dc.description.abstract | In today’s knowledge-based economy, traditional enterprises relying on land, labor and capital are being replaced by knowledge-creating enterprises based on knowledge capital. Knowledge-creating enterprises have become primary sources of competitiveness for Taiwan in particular, but there are relatively few studies on the competences needed by R&D personnel. Thus, this empirical study explores the required competences for outstanding R&D Professionals and discusses how the results can be applied to human resources practices such as selection, training, development and performance management, in order to increase the overall competitiveness of knowledge-creating organizations.
The research sample targets an R&D institute in Taiwan. Data is collected through literature surveys, structured interviews, questionnaires, and discussions with managers of the R&D institute as well as from external consultants including HR professionals and academics. From this data a competency research model is built, and ten core competences are identified. Furthermore, pre-test and formal test are carried out through sociological statistical analysis method. Accordingly, confirmatory factor analysis and exploratory factor analysis using Principal Components Analysis are carried out to extract common factors. After data analysis, four competences are found to be significantly and positively related to job performance (p<0.01): innovation and excellence, planning and analysis, teamwork operations and continuous learning. The item analysis shows a significant level, Cronbach’s Alpha for these four dimensions of competence ranging from 0.87 to 0.93.
Finally, hierarchical regression analysis is used to explore the effects of age, education level, seniority, and competences on job performance. Age, education level and seniority are found to have no significant effect on job performance, but the competences do have a significant effect. The findings indicate that the competences can effectively predict the job performance, implying that people with higher competences have higher job performance. Thus it is suggested that the competence model can be applied in the practices of human resource management to upgrade the competitiveness of organizations. | en_US |