The effect of human resource management practices on employee`s job satisfaction: A case study on Japanese agribusiness in Vietnam

Article history: Received: November 18, 2020 Received in revised format: December 28 2020 Accepted: January 2, 2021 Available online: January 2, 2021 This paper aims to study the relationship between human resource management practices (including work itself, training and development, supervisor support, co-workers ‘relation, salary, and working environment) and job satisfaction among employees in Japanese agri-businesses in Vietnam. The structured questionnaires were distributed to 200 employees to collect the primary data out of which 179 useable were returned to test the research hypotheses. Results shows that the work itself, training and development, co-workers’ relation, salary and working environment had positive effects on employees’ job satisfaction. However, there were no relationship found between supervisor support with job satisfaction. Finally, based on the results of qualitative and quantitative evidence as well of the comprehensive interview, some suggestions were given to human resource management practices in Japanese agricultural companies to achieve high level of job satisfaction. © 2021 by the authors; licensee Growing Science, Canada


Introduction
It is undeniable that Vietnam is a developing country with a rapid economy growth after the comprehensive reform program named "Doi moi" in 1986. This program prompted economic reforms to transition Vietnam from a command economy to a market-oriented economy. This policy promoted the engagement and study from countries' economic models. Through this economy liberalization and WTO admission, some noticeable advantages in Vietnam were recognized as economy stability growth, expanding international trade, poverty alleviation, and abundant and qualified human resources. (HTHoi, 2020). As a result, Vietnam has become an attractive destination for foreign investors (Vietnampartners, 2010) with Japan as one of the top three investors in Vietnam (JETRO 2010). Japanese enterprises have contributed to Vietnamese economy and Vietnamese society by creating more jobs, narrowing the development gap among regions of Vietnam and keeping up high mobility of the labor market. (HTHoi, 2020). With the wave of international economic integration, human resource management improved over the stages of "Doi moi" period and has played a more important role in human resource development in Vietnam. No asset is more essential to the prosperity of an organization than its human resources (DeNisi & Griffin,2008), and individuals are the main vital pillar of an organization that cannot be replicated by the competition (Decenzo & Robbins, 2010). The more productive organizations generally are the result of competent, motivated, and satisfied employees. (Caligiuri, Lepak, & Bonache, 2010). Companies must ensure high worker satisfaction, which is a precondition for increasing productivity, responsiveness and quality and customer service. (Sageer et al., 2012). However, investing foreign markets is challenging, especially in term of human resource management. Japanese businesses in Vietnam are more concerned with human resources since they must compete with domestic firms. Because the local labor is not familiar with foreign organizations, they appear to be in disadvantage compare to local competitors. For years, the impact of human resource management practices on organizational performance and employee attitudes has been a top research area in the developed world. (Delaney & Huselid, 1996, Petrescu & Simmons, 2008. However, in developing countries, there has been a paucity of studies conducted on human resource practices. (Singh, 2004, Yeganeh & Su, 2008. Regardless of many years of considerable research on employee satisfaction in different fields (Martin et al., 2011), there has been a scarcity of exploration on agricultural employees. (Hobbs et al., 2020). Furthermore, in general, studies dealing with employee satisfaction were implemented in across various occupations in a single association or over numerous associations in a single nation. The scientists highlighted the requirement for future studies need to investigate job satisfaction across different cultural backgrounds. (Tessema, Ready & Embaye, 2013). In order to fill the existing research gaps, the main goal of this study is to explore the relationship between human resource management practices and job satisfaction in Japanese agri-businesses in Vietnam. This study will be helpful for developed countries if they find Vietnam as an attractive destination to invest in the future, especially in the field of agriculture.

Literature review
The review of literature includes job satisfaction and human resource management practices, specifically on work itself, training and development, supervisor role, co-worker's relation, salary and working conditions.

Job satisfaction
According to Locke (1976), job satisfaction was defined as a state of pleasure or positive emotion that is the evaluation of a person's job. Job satisfaction is a consolidated bundle of physiological, mental, and normal working conditions which lift up the agents to acquiesce that whether they are cheerful or satisfied with their career and working conditions (Hoppok & Spielgler, 1938). On the off chance that agents do not satisfy with their positions which are named by the higher the administrators, they will not ensure approximately the facets like basic rights, unsafe working conditions, non-collaboration by the colleagues and getting less respect by their supervisor and inevitably they are not acknowledged within the energetic measure which is in the long run coming approximately the division from the affiliation in which they are working (Clark, 1997). There are several theories of job satisfaction, namely the motivator-hygiene theory (Herzberg, Mausner & Snyderman,1959), equity theory (Mowday, 1992) and discrepancy theory (Locke, 1969). The most referred model was offered by Herzberg, Mausner, & Snyderman (1959) that named two determinants of satisfaction "motivators" and "hygiene". While "motivators" include achievement, recognition, work itself, responsibility, advancement, "hygiene" include policy and administration, supervision, salary, interpersonal relations, working conditions. (Herzberg, 1987). In addition, there are other factors that effect on employee's job satisfaction, including personnel selection, performance appraisal, incentive compensation, job design, attitude assessment, autonomy, leadership style, workplace flexibility, etc. (Delaney & Huselid, 1995;Rad & Yarmohammadian, 2006). Job satisfaction plays an important role in organizational performance success as it has been proved by several studies. The higher the job satisfaction of the employees, the more productive the employees become. (Irvine & Evans, 1995, McNeese-Smith, 1997. It leads to smaller number employee's turnover and absenteeism. The success of any organization is directly related to the satisfaction of the employees who represent that organization. Holding skilled workers is fundamental to the success of any association (Freeman, 2005). Carpitella (2003) found that high job satisfaction of employees led to diminished turnover by half from the standards, increment consumer loyalty to a normal of 95% and lower labor cost by 12%.

Work itself
The real substance of occupation undertakings and tasks has either a positive or a negative impact upon workers. Regardless of whether the activity is excessively simple or excessively troublesome, intriguing, or exhausting, it can affect fulfillment or disappointment of workers in the working environment (Alshmemri et al., 2017). Herzberg's (1959) motivation-hygiene theory stated that employee's satisfaction depends on their need fulfillment. Herzberg et al. (1959) conducted different studies on the factors affecting satisfaction and dissatisfaction of white-collar workers. Herzberg et al. (1959) claimed that hygiene factors such as quality of supervision, policy and administration, working conditions, wages, salaries, and other financial remuneration, interpersonal relations are as essential but not sufficient to achieve optimum satisfaction. Therefore, in order to achieve the ultimate job satisfaction, employers should pay attention on "motivators" such as responsibility, achievement, advancement, recognition and work itself.

Human resource management practices
Human resource management is the predominant enterprise concern which shapes the conduct, perspectives, and execution of workers (Noe, Hollenbeck, Gerhard, and Wright, 2008). The aim of human resource management practices is to draw in, motivate and retain employees, that determines the success or failure of the organization. (Schuler and Jackson, 1987). Considering the human resource as a worthy capital, human resource management practices are propelled and advanced to achieve the goals of any organization. (Delery & Doty, 1996). Human resource management practices impact attitudes and behavior of employees. There are numerous studies that support the positive effect of human resource management on job satisfaction, organizational performance, and organization commitment (Becker & Gerhart, 1996;Edgar & Geare, 2005). Furthermore, in order to increase the firm success, it depends on the way to implement effectively of human resource management. Mostly, Japanese agri-business companies in Vietnam are small medium enterprises, so the practices chosen for this study are implemented and based on their importance in all these companies.

Training and Development
Training is a way to provide skills, behaviors knowledge and other abilities which will support employees' work. Nowadays, with the competitive and complex market, enterprises require skilled employees that can solve multi-tasks effectively. Training and development program given for employees play an important role for increasing job performance, job satisfaction and productivity. It was found that training and development has a positively impact on job satisfaction (Absar et al., 2010). The investment in training and development is expected to sharpen their skills, abilities and knowledge which can give them higher capabilities to do their work, resulting in the increase of job satisfaction.

Supervisor role
The supervisor support defined in the organizational theory affects the employee's level of the job satisfaction. The supervisor has the responsibility of leading and encouraging employees to motivate them to express themselves better in their work. Supervisor role is considered as a facet to improve the dedication of employees. Hossain and Aktar (2012) stated that supervisor support has a positive effect on organization commitment and loyalty of employees through job satisfaction. Moreover, other studies (Griffin et al., 2001;Sharma & Jyoti, 2006) highlighted that supervisor role as an important factor that influence job satisfaction. However, it is argued that there are few recent studies concluded no or inverse relationship between supervisor role and job satisfaction. (Shah et al., 2018;, particularly, the supervisor support on some specific professions.

Co-workers relation
Co-worker's relation is a relationship without the obligation of rules in the organization and it will be built through the daily relationship in working. In the workplace, coworker relationship is a fundamental part of the employees' life which can create a good or bad mental and physical health for employees. As a result of such relation, the facets of this relationship can be assessed as teamwork, sharing or supporting in the workplace. Coworkers relations differ from the supervisor relations. The relationship between superior and employees is based on decentralization while the employee's connections are completely equal (Basford & Offermann, 2012). Co-worker relations provide important support to co-workers and have positive effect on employee satisfaction (Madlock & Booth Butterfield, 2012).

Salary
Salary or pay is considered as a mean to assess the contribution of employees in the organization and as a significant reward to encourage their employees towards the organization's goals (Mudor, 2011). The pleasure from payment in the organization plays an important role in the business's success. The dissatisfaction with payment results in the decline of job satisfaction and job interest, job motivation and performance and the growth of turnover and absenteeism. As the studies of Gu andSiu, 2009 andLee et al., 2006, job satisfaction has a positive relationship with payment, the higher the salary, the higher job satisfaction is attained.

Working environment
It includes the physical environmental factors of the activity, and whether they are acceptable or poor equipment. A decent environment, instead of a poor condition, makes workers fulfilled and glad (Alshmemri et al., 2017). Supportive and attracting operating atmosphere attracts workers to stay within their job and encourages them to be a part of the personnel of the organization and contribute effectively (Oswald, 2012). Working environment is considered to positively or negatively affect employees (Wright & Davis, 2003). Healthy working status empowers the employees to figure effectively in the organization and build an environment that allow workers to make the best use of their knowledge, competences, skills, and the resources on the organization to reach the high performance (Leshabari, Muhondwa, Mwangu, & Mbembati, 2008). Work environment is considered a creative and important factor in the organization. (Amabile, 1997). Supporting this argument, working environment has a significant effect on employee's motivation and loyalty. (Khuong et al., 2020) and Scott (2000) suggested that operating environment conditions are closely related to job satisfaction.

Data Collection and Sample Description
In-depth interviews were used for employees and managers, conducted through questionnaires and standardization in 2019. The questionnaires consisted of normal scale questions to get general information of respondents and 5-point Likert Scale questions. Simple random sampling method was used for the selection of employees. Two hundred questionnaires were distributed to employees at Japanese companies in Son La province, Ha Noi and Lam Dong province for getting data. However, there were 179 respondents that provided useable information which yielding a response rate of about 89.5%. Therefore, samples were surveyed from these companies with a sample size being 179 employees.

Data analysis
The data was analyzed by qualitative and quantitative descriptive analysis. After collecting the data, SPSS was used to determine the factors affecting job satisfaction. The analysis examines the relationship between human resource management practices and job satisfaction. In particularly, Cronbach Alpha revealed the reliability of variables and Explore factor analysis (EFA) was used to analyze the relationship of factors given with job satisfaction.   Table 1 expressed the demographic analysis of gender, marial status, age, tenure, income per month and education level. Out of the 179 responses, 46.9% of respondents were male while the female occupied 51.3%. The majority of the employees were married (n=111, 62%) as compared to single employees (n=68, 38%). There were 43 (24%) respondent aged from 18 to 25 years old, about 49 (27.4%) employees aged from 26 to 35 years old, 55 (30.7%) employees aged from 36 to 45 years old and the rest 32% employees were aged above 46. The majority of the employees have been with the company from 1 to 3 years (n=63, 35,2%), followed by 38% employees who got experience from 4 to 7 years and the remaining 26.8% employees kept working for more than 7 years. In terms of education level, more than half of employees (52%) had high school degrees, followed by bachelor degree and higher degree with 29%, and the rest had college degrees.For the agricultural companies, employees mainly do manual works, therefore in the recruitment process, the degree requirement is not high. However, a qualification was required for managerial positions or higher. Most employees (36.9%) had a monthly income between 5 million to 7 millionVND and 29.1% were getting 8 million to 10 million VND. They were followed by employees who are getting less than 5 million VND and the rest exceeded 10 million VND.

Reliability Analysis
It is very important to test the reliability of the scales before running the regular statistical. To test the reliability, Cronbach's alpha technique is common used and the acceptable value was required to be more than 0.6 to 0.95.

Gender
Marital  Table 1 illustrates the reliability analysis of human resource management practices as work itself, traning and development, supervisor support, co-workers relation, salary, working environment and job satisfaction. After deducting 2 items (one item of supervisor support variable and one item of salary variable), all dependent and independent variables were considered reliable with the Cronbach's alpha being from 0.841 to 0.894.

Descriptive Statistics
The mean score for salary was highest (3.6782) than the rest six variables which indicates the satisfaction of respondents with this issue. It was followed by work itself (3.6089). Besides, the four variables, namely training and development, co-workers' relation, working environment and job satisfaction were closer to 3 indicating the neutral satisfaction of employees with these variables. Unfortunately, the lowest mean (2.5754) belongs to the working environment. The standard deviations for all variables show that the data were reasonably homogenous ranging from 0.70779 to 1.05529.

Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)
The result of the EFA helps to determine the factor structure of each variables. It can be observed from table 4 that KMO is 0.814 greater than 0.5 and lower than 1, which shows that all factors analysis of this research is appropriate. A low significance for Sphericity test revealed that the variables were related to each other.

Analysis the factors affecting the job satisfaction of employees in Japanes Agri-business in Vietnam
Before the multiple regression analysis, it is necessary to verify the correlation coefficient to identify the linear realationship between the independent and dependent variables. According to Table 4, the results of correlation coefficient showed that all variables associated positively with job satisfaction, except for supervisor support. Two variables as co-workers's relation and work itself were found to be strongly and positively correlated with job satisfaction with the Pearson correlation being 0.569 and 0.555 (P< 0.01), respectively. Moreover, the correlation coefficient of training and development, working condition, and salary were lower compared with two above variables. Specifically, the value r=0.486, r=0.465 and r=0.445 suggest that traning and development, working condition and salary correlated positively with the independent variable job satisfaction. The last one variable supervisor support has no association with job satisfaction. (r=0.188, P>0.01). The model summary table explains the strength of the interrelationship between the dependent variables (work itself, training and development, supervisor support, co-worker's relation, salary, working condition) and the independent variable job satisfaction. The multiple correlation coefficient (R=0.803) indicated that the relationship between independent variables and job satisfaction was highly correlated. The R square value shows that 64.4% of job satisfaction was predicted by the variable given. It means that the rest 36.5% of job satisfaction will be explained by the other unknown variables. It evident that in order to strengthen employee job satisfaction, human resource management practices should be considered as a key managerial tool. The Table 6 depicts F= 51.907 and P<0.05 which is statistically significant, and this result suggests a linear relationship between the variables. We are confident that the correct variables were used for this study. It also shows that the combination of the variables given significantly predicts the dependent variables.  Table 7 that human resource management practices have significant impacts at α ≤ 0.05 on the job satisfaction of employee, except supervisor support. The training and development variable belongs to the first position of these factors which followed by co-workers 'relation, working condition, work itself and salary, respectively. As the highlight in table below, the hypothesis H1, H2, H4, H5, H6 are accepted. However, the hypothesis H3 with supervisor support was rejected and there is no relationship between supervisor support and job satisfaction because of the significant level being 0.669 ˃ 0.05.

Discussion
This study is aimed to investigate the impact factors of human resource management practice on the job satisfaction of employees. There are a variety of elements of human resource management practices such as recruitment and selection, training and development, performance appraisal, compensation etc. However, only picking up some key human resource management practices were implemented in small -medium Japanese agri-enterprises in Vietnam to study deeply. The results showed that there are five variables that impact job satisfaction of employees, namely work itself, training and development, co-worker's relation, salary and working condition. There was a good relationship between employee's satisfaction and human resource management practices. The study revealed that work itself has positively related to job satisfaction of employees. As can be seen from Table 1, more than 50% employees achieved high school level in education background. Hence, work itself in this study belongs to the agricultural field, it will be easier and suitable with this workforce. This kind of manual labor do not require high skills and professional knowledge in the current agricultural situation in Vietnam, therefore, employees quite satisfy with the current job. As Smerek and Peterson, 2007 recommended that in order to increase job satisfaction, with the limited resources, administrators should focus on the improvement of work itself. It is known that hardly can we change work itself, however job redesign can provide a viable framework for this effort. (Hackman, Oldham, Janson, and Purdy, 1975;Hackman & Oldham, 1980). The result supports the hypothesis that training and development positively related to job satisfaction. Some previous study also supported that training and development has the positive effect on employees' satisfaction (Heyes & Stuart, 1994, Chaudhary & Bhaskar, 2016. The descriptive statistics showed a mean score value of 3.48 for training and development and it means that workers are satisfied with the current training and development program. This situation indicated that employees feel they improved their skills through a series of a training program. This study result is consistent with the studies shown above (Heyes & Stuart, 1994, Chaudhary & Bhaskar, 2016. However, this study concluded that supervisor support has no relation to job satisfaction which does not compatible with the previous research published by Huseman et al. (1980). Researchers in some previous studies were conducted that supervisor role play important role and has positively impact on job satisfaction. (Griffin et al., 2001, Sharma & Jyoti, 2006 This study showed a contradictory finding with these previous studies. This finding revealed that there is no relationship between supervisor support and job satisfaction. It can be understood that it does not mean that more or less of supervisor support will create the increase or decrease of job satisfaction. Based on the Motivation -Hygiene Theory, supervisory is categorized in Hygiene variables of job dissatisfaction. (Herzberg et al., 1959). Supervisory support is an element which can be implemented to prevent job dissatisfaction. Particularly, in some certain professions, the supervisor support is not welcomed and thus may achieve affecting individual's own one-of-a-kind limits. (Beerhr et al., 2010). Recently, few studies against the positive connection between supervisor support and job satisfaction by the conclusion of none or reverse relationship. (Shah et al., 2018. Moreover, this study adds one more support for this idea, especially in Japanese agri-business in Vietnam. The result showed that co-worker's relation, salary and working environment have respectively positive effect of job satisfaction which is consistent with the previous research conducted by Madlock & Booth Butterfield, 2012, Gu and Siu, 2009, Raziq, A., & Maulabakhsh, R. (2015, respectively. This study found that good co-worker's relation, reasonable salary, and comfortable and proper working environment will bring the better feeling to the employees on their job. The mean score of co-worker's relation and salary factors being 3.34 and 3.67 respectively expressed that the majority of employees are satisfied with these factors. However, the working environment factor score of 2.57 showed that employees have not achieved the satisfaction level in this matter. Therefore, managers should pay attention on working environment to rise the job satisfaction of employees.

Conclusion
The human resource management practices and job satisfaction are assumed as significant function in Japanese agri-organizations in Vietnam. All components investigated as work itself, training and development, coworker's relation, salary, working environment positively affect the job satisfaction of employees. Therefore, the employees' job satisfaction will be increase if effective redesign of work itself, training and development, coworker's relation, salary, working environment are practiced. Although there was no significant relationship between supervisor support and job satisfaction, it is considered as a variable in preventing job dissatisfaction. In general, this study had delivered insights into the effect of human resource management practices and job satisfaction in Japanese agri-business in Vietnam. This study has the expectation that the results can bring benefits to the managers in human resource management, especially in Japanese business in Vietnam. We can unhesitatingly reason that the better organizations treat workers, the higher employees' job satisfaction organizations will be. It is certain that the better human resource management prompts a significant level of occupation fulfillment which makes the representatives more dedicated and higher working execution for the organization's advantage in the long haul. This study had disclosed the useful insight for future strategic human resource management practices by the factors directly impacted job satisfaction and factors prevented dissatisfaction. To accomplish a decent human resource management practice and significant level of job satisfaction in Japanese agri-organizations, some recommendations are given: (i) Extensive training and development programs should be offered for the employees by organization and employees should be trained on new technologies and develop their career, (ii) Organizations should create proper working environment that can provide enough facilities for employees such as work breaks, work sharing and proper equipment, (iii) Develop a good relation among co-workers and create a comfortable working condition for employees, (iv) A reasonable payment should be offer to the employees. During the research process, some disadvantages were recognized in Japanese organizations, and even Vietnamese local government, so they should encourage advanced education levels for laborers as well as the managerial capacity for managers. Other than that, more investigations on human resource management research in multinational enterprises ought to be implemented.