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0 COLLEGE OF BUSINESS SCHOOL OF INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS – MARKETING HOÀNG THU HẰNG Ph. DISSERTATION BUILDING EMPLOYEE ADAPTABILITY THROUGH PLAYFUL WORK DESIGN AND AMBIDEXTERITY: A SELF-REGULATED MECHANISM TO ADAPT TO SERVICE INDUSTRY UNCERTAINTY Ho Chi Minh City June 2024 MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY Ph. Dissertation BUILDING EMPLOYEE ADAPTABILITY THROUGH PLAYFUL WORK DESIGN AND AMBIDEXTERITY: A SELF-REGULATED MECHANISM TO ADAPT TO SERVICE INDUSTRY UNCERTAINTY Major: Commerce Code: 9340121 Academic Advisors: Asso. BÙI THANH TRÁNG Asso.

NGUYỄN THỊ MAI TRANG PhD Candidate: HOÀNG THU HẰNG Student ID: NCS2019005 HO CHI MINH CITY – 2024 DECLARATION STATEMENT I hereby certify that this dissertation contains no material previously published by any other person except for my own works. The content of the dissertation is wholly the result of the work of the author with enduring support, constructive instruction, and valuable insights from my two academic supervisors: Associate Professor, Dr. Bùi Thanh Tráng, and Associate Professor, Dr. Nguyễn Thị Mai Trang.

The dissertation has been carried out since the official commencement date of the approved PhD program. Hoàng Thu Hằng Date: June 2024 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT At the utmost, I want to thank my academic supervisors, Associate Professor, Dr. Bùi Thanh Tráng, and Associate Professor, Dr. Nguyễn Thị Mai Trang, for their consistent direction, support, and insightful instructions during this process.

Your expertise, patience, and guidance have significantly influenced the direction of my research and academic development. Thank you Prof. Tráng for always motivating me to reach my highest potential and supporting me no matter what. Thank you Prof.

Trang for all the time you spent guiding us on how to design a proper study, and for your valuable novel suggestions and comments that led to a whole new and exciting field of research that I am always grateful for. Needless to say, I am deeply thankful for the financial and policy assistance offered by UEH University for my Ph. The grant has enabled me to pursue my academic goals and explore the horizons of knowledge and expertise. Other UEH colleagues, especially from UEH Graduate School, especially Assoc.

Hồ Viết Tiến, Assoc. Từ Văn Bình and Mr. Duy Khang who always offer the nicest support for Ph. students like me.

With this achievement, I am ready to contribute more to UEH. I also want to express my gratitude to my respectful “bosses” and amazing colleagues at the School of International Business and Marketing (KQM) for their constant support, motivation, and even “sacrifices” that allowed me to concentrate on my Ph. I appreciate the cooperative atmosphere and encouraging setting at KQM that facilitated my personal development and education. I am grateful to my family, particularly my mother Thu, for her unconditional love, advice, even ‘pressures’, and countless sacrifices.

Being her daughter is a blessing. I am profoundly grateful to my husband Trung for his limitless love and constant support during this 5-year journey. I am also thankful for the inspiration and joy that my two wonderful girls: Bingsu and Anna bring into my life. I hope I made you proud! For all of the help, encouragement, and countless hours she has spent with me discussing and commenting on this work, I am very thankful to my research colleague and Ph.

classmate, Le Quynh Hoa. Your wonderful companionship has provided courage and inspiration during the ups and downs of this PhD journey. I am also grateful to my banking friends and acquaintances who graciously contributed to my data-collecting efforts. Your willingness to contribute thoughts and efforts to share the surveys has been crucial for the success of this research.

And for my research mates from all over the world, especially Dr. Ninh and Dr. Huy from RMIT, I sincerely thank you for helping me whenever I needed further comments or suggestions for paper submission. And my BFFs, Thao and Van, for always believing in me, thank you.

Finally, I want to sincerely thank all the reviewers from all the Ph. defense committees at UEH and the anonymous reviewers from Current Research in Behavioral Sciences for their helpful and high-quality remarks. Your suggestions and constructive criticism have truly improved the quality and refinement of my Ph. I am truly grateful to each and every individual who has played a role, no matter how big or small, in this journey.

Your support, encouragement, and belief in me have been the driving force behind the completion of this Ph. What a journey! EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This Ph. dissertation explores the complex dynamics of employee adaptability, proactive personality traits, and service performance within the context of frontline banking employees in Vietnam. By analyzing empirical data from 399 banking staff, the study employs structural equation modeling to validate all research hypotheses, offering essential managerial strategies for enhancing proactive service performance and uncovering a novel self-regulatory adapting mechanism for service staff.

At the heart of this study lies the fundamental importance of understanding what drives adaptability in the workplace. This dissertation first examines the role of proactive personality traits as a key driver of employee ambidexterity (H1), highlighting the significance of individual characteristics in fostering adaptive behaviors among service professionals. Moreover, the study underscores the crucial role of adaptability resources in predicting ambidextrous behavior and proactive service performance (H2). Not only that, by exploring the mediating effects of hardiness, uncertainty adaptability, and learning adaptability, the research reveals the alternative pathways through which proactive personality traits influence employee ambidexterity (H3, H4, H5).

Additionally, the study also looks into the role of playful work design (PWD) as a facilitator of employee adaptation. By demonstrating the positive mediating effect of PWD on the relationship between proactive personality and employee ambidexterity (H6), the research highlights the transformative potential of organizational interventions in promoting ambidextrous behaviors among employees. Furthermore, we uncover the sequential mediating roles of playful work design and uncertainty adaptability/learning adaptability in the relationship between proactive personality and employee ambidexterity (H7a & H7b). This highlights the interconnectedness of individual traits and personal resource factors in shaping adaptive behaviors and underscores the need for holistic approaches to fostering employee adaptability.

Finally, the study investigates the moderating role of workplace compassion among service staff, revealing its amplifying effect on the positive impact of ambidextrous behaviors on proactive service performance (H8). This underscores the importance of nurturing a supportive and empathetic workplace culture to maximize the benefits of employee adaptability. All in all, this dissertation provides valuable insights into the self-regulatory mechanism of employee adaptability in the service workplace and expects to offer practical recommendations for enhancing service proactive performance in the face of uncertainty. Moving forward, the study calls for continued exploration and research in this area, advocating for longitudinal studies and cross-national, cross-industry comparisons to further advance knowledge and practice in fostering employee adaptability.

Keywords: adaptability, proactive personality, proactive service performance, employee ambidexterity, playful work design, hardiness, compassion, FLEs PUBLICATION LIST IN PH. A self-regulatory adapting mechanism to changing work setting: Roles of playful work design and ambidexterity. Current Research in Behavioral Sciences, 6, 100148. A novel adapting mechanism to digital human resource management among frontline employees: an empirical study.

Business Process Management Journal. How do frontline employees adapt to digital human resource management? Testing a new self-regulated mechanism. Proceedings ICYREB 2023 - the 9th International Conference for Young Researchers in Economics and Business, p.665-677, Publishing House of Economics Ho Chi Minh City. Building adaptability through employee ambidexterity in service firms: a systematic review.

Proceedings of the 2022 International Joint Conference on Management, Economics and Finance, National Chi Nan University. (Best-paper award) (Peer-reviewed international conference) TABLE OF CONTENT CHAPTER 1. Background of the study. Service industry context.

Research Objectives and Research Questions. Significance of the study. Methodology of the Research. Research context, unit of analysis, and unit of observation.

Structure of the Research. LITERATURE REVIEW & RESEARCH MODEL. A systematic review of past studies on employee ambidexterity. Play at Work & & Playful Work Design.

Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) theory. Individual Adaptability Theory (I-ADAPT) and Career construction model of adaptation (CCMA). The interplay between Proactive personality (PP), Employee ambidexterity (EA), and Proactive service performance (PSP). Mediating variables between Proactive Personality and Employee Ambidexterity.

The moderating effect of Workplace Compassion (CP) upon the relationship between Employee Ambidexterity (EA) and Proactive service performance (PSP). Type of Study. Questionnaire design, pretest, and pilot-test. Data analysis method.

Measurement scale evaluation and Common method bias. Assessing the structural model and hypothesis testing. Mediating and moderating effect testings. DATA ANALYSIS RESULTS.

Descriptive analysis of the sample. Reflective scales/dimensions. Common method bias. Structural model testing.

Moderating effect testing. Control effect testing. Discussion of key findings. IMPLICATIONS AND CONCLUSION.

Practical and managerial implications. Limitations & Future Research. 125 APPENDIX 1: Table summary of key papers relating to “adaptability”, “employee ambidexterity” and “playful work design” used in the literature review .125 APPENDIX 2: Official questionnaire (in Vietnamese). 134 APPENDIX 3: Preliminary assessment of the scale from the pilot test .139 APPENDIX 4: PLS-SEM results.

144 APPENDIX 5: Summary of qualitative results .148 APPENDIX 6: Supporting materials .156 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS Abbreviations Full text AVE Average variance extracted CCMA Career construction model of adaptation CMB Common method bias CP Compassion EA Employee Ambidexterity EFA Exploratory Factor Analysis HTMT Heterotrait-Monotrait I-ADAPT Individual Adaptability theory JD-R Job-Demands Resource theory KMO Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (measure of sampling adequacy) HD Hardiness LA Learning Adaptability PLS-SEM Partial Least Square – Structural Equation Modeling PP Proactive Personality PWD Playful Work Design PSP Proactive Service Performance SRMR The Standardized Root Mean Square Residual VIF Variance Inflation Factor UA Uncertainty Adaptability WTO World Trade Organization LIST OF TABLES Table 2. Summary of the most significant high-ranked studies contributing to the dissertation (2012 – 2023). Constructs and measures. Summary of criteria for testing the measurement model.

Summary of criteria for testing the structural model. Profiling of respondents. Assessing reliability and convergent validity. Analysis of factor loadings and cross-loadings.

Discriminant validity assessment: Fornell-Larker Criterion. Discriminant validity assessment: Heterotrait-Monotrait (HTMT) ratios. Common method bias testing. Scale Reliability testing results.

Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) for Independent and Mediating Variables. Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) for Dependent Variable: Proactive Service Performance (PSP). 143 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 2. Systematic review process .2 Most influential papers which investigated employee ambidexterity in a service setting between 2006-2024.

Summary of antecedents, outcomes, and related factors in the context of ‘employee ambidexterity’. I-ADAPT model of Adaptive Performance from Ployhart & Bliese (2006). PAAM research model. PLS-SEM mediator analysis procedure adapted from Zhao et al.

Level of change in surveyed banks. Calculation results in Step I for scale accuracy analysis by using the PLS-SEM algorithm. Calculation results in Step II for scale accuracy analysis by using the PLS-SEM algorithm. Direct and indirect effects testing results by applying a bootstrapping re- sampling procedure (5,000 samples).

Background of the study 1. Service industry context According to WTO’s classification of trade activities, a service is a basic form of trade that contributes to different economic climates’ health (WTO, 2020). Due to unpredictability and customer demand variability, service-traded firms can be considered more complex and stressful to manage than manufacturing companies (Jacobs & Chase, 2018). From a service staff perspective, following continuous change, people must adjust to their working environment to survive and succeed.

Service firms are permanently transforming the method they operate in line with expanding global competition, diversity of the workforce, a significantly complicated workplace, and stakeholders’ high demand (Robinson and Griffiths, 2005). The intensity of rivalry amongst service firms requires a high level of quality from service staff to fulfill increasing customer needs and wants. Indeed, an individual’s ability to adjust to workplace transformation is vital for management to promote within their companies.