees (Kansas, 2010). The third type is

interpersonal interaction. It is a key factor in contributing higher rate retention because a

good interpersonal interaction in supervisory relationship will establish positive values

that influence employees’ outcome such as organizational citizenship, job satisfaction,

sense of competence and personal accomplishment. In order to conduct the organization

successfully, it is important for the leader of an organization to demonstrate a quality

emotional and supervisory support since this kind of support will make employees

experience a good quality of working life hence it will give impact towards
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organizational objectives such as performance, organizational commitment, job

satisfaction and turnover intentions (Edmondson & Boyer, 2012).

2.6 Initial Conceptual Framework

Combining all dimensions explained above, the initial conceptual framework for the

study is as shown below:

Independent Variable
Corporate Cultural
Dependent Variable
Dimension

 Work Autonomy Quality of Working

Life
 Communication

 Supervisory and
emotional support

Figure 2.1 Initial Conceptual Framework

2.7 The Effect of Gender and Age on the Relationship

Gender remains an important consideration for organization, as different countries

may have different roles between men and women to perform. The increasing number of

women entering the labour market, there is a marked difference between the work

performed by women and those performed by men. Eurofoundation (2008) found that

the majority of clerical employees, service and sale employees are women while the

skilled employees and machine operators are conquered by men. Even though in
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professional position, there is almost equal percentage between men and women (48%

being men and 52% being women) but men tend to have most influence or predominate

in the senior management position. The segregation perspective draws attention to the

concentration of employees in particular sectors or occupation. The perspective

identified men and women typically cluster in different types of work and in different

sectors (Russell, McGinnity & Kingston, 2013). The explanation for segregation vary

such sex-typing of jobs that relate with stereotypes of men and women, for instance

women will success in handling personal service, caring and interpersonal interaction

while for men will success in physical labour and interaction with things (Gerson, 2002).

In contrast, proponents of labour market segmentation theories identified that the

important gap is not between male and female employees, but it is between primary and

secondary jobs. The common issue is there is a limitation in terms of mobility between

sectors and usually jobs in secondary sector likely to be insecure and low quality also

consist of limited prospects for advancement (Russell et al., 2013). Women often

categorised as secondary earner and part of the secondary job segment in which these

kind of jobs are by nature more insecure and easily to lost in recession, thus it will be

drawback for women which majority of them were secondary job segment.

Russell et al., (2013) found women likely to have lower task control than men.

The only occupational class in which women have higher task control is for semi and

unskilled manual jobs. However, it is different with Hughes, Lowe & Schellenberg,

(2003) identified that among university graduates, female employees are far more
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preferable than male to place a high value on commitment, respect, communication and

workplace relation. Hughes et al., (2003) also mentioned that;

“The importance that women engaged with commitment and

workplace relations suggest a desire for stable employment relationship,
which calls into question the notion of employees as foot-loose ‘free
agents’. In contrast, university educated men seem to place far less value
on these softer aspects of work life, and may be the one group that fits the
‘free agent’ image of a knowledge employee. While university-educated
women have high expectations regarding people-supportive workplace
practices, these expectations are not being met. For example, one-third of
female graduates have a job quality deficit in the area of work-family
balance and flexibility, one-quarter have a job quality deficits in
commitment and respect, pay and benefits, and security, while one-in-
seven have a job quality deficit in the area of communication. These
deficit rates are higher than those reported by men, indicating that female
knowledge employees are more likely to experience frustration in finding
employment that meets their expectations.” (p.9).
In addition, most women and men show a desire for interesting work and a sense

of accomplishment. Employees want to feel engaged in what they are doing. The fact

showed that about 70 to 75 percent of women and men across education levels rank

interesting work as a very important job characteristics (Hughes et al., 2003). Previous

study identified that 82 percent of female employees and 71 percent of males with high

school or less education level say that good communication in the workplace are crucial

for them. However there are 15 percent of women and men, the quality of

communication in their workplace falls short of their expectations (Hughes et al., 2003).

Besides gender, workplace will affect with the age challenge received and how

successfully practices will be changed. Employer and employees work together and form

a team that can change age practices and method operation (Ilmarinen, 2006). Therefore,

there is something that needs to be done by international cooperation, states,

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governments, ministries and local organizations, research, insurance, rehabilitation and

training institutions, and occupational health care and safety professionals to create

something for that particular purpose that help the ageing workforce to cope and motivate

them to be maintained in workplace.

Ilmarinen, (2006) identified that global ageing also affected work life in many

ways. The age of workforce will be increased and there will be a shortage of young

employees in many countries. Global business will not be able to hire young people in

the same way as at the end of the 1990s because there is decreasing number of young

employees in the developing countries in which there is also a growing needs for them to

develop the infrastructure and work life. Furthermore employees’ knowledge about

ageing is also useful it is because understanding one’s own ageing and others may

develop a good basis of a work community comprises different age of employees. Other

than that, it also helps to reduce the issue on age discrimination among employees

(llmarinen, 2006).

As overall, from this literature it can be said that gender and age may have

mediating effect on the relationship between corporate culture and quality of working life

in different ways. In term of age, the effect can be seen on segregation perspective that

found that most of women employees comprise of secondary position than professional

position. The previous study conducted by European research has revealed that even

between women and men has almost equal percentage in professional position, however

men seem likely to have most predominated in professional position which is the

practices of corporate culture may have differences between the professional and
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secondary position thus it may lead to different experience in quality of working life.

While for age, different perspectives may appear because different age may have

different added value. Previous research has identified that older employee more likely

to be accepted in the workforce since they are considering have lot of experience,

knowledge and skills (Preissing & loennies, 2011). Therefore they are capable to have

work autonomy, practice open communication and others corporate culture activities as

compared to young employees and this may affect them in experiencing a good quality of

working life.

2.8 Proposed New Conceptual Framework

Independent Variable

Corporate Cultural
Dimension Dependent Variable

 Work Autonomy Quality of Working

Life
 Communication

 Supervisory and
emotional support

Gender and Age

Mediating Variable
Figure 2.2 Proposed New Conceptual Framework

With the introduction of the new framework, the following are the hypotheses for the

study:

H1: Work autonomy has a significant effect on quality of working life.

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H2: Communication has a significant effect on quality of working life.

H3: Supervisory and emotional support has a significant effect on quality of working

life.

H4: Gender and age mediates the relationship between corporate culture dimension

and quality of working life.

2.9 Chapter Summary

This chapter covers the literature on corporate culture dimension which are work

autonomy, communication and supervisory and emotional support that developed the

quality of working life. It also includes the literature and argument about quality of

working life and it impacts to the employees. Besides, conceptual framework along with

research hypothesis also has been identified in this chapter.

In the following chapter three, methodology including research design, data

collection methods, sample design, pilot study and scale development are discussed. The

plan for data analysis is identified to test the hypothesis and justifies the answer for

research questions.