ABSTRACT

The Relationship Among Workplace Learning, Service Quality and Management Performance in Small Businesses
: The Mediating Effect of Job Satisfaction


Jeong-Hee Choi
Dept. of Business Consulting
Graduate School, Daejeon University
(Supervised by Prof. Byung-Hwan Hyun)

Economic development has brought about knowledge and technology, and this has led to an increase in importance of learning. The forms of learning have made progress for development and potential, and since workplace learning emerged, its studies have been conducted as well. However, we must admit most of the previous works are qualitative studies, and there is an unreasonable lack of quantitative studies. The majority of the existing studies on workplace learning have targeted enterprises, which means there have been few studies targeting small businesses. Therefore, this study aims to analyze workplace learning, which has had a significant influence on businesses. Prior to conducting the study on small businesses, workplace learning, job satisfaction, management performance and service quality were selected as variables, and significances were verified depending on the causal relation of variables. It was found that many small businesses were in poor surroundings. Therefore, this study is focused on helping small businesses develop and reinforce their capabilities. It was thought that there was a need to improve and settle issues regarding self-support by providing small businesses in poor surroundings with an opportunity for workplace learning, which could be the foundation for further growth. Moreover, this study is intended to remind local governments and government agencies of the need for learning, and suggest political and institutional systems. In order to identify and examine the relationship of variables related to workplace learning of small businesses, research hypotheses were) established, based on the previous studies, and empirical analysis was carried out. To verify the hypothesis, this study was conducted as follows. First, workplace was selected as a variable influencing management performance and service quality, and job satisfaction was selected as a mediating effect in the relationship between management_service quality and workplace learning. For this study, 203 small business representatives and workers were surveyed, and for data validation, empirical analysis was performed using SPSS Ver. 24. After collecting 203 questionnaires, frequency analysis was conducted. In addition, factor analysis for analyzing significances of variables, reliability and validity analysis, correlation analysis for analyzing the correlation among variables and demographic analysis were executed. To identify the demographic characteristics and the influence relationship among variables, regression analysis was conducted, and 3-step regression analysis was implemented to inquire into the relationship among simple, multiple and mediating effects. The analysis findings are as follows. Firstly, workplace learning had a partially significant effect on job satisfaction. Secondly, workplace learning had a partially significant effect on service quality, and had a significant positive relationship with management performance. Thirdly, job satisfaction had a significant positive relationship with service quality and management performance. Thirdly, job satisfaction had a significant positive relationship with service quality and management performance. Fourthly, formal learning did not show a mediating effect of job satisfaction in the relationship between service quality and management performance, and informal learning showed a mediating effect of job satisfaction in the relationship between service quality and management performance. As shown in the above analysis results, formal learning was rejected, because it did not have a significant influence on service quality and job satisfaction, and there is a need to figure out the reason for the rejection. It was revealed that small businesses in a poor situation did not receive any chance to experience or be provided with self-learning and formal learning from local governments or government agencies. It is obvious that this loophole is caused by environmental factors of society, economy and politics. Despite these poor environments, small businesses were making constant efforts for their livings. The partial influence of workplace learning, on service quality and management performance implies that small businesses have a life instinct and an empirical will to do their best with their own efforts and experiences and increase sales. Also, the mediating effect of job satisfaction displays a mental state of small businesses. It is expected that finding a way of establishing the mediating effect of job satisfaction in a proper way will help in improving service quality and management performance by stabilizing lives of small businesses. Accordingly, the central government and local governments need to supplement institutional systems for settling issues of small businesses. In spite of these significant research results, this study may have a limitation. For overcoming this limitation, further research will need to target a variety of samples and fields in depth, and the scope of research will have to include practical, academical or political relationships too for enhancing contribution of management performance, service quality and job satisfaction more.

Key Words: Workplace Learning, Service Quality, Management Performance, Job Satisfaction