Forecasting core competencies in an R&D environment

Forecasting core competencies in an R&D environment

carried out in 1998Management Department,

University of Brasilia

Submitted To : Dr.Rabeh Morrar

Presented By :Abdulla Alhroub

Outline • Introduction• The org• The concept of core competency in R&D organizations • Competency-based management process.• Strengths • essential competencies• Delphi technique • Methodology• Delphi • Selected results and discussion• Barriers • Conclusions

INTRODUCTION

• This study, carried out in 1998 , University of Brasilia

•aimed to develop a method of forecasting core competencies in an

agricultural research organization

• using the Delphi Technique

• 2 questionnaire

INTRODUCTION

• knowledge and information have become strategic production resources for organizations .

• The generation of innovations must be viewed as the result of a technological innovation process.

• This process is composed of a group of activities that begins with the forecasting of market demands, goes through planning, organizing, research, developing and testing of prototypes, and ends when the production sector incorporates the innovations.

Introduction Introduction

•In order to avoid the dispersion of effort and the waste of resources, R&D organizations need to clearly define what to research. •This definition must be made after studying priorities that can assist the decision- making process of these organizations•This paper describes the methodology of a research project carried out in 1998 at the Brazilian Corporation for Agricultural Research ± Embrapa, to diagnose its human core competencies

The organizationThe organization

•Embrapa was founded in 1973 • it is the main Brazilian government organization in the agricultural research field. •It has 39 research centers located all over the country,• livestock, crops, soil, genetic resources, environment, aiming to develop knowledge and technological options to solve Brazilian agricultural problems.•8,500 employees, 2,000 researchers.

 

The concept of core competency in R&D organizations The concept of core competency in R&D organizations

•There is a consensus in the organizational literature that the competitive advantage of a firm is directly related to its management capability and the amount of knowledge used in its productive process .

•Hamel and Prahalad (1995), the organization's ability to compete is a result of its capacity to identify and develop its core competencies

The concept ….The concept ….

•Prahalad and Hamel (1990) conceived core competency as a set of skills, knowledge, technology, and physical, managerial and value systems that generate the competitive advantage of the organization.

•Ferlie, et al. (1996) suggest that the strategy of a competitive organization of high performance must include internal development of its core competencies and not only a replacement of necessities to respond to market signals

Competency-based management process.

strength of a R&D organization's core competenciesstrength of a R&D organization's core competencies

•identified by their capability to generate technological innovations that have a systemic character.• The innovative character of competency consists of a set of methodologies, knowledge and methods of work used by the organization to generate products or services that meet the needs of its users

•This creates some competitive advantage over the organization's competitors that could result in products or services of better quality or cheaper prices

In this sense, the productive process in the research environment totally depends on intellectual capital or on the existing knowledge of the organization.

• These issues need to be constantly updated and perfected by continuous training and education programs.

Human core competency is highly important within R&D organizations and it can be defined as a group of :•skills, knowledge, cognitive strategy,• met cognitions, beliefs, values and attitudes

•belonging to people that command and perform the processes of R&D, usually researchers.• They are able to determine which knowledge and technology are generated by these organizations

other essential competenciesother essential competencies

This paper focuses on this group, but at the same time realizes that there might be other essential competencies in the organizations• like physical systems •existing technology •specific structure•ways to influence•own benefit•the external environment.

Delphi technique Delphi technique

The technique aims to identify future events by way of a consensus of opinions of a group of experts. The usual steps are as follows• a)definition of the main concepts and references necessary to carry out the research•b) identification and selection of the individuals who will constitute the panel of judges to be consulted;• c) designing the questionnaire containing the main concepts, reference terms and orientation for the participation of the judges;.

Delphi technique con,,

• d) application of the questionnaires, data treatment and analysis of the answers• e) verification of the need to introduce new questions and the repetition

of stages b, c, and d, if necessary;• f) analysis to obtain convergent answers;• g) general conclusions

Methodology

• initial work plan …( training – recruiting – defining )

• 5-year period of 1999± 2003

• validity period of the results was reduced from 5 to 3 years

• it was based on the judgment of directors and managers of the research and management units of the firm

• it favors the vertical dimension, ignoring the horizontal

Delphi

• First, based on a survey of internal documents and interviews, nine organizational core competencies and their specific components (human competencies) were defined, and expert judges identified. These judges responded to a questionnaire, in which the importance of the future human competencies was assessed and the organization's existing human capacity was evaluated.

• Another questionnaire was designed and sent out to an expanded panel of judges to confirm or to revise the priority mean scores obtained or to add scores in the case of competencies that entered later. Factor analysis and reliability scores have demonstrated internal and inter-competency consistencies

First questionnaire

• First, an initial list of 17 organizational core competencies• was presented personally to a group of 17 top experts of the firm• The questionnaire was sent out to 151 experts, 115 internal and 36

external.

• The group of internal experts consisted of researchers from Embrapa. • They were heads of projects or research groups, directors of research

centres, and directors of administrative units at Embrapa.

• The group of external experts was made up of Brazilian University lecturers

First questionnaire con,,Each expert was asked to make the following contributions

a) to review the operational definitions of the organizational competency associated to his or her expertise

b) to verify the list of human competencies of that competency, recommending new ones, or suggesting the elimination of those judged inadequate

c) to evaluate each human competency in terms of its future importance and current installed capacity at Embrapa, utilizing a Likert scale of six points

First questionnaire con,,

Of the 151 questionnaires distributed, 77 were returned (65 internal, 12 external).

That represented 51% of the total, which is satisfactory for this kind of study

Second questionnaire

• sent out to a larger group of 202 experts, consisting of 142 internal and 60 external• The same nine existing organizational core competencies appeared on

the second questionnaire

• UN (undecided), A (agree with the average) • 137 questionnaires (94 internal, 43 external), 68% of the total sent. • very good return

Selected results and discussion

• that the results could be safely used for the Embrapa's nation-wide decision-making processes concerning its human resources, in the period from 1999 to 2001

• Organizational core competency 1. Technological innovation management 2. Geoprocessing 3. Agribusiness and technological economics 4. Environmental resources economics 5. Animal pathology 6. Family-based agriculture 7. Environmental resources 8. Molecular and cellular biology 9. Plant pathology

Barriers

• Gathering answers from the experts who were consulted in each phase of the investigation was not an easy task

• extremely busy and always on the move. It was difficult to track them down and to invite them to participate in the study.

• Another problem, also related to the question of sample representation, refers to the participation of external experts, their answers did not differ significantly from their internal counter- parts. However, as a percentage the return of their questionnaires was much less than that of the internal experts. Concerning the Delphi technique, this method seemed to be expensive depending on the size of the sample.

Conclusions

• The results have been used as subsidies for several decisions concerning management of human resources

• especially those connected with selection and graduate training of researchers

• lead the processes of hiring, training, and placement of researchers