International Journal of Scientific and Research Publications, Volume 8, Issue 1, January 2018 219

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Factors Affecting the Job Performance of Employees at

Work Place in the Higher Education Sector of China
LiLin, Wang Shiqian

Faculty of Postgraduate Center, Limkokwing University of Creative Technology, Inovasi 1-1, Jalan Teknokrat 1/1, Cyber 3, 63300, Cyberjaya,
Malaysia

Abstract- The purpose of the present study is to investigate the

factors impact on employee job performance on private higher II. LITERATURE REVIEW
education sector of China. The study examined the effect Leadership Style
leadership styles, organizational commitment and self-efficacy Leadership is an essential factor to influence an individual
on employee job performance. The survey has done by 800 or a group’s behavior to achieve organizational goals and job
academicians in top ten 10 Chinese Private Universities via e- performances (Hersey & Blanchard, 1974; Hsu, 2001). A
mail or walk-in. Hence, the sample will be selected by suitable leadership can push organizational members comply
convenience sampling. The target respondents for this research with the right direction to fulfill organizational goals, a good
are academicians in Chinese Private Universities mainly because leader as a signpost to guide or identify job direction for
the boosting of private higher education and a positive future subordinates to follow (Hsien, 1985; Robbins, 2001). DuBrin
prospect in China. Questionnaire was designed on 5-point scale (2004) believed that leadership can inspire employees to attain
(Buron, K. D., & Curtis, M., 2003). The research technique used organizational objectives with confidence. Leadership style will
Smart PLS 2.0 to assess the correlations between the variables. affect the relationship between supervisors and followers and
Findings revealed that leadership styles, organizational significantly mobilize workers’ motivation, attitudes, and job
commitment and self-efficacy have positive and significant performance (Dale & Fox, 2008). In the past, the major
impact on job performance. Future research directions are also leadership researches based on the trait theory, contingency
discussed in the study. theory, and behavioral theory. It was until Bass proposed
transformational leadership and transactional leadership in 1985,
Index Terms- leadership styles, organizational commitment, the researches of leadership style become extensively noticed.
self-efficacy, job performance Bass (1985) defined that transformational leadership refers to
leaders with charisma characteristics that will provide
subordinates’ intellectual motivation and individualized
I. INTRODUCTION consideration. Bass and Avolio (1993) further indicated a

B ased on Barrick et al., (2002) despite the academic

community has spent significant amount of efforts on
understanding conscientiousness–performance relationship is
transformational leader can inspire his or her followers to exceed
the original performance expectations by enforcing,
communicating and leading them willing to carry on
“few research has examined the mechanisms through personality organizational objectives.
traits influence performance”. Liu, yao et al (2016) found that
Chinese higher education faces academicians’ team crisis. Organizational Commitment
According to a survey conducted the "100 Private Higher Buchanan (1974) asserted that organizational commitment
Education Institutions" in China, two-thirds of private colleges is a kind of belief that connects feeling of individual values and
have no more than 40 full-time teachers and nearly 80 private objectives with organizational values and objectives.
colleges have fewer or no full-time teachers. Private higher Organizational commitment is an individual expression of
institutions in China are facing problem with the quality of loyalty and devotion to an organization (Kanter, 1968).
teaching due to decreasing teaching performance of Organizational commitment is “the relative strength of an
academicians. They found out that self- efficacy and leadership individual's identification with and involvement in a particular
style were part of the factors that influence the problem (Liu, yao organization” (Steers, 1977) and on behalf of a high level of
et al, 2016). China Daily news (Sep, 2017) in their report, affection, loyalty and concentration on a job role in an
mentioned that the construction of qualified personnel is one of organization (Dee, Henkin, & Singleton, 2006). Organizational
the fundamental problems in the survival and development of commitment indicates that individual goal is similar or identical
private colleges and universities. The performance and quality of with organizational goals whereby stimulate employees’
the academic staffs largely determines the quality of private productivity and loyalty (Chen & Aryee, 2007). Chen and Hong
colleges and universities. The higher education ministry in (2005) commented that if members in an organization trust and
China has raised concern with the issue of academician accept the organizational value, they are more willing to work
performance due to some complaints that lodged to the ministry hard to achieve organizational goal and have more organizational
by the parents and the students. commitment. High organizational commitment will be beneficial

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for an organization because it signals that employees have high relationships with performance outcomes. Oladipo & Daskareem
organizational identification (Jiang & Huang, 2002). (2013) in their study on the sample of 30 leaders and150 raters
and found that there is a significant positive linear relationship
Self efficacy between employee performance and an emotionally intelligent
Based on social learning theory (Bandura, 2007), Self- transactional leader as well as there is a significant relationship
efficacy was called as a social cognition construct (social between employee performance and an emotionally intelligent
learning) which refers to a people's self-beliefs in their ability to transformational leader. In other studies that followed, a negative
perform specific tasks, as well as it has been shown to be a correlation was usually found between the transactional
reliable predictor for either motivation or task performance, and leadership style and organizational performance (MacKenzie et
influence on personal goal setting. Based on the description of al., 2001; Parry, 2003). The studies of MacKenzie et al. (2001)
Bandura about the human cognitive self-regulation system, self- examined the effect of transformational and transactional
efficacy is a kind of beliefs that the most central and pervasive leadership on marketing personnel performance at an insurance
effect on people make decisions, their goals, the amount of effort company and found that transformational leadership has more
they would like to pay on a particular task, the time they influence on performance than transactional leadership.
persevere at a task when facing on failure or difficulty, how to Based on Irvan, Armanu et al. (2013), in their study
deal with the amount of stress they experience and the degree to surveyed on 92 employees found that the organizational
the extent they might be susceptible to depression. commitment of employees influential to improve the
Albert Bandura’s (1977) identified that self-efficacy is a performance of employees in PT. Pelabuhan Indonesia IV
central principle in social cognitive theory. Self-efficacy refers to (Limited) Branch. Bitung.Folorunso & Adewale (2014)
the belief, confidence, which can support people successfully examined the impact of organizational commitment dimensions
execute a behaviour required to produce an outcome, the higher on employees’ performance among academic staff in Oyo State
level of self-efficacy, the more confident an individual possesses owned tertiary institutions. The total sample size was made up of
and believe themselves can execute the behaviour necessary to 197 respondents from the pay roll list of two institutions and
obtain a particular outcome. result revealed that organizational commitment dimensions
jointly and independently influence employees’ performance
Job performance among academic staff of tertiary institutions in Oyo State. Habib
Job performance is the degree to which a firm anticipates & Khursheed (2010) in their study utilized survey data collected
employees regarding excellence and quantity. Performance is a form 310 employees of 15 advertising agencies of Islamabad
key to measure the success and outcome of the firm (Yahaya, (Pakistan). The study identified insignificant impact of
Yahaya, Bon, Ismail & Ing, 2011). It is argued that the success organizational commitment on job satisfaction and attitude
and failure of firm depends on performance of the employees. towards work on job performance. Jack & Eka & Margono
Cash and Fischer (1987) in Heidjrachman Ranupandoyo and (2012) in their research the samples were 127 employees at
Suad Husnan, 2000) states that the level of performance and Municipal Waterworks of Jayapura, Papua Indonesia and
employees’ performance can be measured by several factors, revealed that organizational commitment significantly influence
namely: to employee performance directly or indirectly through work
1. Quality of work refers to assessment of the employee's satisfaction.
ability to complete the job compared to the set targets. Rubina and Azam (2004) conducted a study to explore the
2. Quantity of work refers to assessment of the ability of relationship between teachers’ stress, teachers’ job performance
employees to complete tasks accurately according to the quality and self-efficacy of women school teachers. The study was
of the work planned. carried out with a sample of 420 teachers selected at random and
3. Timeliness means that the assessment of the ability of found that there is a significant negative correlation between job
employees to complete tasks and work closely in the time performance and teacher’s self-efficacy. However, according to
according to the time been given and planned. Judeh (2012) evaluated whether the characteristics of a job had
Nowadays it is generally agreed that job performance any influence or impact on the workers performance and self-
consists of complicated series of interacting variables belong to efficacy and implied that there was no conclusive evidence that
aspects of the job, such as the employee and the environment showed that self -efficacy had an influence on job performance.
(Milkovich et al, 1991). Researchers have a common sense that Luo Biao & Cheng Shuping (2014) in their study proceed in-
performance has a muti-dimensional concept. Basically the depth exploration of internal mechanisms in company and found
performance distinguish between a process aspect (i.e., that self-efficacy has a significant impact on job performance,
behavioral) and an outcome aspect of performance (Borman and respondents included employees from 12 companies in China,
Motowidlo, 1993; C ampb ell, McCloy, Oppler, and Sager, 1993; 420 surveys were returned for an overall response. Sarwat &
Roe, 1999). Nukhba (2014) in their study chose 380 lecturers from different
public colleges of Punjab and found that there is a significant
Leadership Style, Organizational Commitment, Self-Efficacy positive effects of self-efficacy on employee performance. There
and Job Performance were against results from the researches.
Devi & Prabhu (2011) in their study selected public and
private sector enterprises and the data comprises of 43 Hypotheses
middle‐level managers and 156 subordinates. The result revealed H1: Leadership style is significantly related to employee
that the transformational leadership style has significant job performance.

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H2: Organizational commitment is significantly related to H3: Self -efficacy is significantly related to employee job
Employee job performance. performance.

Figure 1: Theoretical Framework

This study examined the relationship of leadership styles,

organizational commitment and self -efficacy and employee job Table 1: Reliability Analysis
performance of private education sector academicians in China.
The population for the study is education sector academicians in Variables Composite No. of
top-ten private universities. The primary data were collected by Reliability Items
survey through personally administered questionnaires from 800 LS 0.882 7
respondents in a non-contrived environment during April 2015. OC 0.896 7
500 questionnaires were used for data analysis out of 800 SE 0.879 7
distributions making the response rate 62%. JP 0.910 7
In order to examine the response rate from all the
respondents, 7 items of leadership style were developed by Fornell and Larcker (1981) pointed out if the common
Marlowe and Nyhan (1992) but with some modifies. 7 items of variances (squared correlations) of a latent variable with other
organizational commitment were developed by Allen and Myer model’s constructs is lower than AVE (average variance
(1997). 7 items of job performance were developed by Goodman extracted) value of this latent variable, which means that
& Svyantek (1999) and 7 items of self -efficacy were developed discriminant validity is established. Table 2 shows the constructs
by Schwarzer, R., & Jerusalem, M. (1995). correlation coefficient among the variables. It found that the
Questionnaire was based on 5-point scale i.e. 1=strongly correlation of the two constructs is lower that the square root of
disagree, 2=disagree, 3=neutral, 4=agree, 5=strongly agree. AVE which indicates that the data met the Discriminant Validity.
Questionnaire included three sections. First section was about
demographics which included gender, position, age, and tenure. Table 2: Latent variables Correlation Coefficients against
Second section was about independent variable which were AVE Square- Root
leadership style, organizational commitment, self -efficacy. Third
section was about dependent variable job performance. OC JP LS SE
Afterwards, Fornell and Larcker (1981) suggested that the OC 0.744
measure of composite reliability can be taken advantage by JP 0.5753 0.768
confirming how well a construct is established by its allocated LS 0.6371 0.6491 0.719
indicators. The range of composite reliability is between 0 and 1, SE 0.5207 0.4141 0.4675 0.715
the acceptable values should be greater than 0.6 (Bagozzi and Yi,
1988). The results of reliability refers to table 1.

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Figure1: Direct relationship- Model 1

Table 3: Path coefficient and t-value (Model 1)

III. CONCLUSION AND DISCUSSION
Path Path coefficient t-value This study intends to estimate the factors influence on job
LS=>JP 0.462 14.727 performance in Chinese private higher education sectors. The
OC=>JP 0.256 28.159 results displayed that leadership style has a positive and
SE=>JP 0.276 5.195 significant direct effect on job performance, it consistent with
Sig t-value>1.96 previous studies (Zuhaidi, 2011; Durga Devi & Prabhu, 2011;
Christopher 2007), and it was found that organizational
Based on figure 1 and table 3, it shows leadership styles commitment has a positive and significant direct effect on job
(.462, t >1.96) were significantly associated with employee job performance in the same model it consistent with previous
performance. Organizational commitment (.256, t >1.96) and studies (Armanu et al., 2013; Chi, et al., 2007; Chi, et al., 2008).
self-efficacy (.276, t >1.96) were positively associated with Further, self-efficacy has significant and positive relationship
employee job performance. with job performance in line with previous studies (Judeh, 2012;
Ming-Cheng and Yen-Chun, 2012). The theoretical contribution
Table 4: Hypotheses Result is this research supplemented the gap of research on job
Hypothesizes Path p- Conclusion performance. Even though there were widely research on the
Relationship Coefficient value factors influencing job performance, yet there were few research
H1 There is a 0.462 0.00 Supported focus on personal traits like self-efficacy influence on job
positive performance. And this study was conducted in private
relationship universities’ academicians as well as it exists difference in
between different environments. It also practically contributes to create
H2 There is a 0.256 0.00 Supported an applicable view of leadership, organizational commitment,
positive self-efficacy and job performance for management of private
relationship universities in order to equip them with a new set of workable
between knowledge for making more effective decisions and setting
H3 Therei tiis l a 0.276 0.00 Supported policies more efficiently.
positive
relationship
between and
lf ffi

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AUTHORS
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IndustrialRelations, 42(1), 57-72. Limkokwing University of Creative Technology, Inovasi 1-1,
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Second Author – Wang Shiqian, Faculty of Postgraduate Center,
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