Tài liệu Managerial competencies of middle-level managers at viglacera corporation

THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY SOUTHERN LUZON STATE UNIVERSITY DOCTOR OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION DISSERTATION MANAGERIAL COMPETENCIES OF MIDDLE-LEVEL MANAGERS AT VIGLACERA CORPORATION TA PHUNG PHUC (LUCKY STAR) SUPERVISOR: Dr. Cecilia N. Gascon HANOI - 2013 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT This thesis is completed to fulfill the requirement from the Doctor of Business Administration (DBA) program, an international program between Thai Nguyen University (TNU) and Southern Luzon State University (SLSU). I would like to express my sincere thanks to Management Board of the TNU and the SLSU, who have been organizing such interesting programs. The improvement in our competencies will bring much more values to our work and social life. I would like to express my sincere thanks to all lecturers of SLSU, TNU and associates, who have equipped me with a lot of valuable knowledge and skills for my life. Especially I would like to express my exclusive thanks to my supervisor – Dr. Cecilia N. Gascon. Despite very busy with management and professional work, she has given me lots of valuable guidance and support during my job on completing this thesis. I also would like to express my thanks to Board of Management of Viglacera Corporation, who has encouraged me to complete the thesis and provide me a lot of support during the research. I would like to express my thanks to all middle managers and all of my colleagues in Viglacera for helping me with useful data for the thesis./. ii COPYRIGHT COMMITMENT I hereby declares that this is my own research. Also, all the information used in my research is trustful and totally reliable. The competency of Viglacera middle level managers yet to be studied in deep and at overall scale, furthermore their competencies have never been benchmarked against their job requirements. In late 2011, The Executive board decided to have a HR consultant to review Viglacera’ workforce and provide recommendations for improvement. However, the report of the consultant just has been considered as a 3rd party reference, Viglacera must work on the project itself and create a strategic blueprint for HR development for the next 5 years at least. To retain its leading position in the market, it is a “do or die” project for Viglacera and this research, hopefully shall contribute a big picture overview of Viglacera workforce and recommend a good solution for Viglacera to achieve the target of the project. Having that idea in mind the author strongly believes that this research is the first one in Vietnam to construct the set of competency standards for Vietnam SOEs and it is also the first study to recommend its applications in a real situation. Once again I committed that all findings and conclusions of my research are not copied of any other work or paper. The whole or partly of this research never have been published in any kind of public media. The Author iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ...........................................................................................ii COPYRIGHT COMMITMENT ................................................................................ iii TABLE OF CONTENTS............................................................................................ iv LIST OF TABLES.................................................................................................... viii LIST OF CHARTS ...................................................................................................... x ABSTRACT................................................................................................................ xi CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION............................................................................1 BACKGROUND AND RATIONALE OF THE RESEARCH .................................. 1 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM.......................................................................... 3 HYPOTHESES .......................................................................................................... 7 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE RESEARCH.................................................................... 8 SCOPE OF THE RESEARCH ................................................................................... 9 DEFINITION OF TERMS ......................................................................................... 9 CHAPTER 2. 2.1. LITERATURE REVIEW .............................................................11 COMPETENCY – OVERVIEW ................................................................. 11 2.1.1. Competency and competency – base methodology ............................. 11 2.1.2. Competency component....................................................................... 15 2.1.3. Competency analysis process .............................................................. 19 2.2. MANAGERIAL COMPETENCIES ............................................................ 20 2.2.1. Functions of management .................................................................... 20 2.2.2. Managerial competencies..................................................................... 25 CHAPTER 3. 3.1. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY .................................................33 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY ................................................................. 33 iv 3.2. STRUCTURE OF THE RESEARCH .......................................................... 40 CHAPTER 4. PRESENTATION, ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION OF DATA…………. .........................................................................................................42 4.1. REQUIRED MANAGERIAL COMPETENCIES FOR MIDDLE-LEVEL MANAGERS AT VIGLACERA ............................................................................. 42 4.1.1. Business awareness .............................................................................. 43 4.1.2. Leadership ............................................................................................ 43 4.1.3. Setting priorities ................................................................................... 44 4.1.4. Managing the team ............................................................................... 44 4.1.5. Result orientation ................................................................................. 45 4.1.6. Change orientation ............................................................................... 46 4.1.7. Team working ...................................................................................... 46 4.1.8. Ability to influence .............................................................................. 47 4.1.9. Developing others ................................................................................ 47 4.1.10. Face to face communication ................................................................ 48 4.1.11. Interpersonal skill................................................................................. 48 4.1.12. Motivation skill .................................................................................... 49 4.2. CURRENT MANAGERIAL COMPETENCIES OF MIDDLE-LEVEL MANAGERS AT VIGLACERA ............................................................................. 51 4.2.1. Business awareness .............................................................................. 51 4.2.2. Leadership ............................................................................................ 52 4.2.3. Setting priorities ................................................................................... 52 4.2.4. Managing the team ............................................................................... 53 4.2.5. Result orientation ................................................................................. 54 4.2.6. Change orientation ............................................................................... 55 v 4.2.7. Team working ...................................................................................... 56 4.2.8. Ability to influence .............................................................................. 56 4.2.9. Developing others ................................................................................ 57 4.2.10. Face to face communication ................................................................ 58 4.2.11. Interpersonal skill................................................................................. 59 4.2.12. Motivation skill .................................................................................... 60 CHAPTER 5. REQUIRED SOLUTIONS AND TO CURRENT BRIDGE THE MANAGERIAL GAPS BETWEEN COMPETENCIES OF MIDDLE MANAGERS .............................................................................................63 5.1. BASIS FOR THE SOLUTIONS .................................................................. 63 5.1.1. Viglacera direction to develop human resource................................... 63 5.1.2. Reasoning the gaps between required and current competencies of....... middle managers .............................................................................................. 66 5.2. SOLUTIONS TO BRIDGE THE GAPS BETWEEN REQUIRED AND CURRENT COMPETENCIES OF MIDDLE MANAGERS .................................. 67 5.2.1. Training solutions ................................................................................ 67 5.2.2. Non-training solutions ......................................................................... 73 CONCLUSION......................................................................................................... 77 REFERENCES ......................................................................................................... 79 APPENDIX 1 – QUESTIONNAIR FORM FOR IDENTIFYING REQUIREMENT ON MANAGERIAL COMPETENCIES OF MIDDLE MANAGERS ........................ 85 APPENDIX 2 – QUESTIONNAIR FORM FOR ASSESSING CURRENT MANAGERIAL COMPETENCIES OF MIDDLE MANAGERS .............................. 88 APPENDIX 3 – JOB DESCRIPTION SAMPLES .................................................... 91 CURRICULUM VITAE .......................................................................................... 107 vi ABREVIATIONS AQL Acceptable Quality Level BOM Board of Management BSC Balanced Score Card CEO Chief Executive Officer CORP Corporate DEPT. Department EQ Emotional Quotient ERP Enterprise Resource Planning FM Finance Manager HR Human Resource HRM Human Resource Management JD Job Description R&D Research and Development SLSU Southern Luzon State University SOE State Owned Enterprise SWOT Strengths Weaknesses Opportunities Threats TNA Training Needs Analysis TNU Thai Nguyen University VIGLACERA Vietnam Glass and Ceramic Corporation vii LIST OF TABLES Table 1-1: Opportunities and Threats in HRM of Viglacera ...................................... 6 Table 1-2: Strengths and Weaknesses in HRM of Viglacera ...................................... 6 Table 4-1: required “business awareness” for middle managers ............................. 43 Table 4-2: required “leadership” for middle managers ............................................ 44 Table 4-3: required “setting priorities” for middle managers................................... 44 Table 4-4: required “managing the team” for middle managers ............................. 45 Table 4-5: required “result orientation” for middle managers ................................. 45 Table 4-6: required “change orientation” for middle managers .............................. 46 Table 4-7: required “team working” for middle managers ....................................... 46 Table 4-8: required “ability to influence” for middle managers .............................. 47 Table 4-9: required “developing others” for middle managers ................................ 48 Table 4-10: required “face to face communication” for middle managers .............. 48 Table 4-11: required “interpersonal skill” for middle managers ............................. 49 Table 4-12: required “motivation skill” for middle managers .................................. 49 Table 4-13: current “business awareness” of middle managers............................... 51 Table 4-14: current “leadership” of middle managers.............................................. 52 Table 4-15: current “setting priorities” of middle managers .................................... 53 Table 4-16: current “managing the team” of middle managers ............................... 54 Table 4-17: current “result orientation” of middle managers .................................. 55 Table 4-18: current “change orientation” of middle managers ............................... 55 Table 4-19: current “team working” of middle managers ........................................ 56 Table 4-20: current “ability to influence” of middle managers ................................ 57 Table 4-21: Table 4.21: current “developing others” of middle managers .............. 58 Table 4-22: current “face to face communication” of middle managers ................. 59 viii Table 4-23: current “interpersonal skill” of middle managers ................................. 59 Table 4-24: current “motivation skill” of middle managers ..................................... 60 Table 5-1: Training courses proposed for middle managers .................................... 68 Table 5-2: Solutions / Recommendations Matrix ...................................................... 75 ix LIST OF CHARTS Chart 1.1: Viglacera Competitive Advantages ............................................................. 5 Chart 2.1: The iceberg model .....................................................................................12 Chart 2.2: Competency analysis model ......................................................................20 Chart 2.3: Circle of management ...............................................................................22 Chart 3.1: Work frame of the research: .....................................................................34 Chart 4.1: Required competencies for middle managers .......................................... 50 Chart 4.2: Current competencies of middle managers vs. requirements .................. 61 Chart 4.3: Viglacera Competency Needs Analysis .................................................... 61 Chart 5.1: Viglacera business development strategy for 2010-2020 ......................... 64 Chart 5.2: Viglacera Corporate Core Values ............................................................. 65 x ABSTRACT Like most businesses, middle-level managers at Viglacera are very important, which help to achieve strategic objectives. Together with contributing valuable ideas to company’s strategies, middle managers lead the functional team to implement Corporation’s plan to real life. Therefore, managerial competencies are vitally important to middle managers. This research focuses on the gaps between current managerial competencies of middle-level managers at Viglacera and the requirement from the top managers of the corporation. It then goes further to propose solutions to bridge those gaps. According to theories, managerial competencies are skills, knowledge, self- concept, traits and motives of people in management aspect. At Viglacera, they are represented by the 12 core competencies, which include: Business awareness, Leadership, Setting priorities, Managing the team, Result orientation, Change orientation, Team working, Ability to influence, Developing others, Face to face communication, Interpersonal skill, Motivation skill. By doing survey together with in-depth interview, this research will identify the gaps between the requirements from top managers with the current managerial competencies of middle managers at Viglacera. The research, then would propose suitable solutions, which help to bridge those gaps. Hope the research result can contribute to the HR strategy of Viglacera. xi CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION BACKGROUND OF THE RESEARCH Established since 1974, Viglacera is a State Owned Enterprise (SOE) operating in construction industry under management of Ministry of Construction. Viglacera is in the stage of organizational reengineering and privatizing to cope with the economy integration trend in the whole nation. Changing to joint-stock from wholly state owned enterprises, the Corporation will be challenged by lots of difficulties: competition, social and political changes, inefficient working system and last but not least the quality of the workforce. With over 15,000 emplyees, Viglacera is one of the biggest SOEs in Vietnam, following is the organizational structure of the Corporation: Board of Director Control Board Board of Management Admin IT Support Legal & Corporate Affairs HR Trading Finance & Planning Production Land Production Management Branding Accounting Project Development General Affairs Import Export Internal Control Economic Project Planning Source: Viglacera HR department In the chart above, Top Managers are:  Board of Directors: President, CEO, Union Chairman  Control Board: 3 members reporting to President 1  Board of management: CEO and assistant CEOs There are total 13 Top Managers at Viglacera as of now. Middle Managers are:  Managers and Assistant Managers of functional departments / units  Director, Vice Directors of subsidiary companies There are about 200 Middle level Managers working at Viglacera under supersision of 13 Top Managers, those in turn under management of Ministry of Construction. Like other SOEs, at Viglacera Customer and Employee satisfaction; efficiency and productivity; stability and development of the organization are overall responsibilities of Top management board. To do those, they normally delegate to middle-level managers, who make policies, programs and processes (methodologies) implemented. Middle-level managers role is to interpret and represent the established management policy and make it alive to their reporting managers and their staff. They are key persons in communicating and tracking different kinds of goals and in making information flow up and down. In order for middle-level managers to fulfill their jobs, they must have sufficient competency but do they have it already? recently a big question at Viglacera. Nevertheless, Viglacera Top management board want to know the answer for each middle-level manager and for each of the 12 core competencies mentioned earlier. If the answer is “No” somewhere then the gap training will be needed. The author was working for a training institution of Viglacera so this research is very much relevant to the author’s job and in line with the corporation HR development strategy. Deeply understanding this situation, the Top Management Board of Viglacera cared much about how to train and develop middle managers to fit with the development plan of the Corporation in the next coming years. Viglacera placed middle 2 management force at the central point of long-term human resource strategy. But, as a fact, performances of the whole Corporation as well as of the Middle Managers were still under expectation of the Top Management Board. “Why?”. It is still a big question at Viglacera as no official research has ever been conducted. Based on the hope to contribute to answering the above question, this research focuses on managerial competencies of middle managers, to clarify whether they are under qualified or the senior expectations too high. The result of the research will help the Board of Management define the strategy decision on middle management development. It may be training or non-training solutions, even reconsidering the expectation. STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM Company profile Established since 1974 through 38 years of development, Viglacera have been transformed from a traditional brick and ceramics manufacturer to become a state owned multi-sector group of 41 subsidiaries and affiliate companies nationwide with more than 15,000 employees.  Vision: Become a leading group of building material manufacturer and real estate developer in the Asia Pacific Region.  Mission: - Provide high quality building materials to customers; - Develop premium industrial parks and living towns; Turnover 500 USD Million Average growth 20% Exports turnover 30 USD Million Product Exporting to 40 Countries Total Industrials Area 2.000 ha Source: Viglacera Corporate Finance 3 Organization structure Viglacera holding company Production 9 terracotta 3 glass producer 4 sanitary ware & fitting 3 granite & ceramic tiles 5 others Trading Land 2 subsidiaries and 2 Branches 7 subsidiaries Others: Training Centre Labour Export Centre Financial structure 41 Member company & Associated with more than 15.000 employees. 11 Associated Companies 18 Subsidiary Companies Parent Company and 12 companies to Marketing policy depend on accounting. Companies to depend on – The capital rate of Parent Company is 100% Subsidiaries - The capital rate of Parent Company is ≥51% Associated Companies - The capital rate of Parent Company is <51% Source: Viglacera Corp. HR Marketing policy To maintain the growth rate approximately at 20% per year; to become multinational company; to dominate domestic market and increase export to foreign markets. Production policy To develop premium quality products and services, difficult to clone providing added values to customers. HRM policies To provide a workforce to enable Viglacera to become a globally competent, skilled and competitive leader in the construction and manufacturing industry. 4 Finance policy To become a sustainable development company with financial status sound and sight. SWOT Analysis in HRM Chart 1: Viglacera Competitive Advantages Source: Viglacera Corp. HR. 5 Opportunities and Threats in HRM Table 1-1: Opportunities and Threats in HRM of Viglacera Opportunities Threats Easy to get knowledge exchanged because of globalization Supply of labor force increased and penetrated to regional market Market information is more transparent Recruitment service significantly improved Demand of labor keeps increasing andrecruitment competition among SOE & FDI more fierce Salary keeps increasing High rate of turnover especially in technical worker positions Lack of skillful workers esp. those who have occupational competency Candidates become more and more demanding Source: Viglacera Corporate HR Strengths and Weaknesses Table 1-2: Strengths and Weaknesses in HRM of Viglacera Strengths Weaknesses Leader team are young and well trained Modern and Good Organizational Structure ISO certificate in business management Performance-based pay motivation for employees creating Paper work environment – time consuming Recruitment brandname not strong Team work and leadership mind set Cadre rotation slow & not proactive Unity Environment Source: Viglacera Corporate HR What are the objectives of the research? Recently, Viglacera is doing very well, it achieves its target set by the Government every year despite a lot of difficulties caused by the world economic crisis. However, 6 Viglacera still does not meet its stressed target of 20% revenue growth rate per year as expected by Viglacera stake-holders and Top management board. The main reason suspectedly come from competency weaknesses of human resource especially from the middle level manager force. Deeply analysis needs to be taken out to identify specific weaknesses in 12 core managerial competencies then find out solutions to improve the weaknesses. Also there must be an analysis on the impact of middle manager competency to the operation result of the Corporation. The impact should be analyzed detail enough to point out the weight of each competency or in other words what are the key competencies that need to be addressed first. This will make the later recommended solutions more convincible and help Viglacera to prioritize and implement the solutions much more effectively. Being connected to human resource developing strategy of the company, the aim of this research is to analyze the managerial competencies of middle managers at Viglacera. The outcome of the research will help clarify the gaps between current managerial competencies and the senior’s expectations; and what solutions should be applied to overcome the gaps; Research objectives: 1. To identify required managerial competencies from top managers on middle managers at Viglacera; 2. To assess the current managerial competency level of middle managers at Viglacera, then to find the gaps between current and required managerial competencies of middle managers at Viglacera; The impact of each competency to Viglacera performance also be analyzed and weighted so that the later proposed solutions will be more concrete and effective. 3. To recommend the solutions to bridge the identified gaps. HYPOTHESES Despite the fact that middle-level managers at Viglacera are fulfilling well their current job, their competencies seem to be still lower than that the top managers expected. 7 There are 2 possible reasons for the situation. The first, the merging of different entities has been gathered differently competent people in one organization. They then have to present their competencies under different points of view from different top managers. The second, top managers always prepare for the future. So what is expected by them is higher than those required in real life. To resolve the issues, the 2 groups of solutions would be proposed, include training and non-training solutions. The training solution includes courses to improve competencies of middle managers and to equip them with continuous learning attitude. The non-training solution includes strategic detailed solutions. All of those aim to strengthen the human resource developing system of Viglacera. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE RESEARCH - To the management of the company: Firstly, the research will provide Viglacera BOM with a significant overview of their HR force. Secondly, based on the research result executive management will be able to work out what need to be done to improve quality of their HR force. And last but not least, the research provides recommended solutions for improvement. - To the customers and investors: The research can help improve the company image in customer’s mind and thus increasing customer’s loyalty in doing business with Viglacera. - To future DBA students / Researchers: This study can serve as benchmark information for related studies - To the Researcher: This work is a test of my knowledge in business and my ability to engage in a research work 8 SCOPE OF THE RESEARCH The objects of the research include managers / deputy managers of functional departments at corporate office, and those of dependent subsidiaries. Due to time constraint the primary data shall be taken from only 13 top managers and 150 middlelevel managers. The research is limited to business strategies for 10 year period from 2010 to 2020. The research does not cover independent companies within and/or outside Viglacera group, so it is limited in the following range: - Corporate offices: o CEO assistant and secretaries; o Corporate Human Resource; o Corporate Accounting and Finance; o Corporate Investment and Development; o Corporate Production division; o Corporate Real-estate management division o Corporate Trading division - Dependent subsidiaries: o Viglacera vocational college o Viglacera R&D Institute o Viglacera Training & labor export center o Viglacera faucet company Also due to time constraint the research was limited in 12 core managerial competencies classified as Generic/Basic competencies only. It was not extended to Professional competencies that differ from job to job. DEFINITION OF TERMS Competency - all the factors inside each person (including motive, character, skills, image, social role, knowledge) which effect on performance of a specific job 9