A Malaysian study on the antecedents of managers’ intention to hire older workers: an extended model of the theory of planned behaviour

Lau, Claudia Say Min (2019) A Malaysian study on the antecedents of managers’ intention to hire older workers: an extended model of the theory of planned behaviour. PhD thesis, UTAR.

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Abstract

In view of Malaysia's aspiration to become a developed nation in the very near future, one of the issues currently confronting all trades is the labour shortage where most job vacancies are filled by foreign workers. At the same time and never before, the nation now also faces a phenomenon where a growing portion of its older population are experiencing a decline in their employment participation rate. The utilisation of skilful and experienced older workers to substitute foreign workers require the willingness of business organizations to hire these workers for the overall improvement of the nation's economic situation. The present study targeted respondents who are the managers responsible for hiring workers for their organizations. Being the gate-keepers for recruitment, it is imperative to study their intention to hire older workers. Therefore, the main purpose of the present study is to predict the relationship of managers’ attitudes, subjective norm, perceived behavioural control and past experience with their intention to hire older workers. The Theory of Planned Behaviour was being identified and was extended to include the variables of past experience and the age of respondents as the moderator on the relationships between attitude and hiring intention. Cross-sectional data were collected from hiring managers from business organizations via personal administered surveys (n=468). The data were first tested for reliability and validity and which was found to fully satisfy the minimum required threshold. Model and hypotheses were tested using structural equation modelling (PLS). The research model accounted for a moderate portion of the variance in overall hiring intention (R2=0.377) and future hiring intention (R2=0.392). The findings suggested that: (1) all items were significantly related to the predictive components of attitude, subjective norm and perceived behavioural control; (2) predictive components (attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioural control and past experience) were related to overall hiring intention; (3) predictors attitude, subjective norm and perceived behavioural control were related to future hiring intention whereas the past experience predictor has no relation to managers' future hiring intention; (4) age has moderating effects on the relationships between attitude and overall hiring intentions, but there was no moderating effect on the relationship between attitude and future hiring intention. The results of this study served as an additional fuel to combat the nation's acute labour shortage by the hiring of able and willing older workers. The empirical result also has important implications for human resource strategists in business organisations, academic researchers and public policy makers interested in the hiring of older workers.

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