Solutions to develop leadership capacities of departmental level officers to enhance the effectiveness of hoa lac hi tech park management board

With the purpose of researching the development of leadership in state administrative units, the authors would like to provide some sollutions to improve leadership skills of middle mana

UPPSALA UNIVERSITET & ^ S {

UPPSALA UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS & BUSINESS, VNUH \^^^

UNIVERSITET ^ p ^ » 5 > ^ ^

, • • •

MASTER THESIS OF MPPM

Title Solutions to develop leadership capacities of departmental level officers

to enhance the effectiveness of Lac Hi-Tech Park Management Board

Authors: Dang Dinh Tung

Bui Thanh Tung

Si4pervisors: Prof Lars - Torsten Eriksson PhD

Dr, Dinh Viet Hoa PhD

Class: MPPM INTAKE 6 - Group 22

Hanoi, M a y - 2 0 1 3

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

First, we would like to express our deepest gratitude to Prof Lars Torsten Eriksson, Dr Sven-Erik Svard, Dr Dinh Viet Hoa, and other tutors at National Economics University and Uppsala University Their precious guidance, advices and lectures greatly helped us to complete not only our thesis but also the wonderful master course of public management

Second, we greatfully appreciate my colleagues at Hoa Lac Hi-Tech Park Management Board, Ministry of Science and Technology, and at the programme for their valuable comments and supports

Finally, our special thanks are given to our family, our friends, who encourage and motivate us to study in this course

^ >

ABSTRACT

Leaders', over years, have been proved to play a vital role in the development of organizations Via their proper policies, they can create a harmonious working environment then encourage their team to efficiently coopperate to achieve orgarnization's target

However, in Vietnam, the necessary capabilities of organization leaders

do not seem to be carefully considered especially in the public sector while the international integration and future development require these qualifications to be improved to adapt to a continuously changing economy Although there were anumerous studies on leadership, almost of them focus on businesses and not emphasize on state administrative units

With the purpose of researching the development of leadership in state administrative units, the authors would like to provide some sollutions to improve leadership skills of middle managers at department level in Hoa Lac Hi-Tech Park Management Board, which is responsible for managing and developing an intensively high-tech center and stimulating technological innovation in Vietnam

1 Objectives: There are three main objectives of this paper as below:

First, the study aims to understand the current status of leadership of

managers at the departmental level (middle managers) in Hoa Lac Hi-Tech Park Management Board

Second, the research will investigate the impact of leadership skills on work efficiency of the board to define essential skills

The last objective is to propose measures to improve leadership abilities and the efficiency of the board based on these essential skills

2 Methodology:

Method for data analysis

The authors use qualitative analysis method with the two follovinng models/methods:

- SWOT analysis: the authors only use this method for the analysis of

secondary data to understand the current situation of the leadership of the Management Board which emphasizes the strengths, weakness, opportunities and challenges relating to skills used for dealing with everyday

tasks On this basis, the authors w\\\ undertake a questionnaire-based

interviews to clarify this analysis and find the results

- Comparative assessment: This method is mainly used in the thesis This

method is based on the data collected from the survey questionnaires, charts, drawings to analyze, identify and indicate the results from the synthesis of data This analysis will clarify the findings from the SWOT analysis, thereby mastering the leadership situation objectively from the data collected

Methods for data collection

- Collecting secondary data: Legal documents on organization structure,

plans, agendas, operation of the managment board, international and domestic results on esential skills, Internet materials, observations and inteviews

- Collecting primary data: through questionnaire based surveying all the

managers at the departmental level of three divisions of Hoa Lac Hi-Tech Park Management Board and departmental level leaders of the Ministry of Science and Technology The authors collected and synthesize data from 41 questionnaires

3 Conclusions

Defining essential skills for leadership applied in Hoa Lac

- Skills applied to all the units: planning and job organization,

communication, assigning and delegating, listening, foreign language and information and comunication technology

- Skill applied to some units whose work requires more communication, cooperation with outside partners: negotiation

- Skill applied to some units whose work requires less communication with partners outside and focusing on cooperation inside the units: teamwork

Solutions to improve leadership capacities based on these skills: two

solution groups are proposed including (1) Enhance the awareness of leadership and (2) improve the skills for leadership where training method

of adult learning is preferred

4 Limitations of the thesis and suggestions for future research:

Scope of the research

i) The research of this thesis focuses on skills (S) for leadership to improve leadership capacities while leadership capacities includes more 3 factors including 2 other like attitude (A) and knowledge (K) (ASK model) Therefore, the research result in this thesis should be acceptable only when all

of middle managers have enough qualifications and good behaviour to deal with work Futhur research will be on the impact of knnowledege and attitude

on leadship capacity of middle managers of the board Based on this result, some solutions will be proposed to be added to skill solutions for leadership capacity enhancement

ii) The research of this thesis focuses on leadership of middle managers without taking account into the employees who will tentatively be planned to

be potential middle managers in the future It should extend the research

range which investigation wiW be focus on essential skills for the officers of the

board who are planned to become middle managers in the fijture or who are playing roles as middle managers in the board

iii) Although the model of leadership capacity fi-amework with 7 elements are included in the thesis to research, authors focused only on leadership skills but did not analyze the impact of these elements or skills on

the work efficiency In the ftjture, the fi-amework model and set of skills for the leadership capacity should be researched to apply this model in practice

5 Contribution of the thesis

Theoretical contributions

This thesis has combined model and SWOT analysis of results from survey data by taking the results from the SWOT analysis as the rationale for the survey data for qualitative analysis This will help research and collect data effectively and conveniently, thus ensuring the logics and accuracy of identifying and analyzing data

Practical contributions

- The resech reflexes the clear status of leadership in Hoa Lac Hi-Tech

Park Management Board as well as in hi-tech parks throughout the country

- The research is valuabe when in Vietnam there are few projects/plans

6 Key words: leadership/leaders,management/managers, leadership

capacities, middle managers, essential skills for leadership, integration

TABLE OF CONTENT

CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION ^

1 Background 2 1.1 The foundation of Hoa Lac Hi-Tech Park 2

1.2 Overview of Hoa Lac Hi-Tech Park Management Board 4

1.3 Overview of operation of Hoa Lac Hi-Tech Park 4

2 Defining the research problem 6

3 Research questions : 7

4 Research objectives 7

5 Scope of the research 8

CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW 9

1 Theories about leadership 9

1.1 Concepts/views of leadership 9

1.2 A leader versus a manager 10

1.3 Middle managers and management model at the middle level 11

2 Models about leadership abilities 12

2.1 ASK Model 12 2.2 Model of leadership capabilities on characteristic 14

2.3 Leadership model proposed by John Maxwell 17

3 Views and identification about essential skills -19

CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY 21

1 Methods for data analysis 21

1.1 SWOT model 21 1.2 Comparative assessment 22

2 Methods for data collection • • 23

2.1 Collecting secondary data 23

2.2, Collecting primary data - Surveying method (using questionnaires) 24

CHAPTER IV: RESULTS AND FINDINGS 27

4.2 Necessary skills for work 45

4.3 Skills need to be added 47

4.4 Prefered measures in skill training 47

CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION 43

1 Summary of the result and discussion 48

1.1 Situation of skills for leadership of the middle managers in Hoa Lac 48

1.2 Essential skills for leadship for the middle managers in Hoa Lac Hi-Tech Park's

environment 49 1.3 Proposals on measures to improve skills for leadership 53

2 Conclusions 55 2.1 Defining essential skills for leadership applied in Hoa Lac 55

2.2 Solutions to improve leadership capacities based on these skills 55

3 Answer the research questions 56

4 Limitations of the thesis and suggestion for further research 57

4.1 Scope of the research 57

LIST O F FIGURES AND CHARTS

Figure 1.1: Organization Chart of Hoa Lac Hi-Tech Park Management Board '.4

Figure 1.2: Middle management in comparision with junior and senior level 12

Figure 1.3: Model ASK of capabilities 13

Figure 1.4: Leadership model based on characteristics 15

Figure 1.5: SWOT analysis 22

Chart 2.1: Skills approved "necessary" to the middle managers who have 5 to 10

years'experience 44

Chart 2.5: Skills approved "necessary" to the middle managers by gender 45

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1.1: The comparision between leaders and managers 11

Table 1.2: 21 golden qualifies of leadership 18

Table 2.1: SWOT analysis on leadership at Hoa Lac 28

Table 2.2: Statistic data 28

Table 2.3: Knowledge about organization 29

Table 2.4: Viewpoints about leadership - ^9

Table 2.5: The importance of leadership skills • 30

Table 2.6: The statistic analysis of prior order for daily works 30

Table 2.7: The priority order based on the importance degree 31

Table 2.8: Leadership in work assigning 31

Table 2.9: Work assigning 32 Table 2.10: Dealing with incomplete work 33

Table 2.11: Working cooperation 33

Table 2.12: Dealing with meetings 34

Table 2.13: Charing a meeting 35 Table 2.14: Dealing with partners/senior managers 35

Table 2.15: Cooperation with partners outside ' 36

Table 2.16: Persuasiveness ability 37

Table 2.17: Listening skill 37 Table 2.18: Working motivation 38

Table 2.19: Awareness of working cooperation 38

Table 2.20: Attendance rate of participation in training 39

Table 2.21: Training result 39

Table 2.22: Foreign language skill ^^

Table 2.23: Primary orders of training methods 40

Table 2.24: Viewpoint of essential skills ^'^

Table 3.1: Research on essential skills in the U.S 50

Table 3.2: Research on essential skills in Australia 51

Table 3.3: Research on essential skills in Canada 51

Table 3.4: Research on essential skills in the U.K 52

Table 3.5: Research on essential skills in Singapore ^

Table 3.6: Research on essential skills in Vietnam

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

The year of 2012 seems to be a gloomy year of global economy Th public debt crisis in Europe is an ongoing serious cumbersome whil leading economies such as America and Japan are facing a pessimistic economic future Contributing to the somber picture of internaltional market, the growth rate in emerging countries like China, India, and Brazil

is slowing down in comparision with 3-5 years agol That leads to a downward trend in purchasing power and an increasing unployment rate.i

In Vietnam, the GDP growth in 2012 reached only 5.03%, a little higher than crisis year 1999 but much lower than that of recent years This year also witnessed about forty thousand companies which have gone bankrupt; contributing approximately ten one hundred thoudsand of bankrupted organizations from 2011-2012 or a half of total cases in two recent decades

As a result, job seeking has been restricted and the unployment rate has become more serious, consequently that has bad effects on individual income and spending.^

For recent years, the foundation of hi-tech parks has helped Vietnam to concentrate working forces, attract more foreign investment and technology transfer In addition, these establishments have stimulated firms' competition and technology These parks have proved their pioneer role in restructuring and development of economy and workforce, improving living standard, and encouraging export The role can be clearly

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seen via a huge foreign direct investment of global technology corporations into Vietnam for recent decade; and many of them have been benefited from hi-tech investment encouragement policy of Vietnam Government On the other aspect, the firms such as Samsung, Foxconn, Canon, Nidec, and Intel, which are in their global supply chain, have significantly contributed

to export volume and created many jobs in Vietnam Despite of a modest level of value added, these firms helps Vietnam to be recognized in international High-tech industries.3

1 Background

1.1 The foundation of Hoa Lac Hi-Tech Park

Hoa Lac Hi-Tech Park was established according to Decision 198/1998/QD-TTg dated 12, October 1998 issed by Prime Minister of Vietnam with the support of Japanese Government and based on experience

of other countries all over the world The hi-tech zone of 1,650 hectares is maily located in Thach That District, Hanoi, Vietnam and the primary goal of the park is to stimulate industrialization and modernization in local and national economy It is a convenient environment for receiving technology transfer and inventing advanced technologies In addition, the foundation has provided valuable experience for the futher start-up of other high-tech zones in Vietnam

Furthermore, the firms investing in Hoa Lac Hi-Tech Park are entitled

to be benefited not only financially but also other aspects at the highest level according to Domestic Investment Encouraging Act, Foreign Investment Act and other valid laws Below is the summary about the hi-tech park

First, as for characteristic, the park is a technological and economic complex, attempted to researching, developing then applying advanced

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Thu-hut-cong-nghe-cao-''/oE2»^o80"'o9Chon-Truong-Ba-da-hang-technology, supporting hi-tech firms, supplying technologically skilled workforces and creating hi-tech products

Second, about main standpoints and targets, Hoa Lac Hi-Tech Park is devoted for:

+ Connecting, unitizing operations of the park with other functional entities of Hoa Lac Urban and local areas in terms of infrastructure

+ Providing good conditions for operations of the organizations inside the park

+ Exploiting the advantages of the location, creating an attractive investment environment and minimizing expenses of investing in infrastructure

+ Creating solid legal foundation for the implementation, contruction and management of projects in the hi-tech park

Therefore, after ten years from the establishment, Prime Minister of Vietnam has issued decision 621/QD-TTg dated 23/05/2008 on the revision of general constructing scheme of Hoa Lac Hi-Tech Park According the decision, the park is located in the area of 1,586 hectare, along Thang Long avenue, formerly Lang Hoa Lac highway; and this park includes a part

of Bac Phu Cat industrial zone

In addition, the characteristics and goals of the project has been revised to that Hoa Lac Hi-Tech Park will be targeted to be a national high technology research and application center, a place to support technologically intensive firms, create qualified workforce, stimulate hi-tech products invention and business The park consists of several function areas, for example hi-tech intrustrial zone, the center of research and application, sofware zone, training and education zone, residence, office complex, and hi-tech services In which, it focuses on developing hi-tech industries such as: informative technology, telecommunication, biotechnology, and renewable energy industry

1.2 Overview of Hoa lac Hi-Tech Park Management Board

Prime Minister of Vietnam has approved decision 98/2009/QD-TTg dated 27/07/2009 on approving the fimctions and responsibilities of Hoa Lac Hi-Tech Park Management Board The decision stated that the board is

a unit of Ministry of Science and Technology and responsible for directly administrative management over Hoa Lac Hi-Tech Park

The organization chart of Hoa Lac Hi-Tech Park Management Board is described as the graph below

Hoa Lac Hi-Tech Park Infrastructure project management unit

Figure 1.1: Organization Chart of Hoa Lac Hi-Tech Park Management Board

(Source: Hoa Lac Hi-Tech Park Management Board)

1.3 Overview of operation of Hoa Lac Hi-Tech Park

- Done from 2006-2008: 413 hectares

- Transfered from Bac Phu Cat Industrial Zone: 232 hectares

- Since 2009: the land acquisition is a problem

1.3.2 Infrastructure

According to decision 621/QD-TTg dated 23/05/2008 issed by Prime Minister of Vietnam, the most important items of infrastructure construction of Hoa Lac Hi-Tech Park is planned to be done in 2015 and completely finished in 2020 However, the target has not been achieved, below is the current situation of the construction:

- Transportation system: there are 19 km of road which provide the link between Hoa Lac Avenue and the park and the road system enable to construct the function zones mentioned above In addition, the project of 1,036 hectares of infrastructure, funded by Official Development Aids (ODA) from lapanese Government, has been in progress at phase 1 of technical support for design The financing negotiation for the phase of construction, which is planned to be completed in 2015, has been preparing and signing

- Water and wastewater treatment system: the construction has been completed and a treatment system of 6,000 m^per day is in the final test

- Electricity system: Electricity Vietnam Group has been assigned by Prime Minister of Vietnam to supply power for the hi-tech park; however, the service quality is not as expected Electricity cut-off normally results in problems of operation of the firm inside the park

Telecomunication system: Although Vietnam Post and Telecommunication Group has been appointed to build the infrastructure, the construction seems to be not started

- Water supply: The quality of water is not high, unqualified sources is still in use inside the park

1.3.4 Investment attraction

There are 66 projects have been approved up to the first quarter of

2013, excluding 8 projects have been dismissed by the authority because of unqualification Total registered investment of these projects is 51,791 VND, in which there are 22 projects completed and in operating while 13 project being constructed

The hi-tech park is targeted to become a city of advanced technology with different functioning areas and adequate hi-tech services and sound infrastructure systems Hoa Lac Hi-Tech Park aims to attract investment of leading organizations, both international and domestic, in high technology industry Therefore, the role of the park management board needs to be altered to be adapt to these objectives

2 Defining the research problem

Despite the fact that Hoa Lac Hi-Tech Park has implemented for fifteen years, the park has not achieved the prime goals One of posible reason for the unexpected result is insufficient investment of Vietnam Government to meet the requirement of infrastructure construction In addition, the park is the first hi-tech park in Vietnam; thus, there are unavoidable and unforecasted difficulties and it operates in totally different way from the existing normal administrative officers Moreover, the staff of the management board has little experience in managing hi-tech fields and has

to be concurrently responsible for many aspects such as state administration of high technology, project management, infrastructure management

To tackle this issue, we would like to get to know about the current status of operationa and leadership of middle managers of the Hoa Lac Hi-Tech Park Management Board, and then to give propals to improve the working efficiency of the board And then the authors have chosen title of this study is "Solutions to enhance leadership capabilities at departmental

level to improve the working efficiency in Hoa Lac Hi-Tech Park Management Board"

To middle managers, completing tasks depends on many factors such as: knowledge, qualifications, ability, skills and so on Howerver, a Harvard University study shows that 15% of the reason a person gets a job, keeps a job, or advances in a job is related to technical skills and job knowledge 85% has to do with people skills^

Therefore, in the thesis, the authors focus on investigating the status of ability, level and understanding about leadership skils to middle managers

in the units of Hoa Lac Hi-Tech Park Given that, we aim to analyze the current skills of middle managers about organization management then provide suggestions to improve their abilities through enhancement of these skills, thereby facilitate the operations and promote the effiecency in the park

3 Research questions

The study will be conducted in questionnaires that emphasize on the solutions to improve leadership skills of middle managers for better administration efficiency in Hoa Lac Hi-Tech Park Management Board The two main questions will be as below:

- Which are necessary skills needed to be improved leadership capabilities

of middle managers at Hoa Lac Hi-Tech Park Management Board?

- What measures are suggested to improve the leadership from these essential skills?

4 Research objectives

There are three main objectives of this paper as below:

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First, the study aims to understand the current status of leadership of managers at the departmental level (middle managers) in Hoa Lac Hi-Tech Park Management Board

Second, the research wdll investigate the impact of leadership skills on work efficiency of the board to define essential skills

The last objective is to propose measures to improve leadership abilities and the efficiency of the board based on these essential skills

5 Scope of the research

The study will focus on the relevant leadership skills to Hoa Lac Hi-Tech Park Management Board; thus does not emphasize on all the skills for leadership

The research will be carried out based on experience and opinions of middle managers of the units belonging to Hoa Lac Hi-Tech Park Management Board as well as to the Ministry of Science and Technology Based on this, authors will provide suggestions to improve leadership capacities of middle managers

CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW

1 Theories about leadership

1.1 Concepts/views of leadership

The term of leadership has been emerged and analysized for thousands years Normally, leader is considered as a powerful person who dominates and governs a country, a clan, a religion or an army The definition, however, has been broadened with the development of human society Nowadays, a leader can be an individual with a good strategic vision, and dynamic, creative characters or wiht abilities of significantly influencing or gathering many people into a group There are a lot of outstanding examples for the importance of leaders such as Franklin Lincoln, Alexander the Great in politics or well-known entrepreneurs like Bill Gates of Microsoft: Inc., Steve Jobs of Apple Inc (US), Akio Morita of Sony Corporatation (Japanese)

The wide denotation of leadership might lead to misunderstandings about this term (Janda, 1960) Stogdill (1974) summarized that the perceptiveness about leadership depends on the way of approaching and specific situation For example

- Leadership is an action of an individual to control and govern a group for the purpose of achieving agreed targets (Halpin & Coons, 1957)

- Leadership is an action of having influence on staff through conducts, regulations and decisions in an organization (D Katz & Kahn, 1978)

- Leadership is a process of influencing on operation of an entity to achieve agreed goals (Rauch & Behling, 1984)

- Leadership is a process of setting targets then achieving through efforts of a team (Jacobs & jaques, 1990)

- Leadership is an ability to solve current limitation to originate a revolution (E.H.Schein, 1992)

- Leadership is process of instructing and enlightening other persons; thereby, they will implement their commitments with comprehension (Drath&Palus, 1994)

- Leadership is a connection between vision with core values and the provision of a sound environment for smooth operating (Richards & Engles, 1986)

- Leadership is skills of influencing, encouraging and motivating people and making them contribute their abilities on successes of an organization (House et.al„ 1999)

In summary, the above opinions of leadership mostly mention about the abilities of influenceing on other individuals to make changes for the purpose of achieving agreed targets in an organization

1.2 A leader versus a manager

The comparision between a leader and a manager can be summarized

as below:

place to another

M.4NAGERS

Do thines neht Focus on HOW things should be done

Confonnitv Control Rules onented Transactional Ensure stabililv of the svstem Procedure Strategy, Objective Manage chanee - ensure the abilitv to

W V *

handle it

Table 1.1: The comparision between leaders and managers ^

13 Middle managers and management model at the middle level

According to Huy (2001, p.72), there are four main characteristic of

middle management level as below:

- They frequently have good ideas and are always to achieve organization's

aims

- They normally have close relationship with manager at higher levels

- They are always willing to help their staff to reduce working

pressures

- They are always willing to help their stafl^ in restructuring the

organization

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Junior/first-Middle manager

i

Top/Senior managers

Figure 1.2: Middle management in comparision with junior and senior level^ The graph above shows an important role of middle managers as they have to involve in operation of an organization more than senior/top managers, and direct the lower managers Hence, we have used appropriate tools and methods to investigate leadership skills of middle managers at Hoa Lac Hi-Tech Park

Based on the existing theories, we will study the nature, role of the level of management to evaluate the awareness of the level at Hoa Lac Hi-Tech Park Management Board about leadership and necessary skills

2 Models about leadership abilities

2.1 ASK Model

Kathryn and Graham (2001) argued that capabilities of an individual are total of his/her skills, abilities, knowledge and resources That can be illustrated in graph below:

** Source : Bartol ct al (2003, p 16)

Figure 1.3: Model ASK of capabilities ^ According to the model above, capacity of a person consists of there main factors namely attitudes, skills, and knowledge These factors can be explained in more detailed as:

- A (Attitudes): The matter concerns the aspect of morality, viewpoint, and behaviour of an individual Attitude is one of the most important

factors which can help to create valuable skills and achieve long-term

successes

- S (Skills): They can be any skills, experiences of an individual They are the application of knowledge in practice then become conditional reactions

- K (Knowledge): McHill (2004) believe that knowledge is a broad term

and can be divided into there main categories namely: professional

knowledge, social knowledge and natural science knowledge

Therefore, according to ASK model, it requires a leader to have all three above factors, in which:

- Leadership knowledge, both fundamental and advanced, is foundation for governing an organization or a business It is built on general knowledge, such as mathematics, literature professional knowledge such as

' Source; Bass B.M UandKx^k of leadership New York: Free Press 19^0

economics, law, management, and other knowledge about planning and setting strategies In addition, knowledge about culture and history of other countries is really important especially in a high integration environment presently Hence, it is necessary for them to continuously enrich their knowledge to achieve the best results

- Leadership skills: It requires leaders to have necessary skills such as: encouraging, motivating, problem solving, and decision making It is necessary for leaders to practice and improve these skills then make them become conditional reactions That will help their organization operate smoothly in every departments, every steps from identifying, implementing and completing projects

- Attitude of leaders can be considered as their behaviour toward their staff; and it is based on their standpoints, characteristics, and morality As their important roles, leaders need to fairly, flexibly and clearly behave towards their staff in order to achieve respect and belief from their team's members

In the study, the authors will focus on one of the three factors above that is leadership skills and analyze the impact of the skills on ability of middle managers at Hoa Lac Hi-Tech Park Management Board

2.2 Model of leadership capabilities on characteristic

In a book named "The Cutting Edges of Leadership", by Mr James G.Hunt va Professor Emeritus Lars L, PhD, Southern Illinois Univerisity

1977, illustrates leadership capabilities as the figure below:

Strategic vision

Encouraging &

motivating

AuthorisationA Delegating

Leadership Capabilities

Influencing & Decision Underetan- Leadership building image making ding communica-

tion

Figure 1.4: Leadership model based on characteristics ^

In this model, leadership capabilities include main elements below:

- Strategic vision: Hill and Jones (1998) believe that strategic vision is long-term targets of an organization That is the ability to realize the movement of market, business environment and development of the organization and society as well Strategic vision enables leaders to create a highly united, argeed and concentrated organization in order to achieve its long-term goals

- Encouraging and motivating: Bartol (2001) believes leaders aim to encourage, motivate, and inspire their team members to actively complete their duties Through these actions, leaders allow their staff to express their abilities, and contribute their best on the success of the organization; and increase the employees' loyalty to the organization

- The ability of authorization and delegation: Conger and Kanungo (1988) argue that delegation is a method to encourage and motivate people

to complete their work because they believe that they are respected and highly appreciated Hence, they will contribute their best on the goals of the organization

" Source: ITie cutting edges ofleadership Southern Illinois Uni 1977

- Decision making: It enables a corporation to achieve its target not only in a short run but also in a long term Thus, it is necessary to improve this skill continuously as its important roles Decisions can be made by the leaders only of an organization or made via collecting opinions from other members or discussion in group (Harvard Business Review on Decision Making, Harvard Business School Press, 2001)

- Ability of influencing: It has some similarities to encouragement and motivation This ability is a process where leaders inspire and build an impressive image on their colleagues and partners Kelman (1958) suggests three types of conformity, which are "compliance", "internalisation", and

"identification"

- Leadership communication: Baskin & Aronoff (1980) defines that communication is mutual information exchange between the partners that aims to create, strengthen and develop the relationship between a leader and his/her employees It provides a solid foundation and sound motivation for development and successes of an organization It can be oral communication or comunication via telephone, post, or email; and required

to be made in company with listening and understanding skill

- Understanding each other: The skill enables leaders to identify targets then make best decisions to achieve these targets Understanding themselves and their staff allows organization leaders to properly assign and instruct their employees to do their tasks

Through analyzing the model, we will apply these findings to investigate leadership capabilities of middle managerial level at Hoa Lac Hi-Tech Park Management Board in term of the aspects below:

- Analyzing strategic vision: In Vietnam, the awareness of the importance of strategic vision seems to be not clear and focused The situation likely has bad impacts on core values and operation of an

organization The study will provide a summary of skills then give answers for the questions on the managers' viewpoints about strategic vision of their organization

- Analyzing the skill of assigning, organizing and cooperating: the study will address the question: Who makes the final decision? How do middle managers at the board cooperate to achieve the agreed targets?

- Analyzing communication skills: The thesis aims to provide the answer for the question that how the middle manager use these skills in their job

2.3 Leadership model proposed by John Maxwell

When analyzing leadership capabilities Maxwell (1993) summarize these abilities as following:

- Leadership is the process of influencing;

- Leadership is the process of dealing with tasks in priority order;

- One of the most important elements in leadership skills is consistency;

- A test with hardship is a positive change

- The shortest way to improve leadership skill is through problem solving;

- One important factor of leadership capabilities is attitudes;

- An organization should develop the most precious asset: human beings;

- The most important qualification of a leader is vision;

- The price for a leader is self-punishment;

- The most valuable experience is human resource development

His arguments are consistent with ASK model; however, he focuses on skills, attitudes but not knowledge Especially, in a later research Maxwell (1999) points out the necessary qualifications of a leader without taking acount into the knowledge factor, including:

- Skills: work arranging with priorities, problem solving

- Attitudes/Behaviours: attitude, vision, consistency, self-discipline, etc

In the book named "21 indispensable qualities of leadership", Maxwell Motivation, Inc, A Geogia Corparation, 1999, ]ohh Maxwell points out crucial qualifications of a leader including:

Concentration Broad-minded

Proactiveness Listening

Passions Enthusiasm | Problem solving

Relationship

Sense of responsibility Consistency

Self-conscious discipline Sense of contribution

Criosity Strategic vision Table 1.2: 21 golden qualifies of leadership

In general, these qualifications are consistent with the viewpoint of other scholars in communication, abilities, listening, problem solving, and

strategic vision Maxwell, however, mentions some other unconsidered aspects of a leader such as activeness, broad-minded, and acquiring mind Analyzing the model of Maxwell helps the authors study characteristics

of leadership capabilities at middle level to address the questions below:

- How do the middle managers aware the importance of strategic vision?

" Which skills are well satisfied by the managers? Which skills should

be improved?

- Which are the feasible solutions to improve these skill?

3 Views and identiflcation about essential skills

A Skill mentioned in the ASK model above is handling knowledge available to solve a particular situation in a specific circumstance Essential Skills are the skills needed for work, learning and life They provide the foundation for learning all other skills and enable people to evolve with their jobs and adapt to workplace change

According to international scholars, defining these skills depends on the practical research result and conditions of each countr\ and there's no criteria to measure the necessit}' level of a skill However, in our point of views, essential skills for leadership are the skills which are usually used in dealing with work and affect directly the working efficiency

In the book ''Skills and Jobs'' by Secretary's Commission on Achieving Necessar>' Skills of the U.S (SCANS), defining essential skills is based on the research on assessment of skills in connection with correspoding tasks On the other hand, this research was carried out through consulting individuals about

Source: www.llsc.on.ca literacy-essential-skills what-are-essentiaNskills

the necessity level (ranked from 1 to 5) which is applied to employees of 35 various jobs

In additionto this, in the report "Workplace essential skills'' by the Department of Labor of the U.S, (2000), the research on essential skills is made through a number of steps as follows:

- Each skill section leads with the original SCANS definition

- Panel comments: A panel of technical experts including business, government, and education professionals was convened to review the information that was gathered during the literature review

- Summary of the literature review: More than fifty domestic and international sources that reported on sets of essential skills were included in the literature review

- Summaries of how a given skill or skill area was defined by a source are included under this heading

- Based on the literature and panel comments, hierarchical behavioral scales for each skill area were developed

Through the study of the concept and the method of determining the necessary skills, the authors will collect the opinions/views of middle managers or consult experts with references to evaluate and give the results of studies on necessary skills for leadership

CHAPTER III METHODOLOGY

1 Methods for data analysis

As mentioned above, the term of leadership capabilities is a broad and abtract concept which consists of many necessary skills and qualifications for

a leader In our research, the skills should meet the requirement to achieve the vision and mission of the management board Therefore, we use mainly qualitative method to study these skills via investigating the practical experience of middle managers at the board with some models/methods as follows:

1.1 SWOT model

a) Overview' of SWOT analysis

SWOT analysis (alternatively SWOT Matrix)'" is a structured planning method used to evaluate the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats involved in a project or in a business venture A SWOT analysis can

be carried out for a product, place, industry or person It involves specifying the objective of the business venture or project and identifying the internal and external factors that are favorable and unfavorable to achieving that objective The technique is credited to Albert Humphrey, who led a convention at the Stanford Research Institute (now SRI International) in the 1960s and 1970s using data from Fortune 500 companies The degree to which the internal environment of the firm matches with the external environment is expressed by the concept of strategic fit

The usefulness of SWOT analysis is not limited to profit-seeking organizations SWOT analysis may be used in any decision-making situation

10 Source: Wikipedia

when a desired end-state (objective) has been defined Examples include: non-profit organizations, governmental units, and individuals SWOT analysis may also be used in pre-crisis planning and preventive crisis management SWOT analysis may also be used in creating a recommendation during a viability study/survey

Strengths: characteristics of the

business or project that give it

an advantage over others

Weaknesses: are characteristics

that place the team at a disadvantage relative to others

Opportunities: elements that the

project could exploit to its advantage

Interna factors

Extern factors

Threats: elements in the

environment that could cause trouble for the business or project

Figure 1.5: SWOT analysis

b) The use of the SWOT analysis for the research

In the thesis, the authors only use this method for the analysis of secondary data to understand the current situation of the leadership of the Management Board which emphasizes the strengths, weakness, opportunities and challenges relating to skills used for dealing with evervday tasks On this basis, the authors will undertake a questionnaire-based interviews to clarify this analysis and find the results

1.2 Comparative assessment

This method is mainly used in the thesis This method is based on the data

and indicate the results from the synthesis of data This analysis will clarify the findings from the SWOT analysis, thereby mastering the leadership situation objectively from the data collected

2 Methods for data collection

2.1 Collecting secondary data

To implement our research, the authors used the following sources of secondary data;

- Legal documents on organization structure, plans, agendas of the managment board

- Periodical report on the operation, personnel, nomination and training activities of the board

- Other data like international and domestic results on esential skills, journals, magazines and materials from Internet

- Observation: as a middle manager at Hoa Lac Hi-Tech Park Management Board, we with the co-operation of the another author, observes and records daily operation of the level then critically evaluate the current awareness and application of leadership skills and methods and critically appraise the leadership capabilities at the management board

- Interviews: The authors also conducted inter\new some leaders and managers to grasp the reality of leadership through the assessment of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and challenges of leadership capacity, the necessary skills and related solutions Statements on strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and challenges of leadership capacities will serve

as a basis for the SWOT analysis while necessary skills and related solutions will be analyzed together with the results of data analysis from the survey questionnaire

2.2 Collecting primary data - Surveying method (using questionnaires)

For a comprehensive review^ and objective point of view about leadership skills in practical work, the authors used a questionnaire surv^ey with the following contents:

a) Aims: The questionare form is designed to interview and assess the

awareness of leadership skills in different age, position and experience groups; and to identify which are the necessary skills for middle managers

b) Target surveyed: managers at the departmental level of three

divisions of Hoa Lac Hi-Tech Park Management Board and departmental level leaders of the Ministry of Science and Technology

c) Number of questionnaires distributed: 50

d) Number of questionnaires collected: 41

e) Criteria to designing the questionnaire:

The objective of this thesis is towards finding the necessary leadership skills and providing solutions to improve the skills of leadership Thus, in addition to the study of leadership model in Chapter II, the authors also used

a SWOT analysis to identify the strengths and weaknesses in the leadership capacity of middle managers where this research focuses on the skills needed in the environment of Hoa Lac Hi-Tech Park

Based on this analysis, the questionnaire will be designed in order to assess exactly of leadership skills and support and clarify the results from SWOT analysis (analyzed in Chapter IV)

f) Content of the questionnaires

The form consists of about twenty questions regarding to:

- General information about the surveyed and the information regarding

to research objectives, which focuses on four below matters:

- Surveyed contents about skills like: assigning and organizing, meeting chairing, teamwork, and other relevant skills

- Questions about the necessity level of skills

- Questions bout the situtation of skills training and measures for skills training

the sample number

Distributing the questionnaires

Collecting the questionnaires

Synthesizing the data

20/2-15/3/2013

15/3-30/3/2013 31/3/2013 1/4/2013

f) Result display

Results are displayed in two forms, which are:

- Expression in table of figures, for example:

Answer

Functions and duties Organization structure Mission

Expression in graphs/charts, for example:

Creative thinking and venture

Negotiation Listening Communication Learning and self-learning

Decision making Assigning and delegating

Job management

Ranning and job organization

Time management

Presentation Teamwork

28.571%

71.429% 00%

CHAPTER IV RESULTS AND FINDINGS

1 SWOT analysis

By investigating Hoa Lac reports, related materials and experts' ideas,

we briefly summarise strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of management abilities of middle managers as below:

Strengths

- Basically, managers have the

capacity, skills and awareness of

their role of the unit

- They have a fundemental

understanding of the importance of

leadership skills

- They have been aware of the job

arrangements in order of priority

- They actively communicate and

support subordinates to complete

the task s and consciously work to

support with public-mindedness,

- They have met the requirements

for presentation skills

- The efficiency is not high

- Lack of soft skills like foreign language skills, team work

- There is no motivation in their daily work

Opportunities

' The first High-Tech zone of

Vietnam that has been invested

significantly by the government

- A chance to contribute to the

development of Hoa Lac High-Tech

Park

Threats

- The impact of the volatility of

technology and macro policies to investment attraction

- Huge, various and complicated workload and new issues

Hard competition with other

- Opportunities to learn from the

best managers of organizations and

country

- Have occasions to improve and

built up personal skills and abilities

industrial zones Specially, the instability regulars of regional governmance which can affect to the competition of Hoa Lac zone

Table 2.1: SWOT analysis on leadership at Hoa Lac

2 Analysis of questionnaire data:

To clarify our statement and analyis on leadership of SWOT model above as well as investigate leadership skills, the report uses questionnaire survey method which is shown details below:

2.1 Data synthesization

To collect data for research purpose, 50 questionnaires were sent to samples including senior managers, directors, vice directors of management board and leaders of departments and 41 questionnaires were collected In addition, question lists are also answered by some managers

of minister of technology and science

Female Functioning unit State administrative unit Under 5 years

From 5 to 10 years From 10 to 20 years From 20 to 30 years Over 30 years

43.90 24.39 14.63 Table 2.2: Statistic data

41

39

100 95.12

Table 2.3: Knowledge about organization Overall, managers have basic knowledge of their responsibilities/duties and the organization structure However, almost half of them have less understanding about their mission and unit vision This is the reality of most state organizations The role of managers will be less effective if they miss to catch up with long-term strategies and future orientation

Question 2: In your point of view, leadership is

0 Table 2.4: Viewpoints about leadership