The impact of migration, cross-cultural adjustment, and quality of work life on organizational commitment through job satisfaction as a mediator among Myanmar migrant workers: a case of the apparel industry in Bangkok, Thailand

Abstract

With a shortage of domestic labor, Thailand has relied heavily on migrant workers, particularly in the apparel industry in Bangkok. Labor migration is a consequence of such shortage, which affects the country socioeconomically. Therefore, this research is aimed at examining the impact of migration, cross-cultural adjustment, and quality of work life, investigating job satisfaction as a mediator, and developing structural equation modeling for predicting those relationships with organizational commitment among migrant workers. Mixed-methods research has been adopted. For quantitative method research, questionnaires serve as research instruments for data collection from 415 Myanmar migrant workers working for three apparel companies in Bangkok. Descriptive statistics and structural equation modeling are then used for data analysis. For qualitative method research, in-depth interviews with semi-structured interviews were utilized for data collection from 3 groups of 15 key informants. Those groups include Myanmar migrant workers, factory managers or manufacturing managers, and migrant worker recruitment agencies. The results of descriptive statistics indicate that the agreements on migration, cultural adjustment, quality of work life, and job satisfaction among the respondents were all at a high level. Meanwhile, organizational commitment was at a moderate level. The results of testing the measurement models showed that the construct validity and the discriminant validity of all five latent variables satisfied the assumptions. The results of structural equation modelling (SEM) reveal that cross-cultural adjustment and quality of work life demonstrated positive impacts and indirect relationships with organizational commitment through job satisfaction as a meditating variable at the statistical significance of the .001 level. Job satisfaction had a positive influence on organizational commitment at the statistical significance of the .000 level. In contrast, migration did not show any direct influence on organizational commitment or indirect influence on organizational commitment through job satisfaction as a mediator. Moreover, quality of work life did not show any direct influence on organizational commitment. The results of qualitative method research reveal that the key informants had perceived that migration was the most important economic pull factor, followed by the socio-cultural pull factor and the political push factor. In terms of cross-cultural adjustment, the most important attributes included general adjustment and job adjustment. For quality of work life, the most important attributes were fair wages and welfare, interpersonal relations, and supervision. The most important attribute of organizational commitment was continuance commitment, followed by affective commitment. Both quantitative and qualitative research methods illustrated similar results and directions. For theoretical contributions through testing the hypotheses, the impact of migration, quality of work life, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment provided a better understanding toward the behavior and attitude of migrant workers. For practical contribution, entrepreneurs and related government agencies must establish guidelines for cultural adjustment and quality of work life that affects job satisfaction and leads to organizational commitment. Such guidelines are expected to increase the growth of productivity sustainably. For future research, based on the results of our quantitative method research, job satisfaction serves as a perfect mediator that can exert its influence on the relationship between quality of work life and organizational commitment among migrant workers. However, based on the results of the qualitative method research, potential variables that could contribute to any future research should include perceived fairness, perceived discrimination, and the employers’ behavior. These variables could be used as latent variables, meditating variables, or moderating variables, which were indicated by the key informants. Alternatively, qualitative method research was adopted to explain the phenomenon of living conditions and in-depth working conditions that allow better management of migrant workers.