Managerial competencies of middle level managers at viglacera corporation

This dissertation focuses on the gaps between current managerial competencies of middle-level managers at Viglacera and the requirement from the top managers of the corporation.. To asse

PREFACE

In this summary dissertation, all figures and tables are numbered as in dissertation

This dissertation 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 The title of the dissertation is: “Managerial competencies of middle-level managers at Viglacera Corporation” The dissertation results can be used to construct Viglacera HR development strategy and the dissertation consists of 5 chapters

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

BACKGROUND OF THE RESEARCH

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

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

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

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, 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

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

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

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 middle-level 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

- 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

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter briefly shows arguments on the origin of competency – based methodology, competency definitions and the use of competency models in this research

2.1 COMPETENCY – OVERVIEW

This section presents 20 literatures and tens of references related to the topic

2.2 MANAGERIAL COMPETENCIES

Reviewing different definitions/concepts about managerial competencies including their classifications

CHAPTER 3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Chart 2.4: Work frame of the research:

Source: Author’s idea

Requirement on managerial

competencies for middle managers

Job analysis Management &

competencies theories

interview to top manager

Questionnaires Subordinates

Current managerial competencies

of middle managers

GAP

Training Solutions

Middle managers

Top managers

Questionnaires Top managers

Initial form for

managerial

competencies

Final questionnaire for identifying managerial competencies

Non- Training Solutions

In this thesis, both primary and secondary are used for identifying required and current managerial competencies of middle managers at Viglacera

Secondary data: Study job descriptions, periodical performance appraisals, official

HR reports to find out the problem and to design initial forms for questionnaires;

Primary data:

- In-depth interview: interviews shall be conducted to top managers to define criteria for managerial competencies at Viglacera

- Survey:

o Questionnaires shall be sent to top managers to identify required managerial competencies of middle managers;

o Questionnaires shall be sent to subordinates, middle managers, top managers to identify current managerial competencies of middle managers ( as per 360 degree feedback principle)

RESEARCH INSTRUMENT

During the interviews, descriptions of each competency will also be discussed to agree Those are then used in designing questionnaires-form

The designed questionnaire will be delivered to stakeholders to get feedback The survey will be conducted to 13 top managers, including 2 executive officers of the Corporation They are the ones who know what they needs from middle managers in the future The collected data will be used to form up a managerial competencies

requirement (Appendix 1 is the questionnaire used at this step)

The list of required managerial competencies will be also used in the questionnaire in the next step – delivering to subordinates to find out current managerial competencies

of middle managers

POPULATION OF THE SURVEY

To determine current managerial competencies of the middle managers at Viglacera,

it is essential to get evaluation from subordinates about the objectives of the study, yet evaluation from top managers and other middle managers are needed So 163 sets of questionnaire will be sent out The data will be gathered and consolidated by Excel to give out the final scoring (average value)

Besides, interviews will be conducted to 3 top managers to check the survey result for clarifying any suspicious result No correction was made after interviewing

QUESTIONNAIRE SCALE

Using 5-point Likert’s Scale

DATA GATHERING PROCEDURE

1 Seek approval from company to conduct the study

2 Gather literature and secondary data through readings from books, journals, internet, etc

3 Design questionnaires, submit for approval

4 Administer the questionnaires, collate

5 Organize data for statistical treatment, analysis and interpretation

CHAPTER 4 PRESENTATION, ANALYSIS AND

INTERPRETATION OF DATA

This chapter presents results of the survey and provides deep analysis on the data collected as well as it interprets the major meaning of the results and finally plays a role as a concrete basis for the next chapter work

4.1 REQUIRED MANAGERIAL COMPETENCIES FOR MIDDLE-LEVEL MANAGERS AT VIGLACERA

While interviewing top managers, they were all so proactive with the questionnaires The total returned questionnaires was 10 versus 10 delivered out As interviewees were asked to put the answer in numbers, I get the numbered marking and put in Excel to calculate the final result The required managerial competencies for Viglacera middle managers are showed in the following chart:

Chart 4.1: Required competencies for middle managers

Source: Author’s consolidation from the research data

4.2 CURRENT MANAGERIAL COMPETENCIES OF MIDDLE-LEVEL

MANAGERS AT VIGLACERA

Managerial competencies of middle managers at Viglacera have been identified through the research They do not match with the requirement from the top managers

Competencies requirement

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Leaders hip

Settin

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Mana ging t

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Resul

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Chart 4.2: Current competencies of middle managers vs requirements

Source: Author’s consolidation from the research

Chart 4.3: Viglacera Competency Needs Analysis

Source: HR2B

As showed on Chart 4.3 above, in order for middle Managers at Vigalcera to improve

their performance as well as improving performance of their company/department,

they need to pay immediate attention in enhancing their “Management” skills and

“Soft” skills which respectively 63% and 43% of respondents considered as critical

weaknesses of middle managers

Requirement and current competencies

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CHAPTER 5 SOLUTIONS TO BRIDGE THE GAPS

BETWEEN REQUIRED AND CURRENT MANAGERIAL

COMPETENCIES OF MIDDLE MANAGERS

Chapter IV has identified the gaps between current competencies and requirement

from top managers for the business in the future

This chapter will present some solutions to bridge the gaps All the solutions are

developed based on theory on management and training with the link to the context of

Viglacera Corporation

5.1 BASIS FOR THE SOLUTIONS

5.1.1 Viglacera direction to develop human resource

Viglacera HR development plan always aligns with its business development strategy

and the Corporate Core Values that are showed in the following charts

Chart 5.1: Viglacera business development strategy for 2010-2020

Source: Viglacera Business Development Plan 2010-2020

Chart 5.2: Viglacera Corporate Core Values

Source: Corporate HR Department

In the following parts, the reasons for the gaps will be presented under the view of the author after doing some in depth interviews inside Viglacera That would be the basis for recommending solutions to bridge those gaps

5.1.2 Reasoning the gaps between required and current competencies of middle managers

Established in 1974 by merging different entities, Viglacera have been so difficult in

one organization; it created conflicts among the team in the way of working That is why many issues were found in the HR management aspects:

- There is still unclearness in delegation of top managers to functioning departments However working procedures are being set and corrected Levels of authorization and delegation are step by step clarified and implemented

- The demand for human resource development is not so clear Quantity and quality of middle management were not defined based on a careful job analysis

- Human resource policies and mechanisms are not very competitive to create inspiration of labor force

- The recruitment and selection procedures are still complicated and not very contributive They are not tempted to high quality labors

- Current labor force is not reasonably categorized and planned

- There is not a suitable integrated training strategy

- Learning culture is still not built inside the Corporation

Those issues create the gaps between required and current competencies of middle managers inside Viglacera To understand clearly, the researcher has spent time with top managers It was clarified as the follows:

During the merge of entities to establish Viglacera, middle managers were gathered from different entities, those were different in management style, working attitude, corporate culture and management requirements It therefore leads to the fact that someone is not good in this person view but still good in other eyes As a result, middle managers do not exceed the “just fine” level under deferent views, despite they are rather well fulfilling their current jobs

Besides, business context is changing It urges the Corporation’s behavior change accordingly So it raises up the requirement for human resource competencies toward meeting the future condition So the gaps get bigger and bigger

5.2 SOLUTIONS TO BRIDGE THE GAPS BETWEEN REQUIRED AND CURRENT COMPETENCIES OF MIDDLE MANAGERS

To bridge the gaps, we need to look at 2 aspects of solutions: training and non-training The training solutions focus on improving middle managers competencies, meanwhile the non-training solutions focus on enhancing the human resource system

of the Corporation

5.2.1 Training solutions

5.2.1.1 Training courses

The following is the courses I would like to proposed to Viglacera

Table 5-1: Training courses proposed for middle managers

1 Running business in changing world

2 Experiment with new approaches

3 Creative thinking

4 Leadership skills

5 Time management

6 Managing people

7 Building team spirit in your organization

8 Coaching staff

9 Effective communication

10 Developing your EQ

11 Motivation skill

Source: Author’s idea