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The Journal of Global Business Management Volume 11* Number 1 * April 2015 Issue 13 Leveraging HRD Competencies and Roles to Improve ManagersPerformance Dr. Chun-Yu Lin, Assistant professor of National Taipei University Dr. Chung-Kai Huang, Assistant professor of National Taipei University of Business ABSTRACT The purpose of this paper is to investigate why some human resource development (HRD) competencies and roles are relatively more important for managersindividual perforamnce and how these HRD competencies and roles help improve managers’ performance. With this direction of research intent, a semi-structured interview with eight HRD professionals and eight non-HRD managers in eight different companies in Taiwan. The findings suggested that Taiwanese HRD professionals help managersjob performance mainly by dealing with training planning and training needs analysis. In order to faciliate HRD-related jobs well, having good communication skills is also of great importanace for HRD professionals. Moreover, they should be equipped with technology literacy to utilize learning technologies for carrying out training along with the application fundamental business knowledge. In terms of the role orientation, learning specialists and business partners are the two most critical roles HRD professionals play. The present study has two main contributions. First, through interviews, we reexamined the competencies and roles identified by prior empirical studies as more prevalent for HRD professionals, and discovered competencies and roles which can help managersperformance comparativley. Second, the interview excerpts provided in-depth understadning of the targted competencies and roles as well as explained why and how these competneics and roles benefit managersjobs. Overall, the findings generated strong evidence-based recommendations for selection, training, development, compensation, and performance appraisals for HRD professionals in Taiwan. Keywords: Competencies, Roles, HRD professionals, Manager, Qualitative study, Taiwan INTRODUCTION With globalization, advances in information technology, and managerial innovation, the boundaries, scope, and concerns of human resource development (HRD) have become increasingly complicated and varied (Bernthal et al., 2004; Cummings a& Worley, 2005; Lee, 2009; MacKenzie, Garavan, & Carbery, 2012; Swanson & Holton, 2009). HRD professionals now wear multiple hats in order to benefit organizational strategies, performance, and development (Kuchinke, 2003; Lawler, 2005; Long, Ismail, & Amin, 2012; Swanson, 1996; Werner & DeSimone, 2006). The important competencies and roles of HRD professionals have been continuously studied and updated in both academic settings and industrial practice (Bae & Song, 2009; Carliner, 2012; Egan, 2011; Kormanik, Lehner, & Winnick, 2009; Kuo, 2002; Rasool, Bashir, & Ramay, 2009; Sanghi, 2007; Xie & Huang, 2010; Yang 1994). Quantitative surveys have been employed to explore the competencies and roles of HRD professionals. Example research studies include McLagan’s (1989) model for HRD practice, Rothwell’s (1996, 1999) ASTD models for human performance improvement (ASTD models for workplace learning and performance (WLP) are a guide for HRD professionals), the 2004 ASTD study by Bernthal et al. (2004 Competency
Transcript

The Journal of Global Business Management Volume 11* Number 1 * April 2015 Issue 13

Leveraging HRD Competencies and Roles

to Improve Managers’ Performance

Dr. Chun-Yu Lin, Assistant professor of National Taipei University

Dr. Chung-Kai Huang, Assistant professor of National Taipei University of Business

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this paper is to investigate why some human resource development (HRD)

competencies and roles are relatively more important for managers’ individual perforamnce and how

these HRD competencies and roles help improve managers’ performance. With this direction of research

intent, a semi-structured interview with eight HRD professionals and eight non-HRD managers in eight

different companies in Taiwan. The findings suggested that Taiwanese HRD professionals help managers’

job performance mainly by dealing with training planning and training needs analysis. In order to

faciliate HRD-related jobs well, having good communication skills is also of great importanace for HRD

professionals. Moreover, they should be equipped with technology literacy to utilize learning technologies

for carrying out training along with the application fundamental business knowledge. In terms of the role

orientation, learning specialists and business partners are the two most critical roles HRD professionals

play. The present study has two main contributions. First, through interviews, we reexamined the

competencies and roles identified by prior empirical studies as more prevalent for HRD professionals,

and discovered competencies and roles which can help managers’ performance comparativley. Second,

the interview excerpts provided in-depth understadning of the targted competencies and roles as well as

explained why and how these competneics and roles benefit managers’ jobs. Overall, the findings

generated strong evidence-based recommendations for selection, training, development, compensation,

and performance appraisals for HRD professionals in Taiwan.

Keywords: Competencies, Roles, HRD professionals, Manager, Qualitative study, Taiwan

INTRODUCTION

With globalization, advances in information technology, and managerial innovation, the boundaries,

scope, and concerns of human resource development (HRD) have become increasingly complicated and

varied (Bernthal et al., 2004; Cummings a& Worley, 2005; Lee, 2009; MacKenzie, Garavan, & Carbery,

2012; Swanson & Holton, 2009). HRD professionals now wear multiple hats in order to benefit

organizational strategies, performance, and development (Kuchinke, 2003; Lawler, 2005; Long, Ismail, &

Amin, 2012; Swanson, 1996; Werner & DeSimone, 2006). The important competencies and roles of HRD

professionals have been continuously studied and updated in both academic settings and industrial

practice (Bae & Song, 2009; Carliner, 2012; Egan, 2011; Kormanik, Lehner, & Winnick, 2009; Kuo,

2002; Rasool, Bashir, & Ramay, 2009; Sanghi, 2007; Xie & Huang, 2010; Yang 1994). Quantitative

surveys have been employed to explore the competencies and roles of HRD professionals. Example

research studies include McLagan’s (1989) model for HRD practice, Rothwell’s (1996, 1999) ASTD

models for human performance improvement (ASTD models for workplace learning and performance

(WLP) are a guide for HRD professionals), the 2004 ASTD study by Bernthal et al. (2004 Competency

The Journal of Global Business Management Volume 11* Number 1 * April 2015 Issue

14

Study: mapping the future: new workplace learning and performance competencies), and Chen, Bian and

Hom’s (2005) replication of the ASTD WLP model in Taiwan.

In responde to the changing environment, managers commonly take the responsibilities for

improving organizational performance (Ellinger & Bostrom, 2002; London, 2003; Ladyshewsky, 2010;

Wakefield, 2006). More specifically, managers enhance team members’ performance by providing

necessary resources, coaching, and giving feedback (Ladyshewsky, 2010). Since both HRD and

managers’ jobs and roles are related to performance, along with the drastic change in the globalized

business environment, the issues regarding the linkage between HRD professionals’ competencies and

roles and managers’ job performance merit more discussion.

Hence, this study focused on two purposes. First, through the exploratory manner and qualitative

interview which seeks to investigate the interpretations both from managers and HRD professionals, this

study explains why some HRD competencies and roles were identified as more important compared to

others. Second, this study elaborates on how HRD competencies and roles contribute to improve

managers’ performance.

Studies about HRD Competencies and Roles

Spencer and Spencer (1993) described the concept of competency as “an underlying characteristic

of an individual that is causally related to criterion-referenced effective and/or superior performance in a

job or situation” (p.9). Competencies, in general, encompass a cluster of skills, knowledge, abilities, and

behaviors that are required for people to succeed in their workplaces (Caldwell, 2008; Davis, Naughton &

Rothwell, 2004; Harzallah, Berio, & Vernadat, 2006; Hollenbeck, McCall, & Silzer, 2006; Park, & Lee,

2011). Rychen (2004) further summarized competencies in an incorporative way: “each competency is a

combination of interrelated cognitive and practical skills, knowledge (including tacit knowledge),

motivation, values and ethics, attitudes, emotions, and other social and behavioral components that

together can be mobilized for effective action in a particular context” (p.21). Given these definitions, Lin

(2006), Lee (2006) and Gangani, McLean, and Braden (2006) noted that the definitions and usage of the

term competency may vary from one organization to another. Gangani, McLean, and Braden (2006)

believe that the most frequently used definition of a competency is, “a descriptive tool that identifies the

skills, knowledge, personal characteristics, and behaviors needed to effectively perform a role in the

organization and help the business meet its strategic objectives” (Lucia & Lespinger, 1999, p.5).

Most relevant studies have been conducted in the United States, Europe and Asia. In the 1999

ASTD WLP model, 52 important competencies were categorized into six groups, and seven important

roles of HRD professionals were generalized. The International Board of Standards for Training,

Performance and Instruction (IBSTPI) sought out competencies for training instructional designers

(Roytek, 2010; Richey et al., 2001; Sugar, Hoard, Brown, & Daniels, 2012) and managers (Foxon, Richey,

Roberts, and Spannaus, 2003). Other relevant HRD studies conducted in Asia include the following: Chen,

Bian and Hom (2005), Klink and Boon (2002), Kuo (2002), Lee (1994), Lee (2009), Xie (2005), and Zhu,

Chen, and Warner (2000). HRD professionals’ competencies can be culturally different. For instance, by

applying the ASTD model in a different workplace culture, Gray (1999) found some deficiencies in the

ASTD model and threw light on the important competencies of HRD practitioners in New Zealand.

Similarly, Chen, Bian and Hom (2005) examined these 52 competencies and the seven roles of the 1999

ASTD WLP competency model in Taiwan. Their results showed that while the 52 competencies were

important for Taiwanese HRD professionals, the majority of HRD professionals in Taiwan did not have

highly developed competencies and solid training either in HRD or HRM. Therefore, their results

The Journal of Global Business Management Volume 11* Number 1 * April 2015 Issue 15

implicitly suggested that HRD professionals in Taiwan play limited roles in their workplaces rather than

the seven roles found in the 1999 ASTD WLP model. The study results indicated a lack of clarity in the

practice of HRD in Taiwan, which provided the research rationale and motivation for the present study.

Competencies and Performance

Performance is the end results of the meaningful activities in organizations. “An organization’s

performance is efficient if the organization is doing things right. An organization’s performance is

effective if the organization is doing the right things” (Rothwell, Sanders & Soper, 1999, p.5) In other

words, performance is the ultimate concern organizations have in that the growth of organization is the

ultimate goal. Good performance refers to indices including successful operation, high profitability, high

work quality, etc. To evaluate and improve performance, competency systems have been highly

recommended by scholars and widely applied many job positions and industries. Spencer and Spencer

(1993) suggest that the primary goal to use competency systems to evaluate and enhance individual

performance. As for the application of competencies at organizational performance level, competencies

can be applied in various purposes in HR functions, such as selection, performance management,

compensation, and succession planning (Spencer & Spencer, 1993). Based on the research and practical

value prestigious scholars addressed, Levenson, Van der Stede, and Cohen (2006) investigated the

relationship between managerial competencies and performance at both the individual and organizational

unit levels in a quantitative way. In general, they found evidence that competencies are positively related

to both individual performance and unit-level performance although the evidence for the latter is weaker.

Inspired by the previous studies and findings, this study employed an in-depth interview method to

dig deeper information regarding the authentic situations of HRD competencies and roles and managers’

performance in Taiwan. As foregoing, previous studies suggest that this issue concerning competencies

and performance is valuable not only it is practical but also there is little studies discussing it. The

dichotomy of individual and organization performance was also noted in this study in that scholars

addressed that individual performance cannot be accumulated to unit or organizational performance

( DeNisi, 2000; Levenson, Van der Stede, & Cohen 2006; Schneider, Smith, & Sipe, 2000).

Research Questions

Based on the literature, two research questions guided this study.

(1) Why some HRD competencies are considered more significant and how do they contribute to help

managers’ individual performance?

(2) Why some HRD roles are considered more significant and how do they contribute to improve

managers’ individual performance?

METHODS

The methodology was qualitatively driven, relying on interviews, we provided details and answers

to “why” and “how” based on the proposed research questions of HRD professionals’ important

competencies and roles, and managers’ individual performance.

Participants

A purposive sampling was implemented, in which the selection of target participants was carefully

scrutinized from the pertinent business establishments in Taiwan. Patton (2002) points out that the sample

The Journal of Global Business Management Volume 11* Number 1 * April 2015 Issue

16

size in a qualitative study should consider the purpose of the study, and the appropriate sample size in

some relevant qualitative studies ranged from 8 to 20 participants (Ellinger, Watkins, and Bostrom, 1999;

Gibson, 2004; Sandberg, 2000; Polach, 2004). Therefore, a total of 16 participants were recruited for the

present study — eight were HRD professionals, and eight were non-HRD managers. Half of the

participants were from high-tech manufacturing industry and the other half were from finance industry.

Care was taken to insure that the eight HRD professionals had sufficient knowledge and professional

experience to provide concrete cases and examples of the important competencies for HRD professionals

in Taiwan. In addition, the eight non-HRD participants had positions as high or middle-level managers

who could provide different angles on information and perspectives concerning the support and benefits

of competencies and roles of HRD professionals conritbued to their job performance.

Wang and McLean (2007) have argued that it is not appropriate to use the US-based HRD

definitions to describe the field of HRD and its functions and roles everywhere. Their sugeestions provide

implications and justify the necessity of the current study to the field of HRD in Taiwan. Due to differing

organizational needs and other organizational factors, Taiwanese businesses often either use different

terms for HRD or have only one-term-fits-all HRM (Chen, Bian & Hom, 2005; Lin, 2006). This makes it

difficult to define what truly constitutes the essence and application of HRD in Taiwan. After our contact

and interviews, we concluded that only HRD professionals in larger Taiwanese companies fit the general

definition of HRD professionals. Therefore, all our interviewees were recruited from larger Taiwanese

companies.

Data collection procedures

A pilot study was conducted to test the feasibility of the interview processes, questions, and data

collection procedures. A semi-structured phone interview was employed to facilitate the candid

expression of comments and opinions from the interviewees. Each interview with HRD professionals

lasted approximately 45 minutes to 1 hour, and each interview with non-HRD managers took 25 minutes

to half an hour.

Data analysis

Most of the interviews were conducted in Chinese, along with some misture of English and

Taiwanese. A coding method proposed by Saldaña (2009) was used for the content analysis. All the

analyzed data were transcribed, translated into English, and subsequently sorted into several categories.

More specifically, with respect to the answers to the research question one, two steps were adopted to

validate the ranking. First, based on the number of times each important measure of competence and role

was addressed or emphasized during the interviews, the researchers counted and ranked all important

competencies and grouped them accordinlgy. Second, to improve the validity and reality of the analytical

results, necessary meber checks were conducted afterwards to reconfirm the ranking of the importance of

individual competencies and competency groups.

Findings

Research Question 1

Why some HRD competencies are considered more important and how do they contribute to help

managers’ individual performance?

HRD competencies, such as training planning, training needs analysis, communication,

technological literacy, business knowledge, and technical competencies were regarded as the more

The Journal of Global Business Management Volume 11* Number 1 * April 2015 Issue 17

important ones which can benefit managers’ jobs according to HRD professionals and managers. Training

planning is one of the most ciritcal HRD competencies because planned training is expected to leverange

employee learning and foster their performance. Specifically, it is suggested that HRD professionals

should have a clear picture of the corporate visions and strategies, and enhance development and

performance at the individual, team, and organizational levels through planned training. In fact, this

competence had been noted in various definitions for the HRD profession (e.g., McLagan, 1989; Swanson,

1996; Werner & DeSimone, 2006). Furthermore, training planning is more desired for HRD professionals

who work with international companies in particular. The HR professionals indicated that not only must

they collaborate with their HRD colleagues in the US headquarters and in other countries in oreder to

obtain and share training resources, but they also must meet the special training needs and learning

culture of their local employees. Here is an interview excerpt describing the essence and necessity of

training planning in the workplace.

HRD [professionals] plan and design the training programs each year. In order to design a training

program, we have to know the company’s operation strategies and the different needs of employees first.

By predicting and analyzing the organizational development and employees’ jobs, we know what type of

training will be needed to meet the organizational goals. We chose 14 courses last year, and 10 courses

were commonly selected by the countries of the Asia-Pacific area as being the necessary courses, so we

promoted these 10 courses in Taiwan. In addition to the courses shared globally, we have to arrange some

regional courses for our local employees.

In addition, one of the non-HRD managers supported the importance of ‘training planning’ by

stating that “they [HRD professionals] should have good training planning skills because the classes they

provide are expected to be broad and deep enough. Some courses should simply help our jobs and some

should further help our daily life. For instance, we benefit a lot from some pracitcal couses regarding law

and counseling.” This refelction explains that HRD professionals’ training planning need to support

managers’ functional pratice in various domains and aspcts. Taking advantage of well-planned training,

managers and their subordinates will be equuied with sufficient capabilities to excute their jobs and face

challanes in their lives better.

Training needs analysis is also more significant because ensuring what training courses should offer

is widely regarded as a core function of HRD. Furthermore, the integration of training planning and

training needs analysis is critical since only by investigating training needs, can training be planned and

carried out effectively and efficiently. Intervewees emphasized that this competence is particularly

essential for the companies that their employees, such as engineers, need concrete training for operating

new machines or equipment on a regular basis. The following excerpts explain how training needs

analaysis may impact managers’ and engineers’ jobs.

It is necessary to understand employees’ training needs before we do planning. For instance, our

[HRD rofessionals’] goal is to help our managers work efficiently and effectively, so we must investigate

their needs. That is training needs analysis. We should be able to find out what are the most necessary

courses for our company and employees.

I think this [training needs analysis] is a basic skill of HRD professionals. We [HRD professionals]

must know the training needs before the training courses are designed. By reading the records of the

important meetings of our company, we can know what new equipment will be used in the coming year,

subseqeuntly we can devise training plans to train our employees to know how to operate and maintain

the new equipment.

Communication was pointed to as a more important competence. HRD professionals should be two-

The Journal of Global Business Management Volume 11* Number 1 * April 2015 Issue

18

way communicators with good listening and questioning abilities. Since HRD jobs are extremely people-

oriented, which means that they should be proficient in interacting with all organizational stakholders, so

interviewees underscored the rating of interpersonal competencies for them. The following interview

excerpt emphasizes being patient and listening carefully to their inner customers are the ways to help

managers.

It is important to have a fine relationship with all departments. We [HRD] usually need to contact

managers directly to ask for their assitance. Also, listen carefully to their managerial problems. You

cannot afford to get angry if some of them just don’t cooperate, or some of them have improper attitudes

toward you. The most difficult problem is communication. The problems and techniques in

communication are most difficult. Communication is very important; being a good listener is important.

We need to understand our employees’ needs anyway.

With the growth of information and digital technology, technological literacy, such as computer

literacy, computer-mediated communication, and electronic performance support system practice, has

become important competnece. Thus, many interviewees claimed that that they take advantage of learning

technologies for offering better training service in their companies.

We have e-learning and the capacity to deal with an electronic performance support system. Last

year, ou management department training units used the human resource information system to operate

some analytical functional jobs and their connection to training. We have several HRD professionals who

focus on the development of the online curriculum and design.

Business knowledge competencies incorporate characteristics such as an understanding of the

organization, knowledge of the industry, decision-making processes, decision criteria, being in touch with

important issues, and understanding the implications of other operational units within an organization

(Rothwell, Sanders & Soper, 1999). Both HRD professionals and managers gave their opinions about

why ‘business knowledge’ is more important, as follows.

We [HRD professionals] must understand our industry to figure out what our old and new

employees should learn. We are an international corporation; therefore, not only do we have to understand

the situation in Taiwan, but also understand global business trends in order to arrange sufficient training

for employees. Take expatriate training for instance, we need to clarify the strategies and goals of our

company, and then we examine and paln the training courses for them.

Technical competencies were important because it is apparent that HRD professionals perform

many administrative and routine jobs for managers. In order to help employees with enhancing job

performance through appropriate training, understanding and application of their current work activities

and process may be very critical. Thus, the technical competencies such as administrative skills,

facilitation, feedback, learning, and promotion are explicitly described as important competencies for

them.

Some people may think training [HRD] is easy because they only think about the delivery of

courses. In fact, there are more chores to do in terms of training. Preparing training materials and

administration are examples. Also, we must be able to teach classes, perform administrative duties,

purchase and do chores, get a classroom, and contact the lecturers.

Research Question Two

Why some HRD roles are more important and how do these HRD roles contribute to improve

managers’ individual performance?

The Journal of Global Business Management Volume 11* Number 1 * April 2015 Issue 19

Learning specialist

One HRD professional stated that “the basic job for HRD professionals is to help our organization

improve its performance by training, so we need to know how to initiate a learning atmosphere in our

company through the application of the ideas and characteristics of adult learning theories in training.” In

addition, HRD professionals have many chances to teach and guide their experienced employees, such as

managers, how to be good trainers because these managers are often required to give lectures, teach

professional knowledge and skills, or share work experiences with all the other younger employees. Thus,

HRD professionals need to be good learning specialists, meaning they should be versed at teaching and

helping managers to facilitate training. As one interviewee suggested: “facilitating skills are critical

during lectures. We trainers usually play the role of facilitator in our training, and we motivate them

[managers] to be good facilitaters as well.” Also, ‘providing feedback’ is desirable when interacting with

managers since HRD professionals are usually asked their opinions about managerial issues and problems.

One interviewee commented: “we need to give feedback on problems encountered by business staff that

will encourage them to solve the managerial problems.” When trainees ask questions regarding their jobs,

HRD professionals are expected to provide some possible and feasible solutions.

In addition to planning and desiging regular lectures, HRD professionals must deliver special

courses themselves when an appropriate external lecturers cannot be found. ‘Promotion’ may sound odd

in terms of an important competence for HRD professionals, but the reality is that HRD professionals

must promote their planned training to their main customers, the employees. Certainly, they should get

support from all levels of managers in order to reach the predetermined training goals. One manager said,

“HRD go to each unit to promote the training courses. They also need to ask business managers to

recommend courses to their subordinates.”

To master everything related to leaning and training in an organization is not easy; according to the

interviews, problems often arise, and HRD professionals have to know how to take care of these

unexpected issues. As stated by an interviewee, “ By predicting and analyzing the organizational

development and employees’ jobs, we know what type of training will be needed to meet the

organizational goals. Our training program was usually carried out after work or on the weekends. In the

beginning, people complained and resisted a lot, so we tried some strategies to help. We made a

mechanism which ties the career promotion, the working achievement appraisal and rewards with the

training program in our company.”

Business Partner

Taking part in the strategic decision making meetings or process may or may not be a part of HRD

professionals’ jobs since their positions are not high ranking for them to be considered decision makers.

However, many interviewees mentioned that their high-level leaders and stakeholders tend to view

training and development as a necessary and important function to help their organizations to achieve

goals. Accordingly, the leaders of HRD, HRD managers or HRD executives, are usually invited to

participate in the process of strategic decision making so that they can help implement these decisions

through training and development. In addition, managers tend to consult HRD professionals about the

effect of training on their employees even though training is not panacea for all cases. In this context,

HRD professionals can play the role of ‘business partners’ since it is important for them to know business

and industrial knowledge in order to participate at the this level. Here are some statements that support

this role.

The Journal of Global Business Management Volume 11* Number 1 * April 2015 Issue

20

Our training center makes our plans based on the main developing directions and strategies of our

company. From the strategic meetings led by our CEO and vice presidents, we can figure out the

operative directions for next year. The coordinator of our training center will attend the meetings because

we have been regarded as an important business partner in our company.

When we receive a training request from other managers, the training is sure to be held. Nontheless,

we still inform them that sometimes training cannot help them, and that they should try some other

strategies or interventions to sovle their problems. We understand that some managers just apply training

for their employees in order to show their supervisors that they are doing something rather than nothing at

all. When we encounter these situations, we always tell them that training cannot solve the real problem.

We recommend them to try other methods.

Also, a supportive business parter should help to solve emergent problem. Because HRD

professionals cannot and should not do everything on their own, empowerment or outsourcing

management is required. They must be strategic at finding either internal or external resources and

flexibly outsourcing their work to experts. One of the HRD interviewees once was asked to offer an

Electronics class to novice engineers. She immediately contacted a professor at a national univerity since

she did not have any prior experience and relevant expertise, and she successfully outsourced and

arranged the training conseqeunlty. Furthermore, it is common for HRD to provide assistance and

resources to support specific organizational activities or projects. One interviewee commented that

“everything [in our workplace] now requires project management. We [HRD professionals] do need time

and skills for project management. We must synthesize and organize the available resources to fulfill

tasks and reach organizational goals effectively and efficiently.” As a result, HRD professionals should

play a role as a business parter for managers. They should be clear about organizational goals and provide

managers appriapirate assistance.

LIMITATIONS

The limitations of the present study are recognized. First, the results are limited to the population

of HRD professionals in Taiwan, and these may not be easily generalized to other non-Chinese cultures or

job descriptions. Second, previous studies have stated the definition as one of the limitations (Lin, 2006).

The same limitation could be applied in this study although the researchers carefully distinguished the

definition of ‘HRD’ from other synonyms such as HRM, personnel, training and even industrial relations.

Third, the answers given in the present study may have been influenced by factors such as the type of

business, the structure or size of an organization, position level, personal experiences, and educational

backgrounds. Fourth, the sample size of the present study was a very reasonable number in a qualitative

study but might not be large enough to represent the entire population of HRD professionals in Taiwan

from the lens of quanatative perspceitve.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS

This study provides the explanatory interview excerpts to illustrate why some HRD competencies

and roles are important and how they impact managers’ performance in Taiwan. Our findings generally

correspond to the competencies and roles of HRD professionals outlined by Chen, Bian, and Hom (2005),

but we still found something different. Furthermore, through interviews, the reasons for importance of

main competencies and roles have been discussed as follows.

The Journal of Global Business Management Volume 11* Number 1 * April 2015 Issue 21

‘Training plannig’ was an important competence, and ‘learning specialist’ was an important role.

That is, the interviewees thought that ‘training’ or ‘learning’ are still the most major job duties for HRD

professionals in Taiwan. Nevertheless, simply dealing with training routines or following managerial

orders may not be sufficicnet. Taiwanese HRD professionals shoule be more proactive to deal with their

job dutites or work processes by careful and strategic analysis. When working on training needs analysis

or training planning, as one HRD professional reported, a procedure including analysis, arrangement,

organization, and evaluation should be carried out. Therefore, it is not surprising that non-HRD managers

fully reply on HRD professionals’ professions and suggestions in terms of employee training planning

and arrangement. They also highly praised that their HRD professionals’ analysis and suggestions are

helpful and supportive so that they can receive and utilize training or other business strategies in

management and leadership.

‘Business partner’ was a more important role, which suggests that HRD professionals in Taiwan

should have substantial business knowledge and play a key role for coporate business and operation.

However, HRD professionals and non-HRD managers had slightly different viewpoints on this role. HRD

professionals emphasized that their business knowledge can contribute the most to their job success and it

implies that they view themselves as critical ‘business partners’ or ‘strategic partners.’ Scholars have

postulated that HRD can be expected to play a more strategic role in the organizational policy-making

process today (Kuchinke, 2003; McLagan, 1989; Sanghi 2007; Swanson, 1996; Werner and DeSimone,

2006). From HRD professionals’ perepctives, business roles are critically more important since their

training plans are always strategically geared toward improving individual and organizational

performance. As one HRD professional shared, training has its functions and effects but cannot be overly

amplified for improving performance, so HRD professionals should have sufficient business knowledge

and a clear picture of their organizational development when providing suggestions.

However, non-HRD managers have a different viewpoint by stating that ‘training planning’ is the

only most important for HRD professionals, whom they see as ‘learning specialists.’ Many companies

interviewed here have an HRD unit or a formal training center for taking care of various HRD activities

and functions, so they have a group of HRD professionals for training needs and design. From a non-

HRD manager’s angle, HRD is still not a part of the policy-making team in most Taiwanese companies.

Only HRD executives or managers in a few companies are regularly invited to join policy-making

meetings or to play a critical role in the policy-making process. Thus, non-HRD managers view HRD

professionals’ roles and competencies as more training-oriented.

‘Communication’ was viewed as one of the most important individual competency overall. This

suggests that having good communication skills is critical for HRD professionals and building up solid

international relationships are good approaches to carry out training and consulting services within

workplaces. Without a good interpersonal relationship, trust may not exit. If company stakeholders do not

trust HRD professionals’ work, employees may not benefit that much from the designed activities.

In Chen, Bian, and Hom’s (2005) study, ‘interpersonal competencies,’ ‘technical competencies,’ and

‘leadership competencies,’ were listed as the most important three competency groups. In our study, only

the first two competency goups were valued according to our interviews. HRD professionals in Taiwan do

need competencies, such as ‘communication’ and ‘facilitation skills,’ that fall within the ‘interpersonal

competencies’ and ‘technical competencies’ groups. Both of these studies ranked individual competencies

such as ‘communication,’ ‘analytical thinking,’ ‘interpersonal relationship,’ ‘project management,’ and

‘technological literacy’ among the top important competencies for HRD professionals in Taiwan. Yet, our

interviewees did not agree that the ‘leadership competencies’ cited in Chen, Bian, and Hom’s (2005)

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22

study were as important as the authors claimed. They provided job examples showing that ‘analytical

competencies’ such as ‘training needs analysis’ and ‘training planning’ were the most important ones,

which agreed with Chen, Bain, and Hom’s (2005) conclusion: the roles of HRD professionals in Taiwan

are still very training-oriented.

Additionally, we discovered some interesting HRD phenomena in Taiwan. As many Taiwanese

small-sized companies do not value HRD or HRM as larger companies do (Lin, 2006), their HRD

professionals are generally young females with no formal HRD or HRM degree. Their job descriptions

could be tantamount to that of an office assistant, and one of the most important job requirements is to

show a good attitude for office chores and brighten the office atmosphere. This explains why

‘interpersonal relationship’ is one of the most important group in their broad survey by Chen, Bian and

Hom (2005), and ‘communication’ is one of the most important individual competence in this study.

Hence, it became obvious that the so-called “HRD professionals” in these small companies could not

provide the information required by the research questions in the present study due to the limited content

of their job descriptions. Thus, we focused on interviewing HRD professionals who were from larger

companies with HRDs that had more complete and varied functions. More interestingly, HRD

professionals in Taiwan are also required to perform HRM functions, such as building employee-

employer relationships or recruitment. That is, all HR members are supposed to support one another in

terms of HR functions and operations.

Due to concerns about the differences in HRD between small and large companies, the eight

selected companies were all larger companies, which gave rise to another problem. It was more

challenging to locate the target participants, the HRD professionals, in some of these Taiwanese

companies either because of different terminology that was used for HRD or different organizational

structures. Some companies had no jobs carrying the title of HRD professional and others had no

department called HRD. However, they did have some departments, units or staff who mainly to cope

with training, learning, development and performance. Therefore, we presented our study and defined our

target participants as clearly as possible for looking for our interview participants.

Implications for human resource development

Our results were collected both from HRD professionals and non-HRD managers, the data are

comparatively practical and reflective of actual HRD practice in Taiwan. All the important competencies

emphasized here provided an authentic reference for recruiting, training, developing HRD professionals,

and improving the work of HRD in organizations. For instance, based on our findings, when recruiting a

competent HRD staff, we suggest that Taiwanese companies had better find people with the more

important competencies such as good analytical skills, training planning experiences, administrative skills,

and communicative skills. In addition, this study’s results provided concrete examples of HRD

competencies that can be used in designing competency-based curricula for developing professional HRD

practitioners in Taiwan. In order to help students develop their significant HRD competencies that are

indispensible in workplaces, Taiwanese HRD or HRM programs in higher education may find some

inspirations from this study for operating their curriculum and instruction. Also, the valuable opinions

provided by HRD professionals and non-HRD managers can contribute to the relevant research in Taiwan.

For HRD learners, our findings provide a great chance to learn about the real world of HRD through the

voices of HRD incumbents. The perspectives of non-HRD interviewees should inspire a deeper

understanding of the position of HRD professionals in organizations and the relationship between HRD

and other organizational functions and departments.

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HRD involves three subareas: training and development, career development, and organizational

development, and these subareas should be well integrated if they are to contribute to the long-term

operation and effectiveness of an organization (Swanson,1996). According to our interviews, however,

training has not been well aligned with career development, career management and organizational

development in many Taiwanese companies. Although training can be an highlighted area of the HRD

profession, the importance of training is not as highly valued outside the HRD department. Therefore, it

merits more follow-up and future work in terms of promoting the effects and importance of HRD on

employees and their job performance to other employees in Taiwanese companies. Last, this study’s

results deepen better understanding of the current important competencies of HRD in Taiwan by

providing many authentic and concrete examples and job descriptions. There are still more issues

regarding the competencies of HRD professionals and other organizational events that could be explored

in future research, the present study is just a starting point for further elucidation of the competencies and

roles of HRD professionals in Taiwan.

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