Relationships among job involvement, job characteristics, and personal characteristics: A study of core jobs in selected Philippine banks

• Main Author: Cruz, Remedios C.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2005
• Subjects: Bank employees > Job descriptions; Banks and banking; Business Administration, Management, and Operations
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_doctoral/952; https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/context/etd_doctoral/article/1951/viewcontent/TG03979_F_Partial.pdf
• Institution: De La Salle University

Philippine banks are experiencing high levels of absenteeism and tardiness, as well as high turnover rates. A possible explanation would be a lack of involvement among its employees. Job involvement, defined as an individual's psychological identification or commitment to his job, is regarded as a key job attitude, and considered as the key to employee motivation and performance. With the use of a survey questionnaire, the study sought to determine the levels of job involvement among non-supervisory employees holding four key banking jobs: accountant, analyst, new accounts clerk, and teller. It also determined the relationships between job characteristics and personal characteristics and job involvement. The proposed conceptual framework used five job characteristics – skill variety, task significance, task identity, autonomy, and job feedback – found in Hackman and Oldham’s Job Characteristics Model (1980), as well as four personal characteristics: intrinsic motivation, self-esteem, work ethic endorsement, and level of skill and knowledge (Brown, 1996) as independent variables affecting the level of job involvement. Seven domestic banks out of the top 15 commercial banks in the Philippines participated in the study. These were Metropolitan Bank and Trust Company, Allied Banking Corporation, Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation, Banco de Oro, China Banking Corporation, United Coconut Planters Bank, and Philippine Bank of Commerce. The respondents were limited to rank and file De La Salle Professional Schools, Inc. RELATIONSHIPS AMONG JOB INVOLVEMENT, JOB CHARACTERISTICS, AND PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS: A STUDY OF CORE JOBS IN SELECTED PHILIPPINE BANKS employees holding the four key jobs in Makati and Greenhills/Ortigas branches, as well as analysts and accountants in the Head Offices of the seven banks. Descriptive statistical results showed that employees holding the four jobs have a neutral level of job involvement (M = 3.00). Perceptions of job characteristics were also not remarkable, with only skill variety (M = 3.74) and task identity (M = 3.67) being perceived as having high levels. Among the four personal characteristics, only intrinsic motivation was perceived as having a strong presence (M = 3.64). The levels of all the other variables were within the neutral range. In terms of their relationships with job involvement, all the nine variables were found to have significant and positive relationships with JI, using two-tailed tests of significance (p < 0.05). However, Pearson r coefficients showed very weak to moderate relationships only. The results also showed that there are significant and positive relationships among job characteristics and personal characteristics. Highly significant relationships (Pearson r = 0.350 to 0.423) were found among the job characteristics except for autonomy which did not show any relationship to the other four variables. Weaker relationships were found among the personal characteristics, with the strongest relationship exhibited by self-esteem and intrinsic motivation. Level of skill and knowledge showed very weak relationships to the other personal characteristics. De La Salle Professional Schools, Inc. Relationships Among Job Involvement, Job Characteristics, and Personal Characterictics: A Study of Core Jobs in Selected PHILIPPINE BANKS. In terms of the relationships between the set of job characteristics and the set of personal characteristics, self-esteem showed the strongest relationship to the job characteristics, while task identity had positive and significant relationships to all four personal characteristics. Tests for multicollinearity indicated the absence of collinearity despite these correlational relationships. Multiple linear regressions established the effects of the independent variables on job involvement. The results showed that of the five job characteristics, only three (job feedback, skill variety, and task significance) contributed significantly to the behavior of job involvement (R2 = 0.119). Among the four personal characteristics, three variables self-esteem, work ethic endorsement, and skill and knowledge -- accounted for 10.1% of the behavior of JI (R2 = 0.101). When the nine variables were regressed on job involvement at the same time, the effect became slightly stronger (R2 = 0.174), but only skill variety, job feedback, self-esteem, and work ethic endorsement contributed to this behavior. When 31 influential cases were removed, the effect on JI was even weaker. With the minimal contributions, it can be concluded that other factors not included in the conceptual framework may have caused the behavior of job involvement. To determine if there was an interactive effect between the two sets of variables and JI additional regressions were conducted with personal De La Salle Professional Schools, Inc. RELATIONSHIPS AMONG JOB INVOLVEMENT, JOB CHARACTERISTICS, AND PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS: A STUDY OF CORE JOBS IN SELECTED PHILIPPINE BANKS iv characteristics serving as moderating variables between job characteristics and job involvement. The results showed the absence of an interactive effect. Thus, the nine variables have an additive rater than a multiplicative effect on JI. From the results of the study, it can be concluded that bank employees holding the jobs of accountants, analysts, new accounts clerks, and tellers do not have high levels of job involvement and do not perceive their jobs to have motivating characteristics. It can also be concluded that although these employees have high intrinsic motivation and are predisposed to have high work ethic endorsement, the nature of their jobs does not encourage them to be committed to their jobs. The researcher recommends that banks find ways to improve the levels of motivating characteristics in these four jobs. Job enrichment, job enlargement, and job rotation are some of the measures that can be employed to improve these levels. Since the findings are that tellers and NACs have similar jobs, as do the accountants and analysts, these jobs can be combined to provide employees with more variety and challenge. Banks should also increase their training efforts to enable these employees to acquire multiple skills, and to rotate between the similar jobs. Career paths should also be developed for these employees. In addition, banks should review their hierarchical structure, business processes, and work flows in order to design jobs that will appeal to their De La Salle Professional Schools, Inc. Relationships Among Job Involvement, Job Characteristics, and Personal Characteristics: A Study of CoreJobs in Selected Philippine Banks employees. Although the lack of autonomy and the various controls embedded in bank operating systems are acknowledged constraints to these initiatives, certain steps can be taken to provide lower ranking employees with some discretion and authority in performing their jobs. HR units should continue to hire candidates with high intrinsic motivation and work ethic endorsement, but should undertake a review of the job-person fit to determine if there are discrepancies between the type of bank job and the personal characteristics of the employee. Future studies will benefit from this research, and should expand the conceptual framework to include other contextual factors, such as pay and rewards, nature of supervision, as well as other personal characteristics such as need salience and growth need strength.