Main Study Procedures

Several adjustments are made to the Vietnamese version of Job Satisfaction Survey based on the pilot study’s findings. Firstly, the translated word for ‘my supervisor’ is modified slightly into the equivalent meaning in Vietnamese of ‘my direct supervisor’ for questions 9, 10, 11, and 12. Secondly, the questions on completion time and comprehensibility of the questionnaires are removed. Thirdly, as the main study only aims at the auditor and ex-auditor community, the ‘Other’ option is removed from the question on participants’ current occupation (number 41). Similarly, only three variances — ‘Hanoi’, ‘Ho Chi Minh City’, and ‘Other’ — are retained as the answers for the question on participants’ working location. Finally, in order to make sure that respondents would complete every question of the questionnaire, all the JSS’s (Spector, 1997) items are made compulsory. The participant will not be able to submit the questionnaires if the first 36 questions are not entirely answered. Unanswered items will be highlighted and the survey screen will be navigated automatically to the outstanding questions in order to assist the

respondents in completing the survey. Questions related to personal information are maintained as not mandatory.

3.8.1. Sampling

The present study is designed with a focus on the white-collar workers who had previously been auditors or are currently auditors. Due to its nature, it is very difficult to compile a comprehensive list of people in the targeted population. Moreover, the present research is under pressure of a predefined timeframe and the researcher has neither contacts nor access to any viable database of the target population. Therefore, again, convenience sampling technique is employed for the main study. The initial invitations to answering the survey are firstly sent to people who belong to the defined population within the social circles of the researcher. Then, these participants are asked to introduce the survey to their friends and relatives that fit within the population’s definition.

3.8.2. Communication and survey distribution

Similar to the pilot study, the potential respondents are contacted through online platforms, including emails (Appendix J), communication applications, and telephone. In addition, in-person meetings are also an important part of the recruitment process. The researcher came back to Vietnam in order to facilitate and monitor the recruitment phase. Travels between the cities in Vietnam are necessary for improving the heterogeneity of the sample in terms of geography. Every source of the researcher’s personal relation is utilized.

The participants are also provided with brief information on the purpose of the research. A link to full information sheet in Vietnamese is also placed on the welcoming page of the survey for people who would like to find out more about the research (Appendix H). Every time a respondent submits their answered survey, a thank you email will be sent to their email address as provided by themselves in the online survey powered by Typeform. Simultaneously, a notification email is dispatched to the researcher’s email address (Appendix I). The main study survey was left open for two months before being closed at the beginning of February, 2016.

3.8.3. Data collection

to access the database any time. During the process, several backups are done manually by the researcher for safety reasons.

3.8.4. Participants

With a great effort put into the recruitment process, the present study manages to acquire a sample of 202 respondents, of which most are young people with an age range from 21 to 45 years of age (M = 27.73, SD = 4.23). Almost two thirds of the whole sample are from 20 to 29 years of age (64.9%, n = 131). Among the participants who provide their ages, only five people belong to the 40 to 49 years old group, and about one fifth of the sample’s population are from 30 to 39 years old (2.5% and 22.8%, respectively; see Table 7).

Table 7

Distribution of Sample by Age (Main Study)

Age range Frequency Percent (%)

20-29 years old 131 64.9 30-39 years old 46 22.8 40-49 years old 5 2.5 Total valid 182 90.1 Missing 20 9.9 Grand Total 202 100.0

Among participants with valid responses for the variable ‘Sex’, 99 are women and 95 are men, which respectively accounts for 49% and 47% of the sample size. Only four percent of the responses are omitted (n = 8). There is little difference between the mean ages of the female and male participants: M = 27.77 years old (SD = 4.33) for women and M = 27.54 years old (SD = 4.14) for men. The reported 5% Trimmed Means for both women and men do not deviate much from the actual means (MTrimmed = 27.34 and 27.17 years old, respectively); therefore, extreme values insignificantly affect the means of both groups (Pallant, 2011) and they are not examined further.

More than half of the participants possess a Bachelor’s degree (n = 112, 55.4%), and there are fewer people with higher educational qualifications. An interesting fact is that the number of people who have Master’s degrees is relatively equal to the number of people who have both Bachelor’s degrees and professional certificates. These two groups account for

respondent with a PhD degree and one with both a PhD degree and professional certificates. Ten participants do not provide answers for their education background (Table 8).

Table 8

Distribution by Education Background (Main Study)

Education background Frequency Percent (%)

Bachelor Degree(s) 112 55.4

Bachelor Degree(s) and Professional Certificate(s) 33 16.3

Master Degree(s) 34 16.8

Master Degree(s) and Professional Certificate(s) 11 5.4

Ph.D. Degree(s) 1 .5

Ph.D. Degree(s) and Professional Certificate(s) 1 .5

Total valid 192 95.0

Missing 10 5.0

Grand total 202 100.0

The main study gathers 109 current auditors and 83 ex-auditors (54% and 41%, respectively). Only ten people do not answer this question (5%). Most of the participants in the main study are working in Hanoi, the capital city of Vietnam. A number of 177 people fall into this category, which accounts for 87.6% of the whole sample size. There are 12 participants working in Ho Chi Minh City, the busiest city in Vietnam, and only ten respondents work in other regions of Vietnam. Due to this skewed distribution of the sample size, it appears that its representativeness for the community of current and ex-auditors in Vietnam is relatively weak.