Factors affecting individuals’ competency in organisations using knowledge creation model and HRM practices

Abstract

This thesis is on competent individuals the essential organisational resource, particularly for knowledge work. Managers need to attend to the development of incompetent individuals. What constitutes individuals’ competency (IC), how can it be developed through better human resource management (HRM), and how is it implemented for knowledge management (KM) all needs theoretical explanation. There is disagreement in the research literature on the effect of factors such as education, training, personal characteristic, and environment on IC. The aim of this research is to explore these factors in the context of KM as facilitated by HRM. An exploratory sequential mixed methods and triangulation approach is used. The first phase qualitative research explores IC from employees’ perspective. The findings of this phase are used in the second quantitative phase to develop quantifiable variables. That needs to be further explored. The findings of both phases are triangulated; data consistency between the two phases indicates that the measuring instruments are accurate, which strengthened the thesis argument. The research data is collected from Kuwait, which like any other country suffers from incompetent employees. Forty one interviews were conducted for the qualitative phase and 763 survey questionnaires were collected for the quantitative phase. Knowledge of IC as revealed in the literature suggests four contentious factors that affect it: education, training, personal characteristics and environment, each of which has a prior and on-job occurrence. This thesis postulates: (a) that rather than individual factors, these four factors affect IC holistically; (b) that these four factors apply to each of the four modes of the knowledge creation model (KCM); and (c) that HRM has a significant role in developing IC for KM. Empirical results of the hypothesis show a statistically significant positive effect for each of the four factors on IC and that the effect is holistic. This finding supports the developed model of IC. Therefore, the research hypotheses are accepted and the IC model is proven to be fit. Also, when statistically operationalizing the four factors on the KCM, it was found that not all four factors are absorbed by each of the four modes of the KCM, thus revealing its limitation in practice. Finally, HRM is proven to affect IC and the KCM positively. Nevertheless, this relies on HRM being empowered by the organisation. This thesis makes several contributions. It contributes empirical evidence of the positive and holistic effect of education, training, personal characteristics and environment on IC. This leads to the second contribution that these four factors of IC, as new knowledge, cannot all be processed within a particular mode of the KCM; rather it selectively absorbs particular factors better than others. Thus, the theoretical knowledge creation argument differs from the actual empirical findings. These findings lead to significant contribution to HRM practice. For instance, in hiring or promoting individuals, managers should consider the four theoretically derived and empirically confirmed IC factors, education, training, personal characteristics (PC) and environment.