This chapter aims to provide an overview of the study, including five sections, namely, background of the study, statement of problem, research purposes, research questions, significance of the study, definitions of terms, and delimitation.
Background of the Study
The development of Taiwan’s industrial park has more than 40 years of history. In Taiwan early economy development, Taiwan strongly relied on manufacturing industry. Until now, there are 60 industrial parks built in Taiwan. Within 60 industrial parks, the total number of firms is up to 11,794. Those firms create 524,996 job opportunities. According to the statistics presented by Industrial Development Bureau, Ministry of Economic Affairs (2013), manufacturing firms in Industrial Parks created about 4 trillion NT dollars of production annually; accounting for Taiwan’s manufacturing industry output value of 1/3. The operation of Industrial Parks made great contribution to Taiwan’s economy. However, the rise of China and Southeast Asia cause serious impact on Taiwan’s manufacturing firms and operation of Industrial Parks. China and Southeast Asia provide cheap labor, cheap land cost, and large market to attract firms. Therefore, government has begun to strive for transformation of operation of Industrial Parks, and Changhua Coastal Industrial Park is a famous example. In recent year, Changhua Coastal Industrial Park has successfully combined production with recreation, tourism, leisure, and green architecture.
Changhua Coastal Industrial Park was located in Changhua coastal area. With strong regional advantage, Changhua Coastal Industrial Park has convenient traffic and integrated industrial park facility. In the north of Changhua, there are Central Science Park and Hsinchu Science Park located. In the south of Changhua, Miliao Industrial Park and Southern Taiwan Science Park are located. Moreover, Changhua Coastal Industrial Park is closed to Taichung
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Port, located at important site. This Industrial Park was also one of the Six-Year National Development Plan conducted by the Executive Yuan. Under government and local government’s assistances, Changhua Coastal Industrial Park successfully formed industry agglomeration and become the regional center for manufacturing. Every year, the Changhua Coastal Industrial Park of annual value of production is up to 3,468 hundred billion NT dollars.
Moreover, Changhua Coastal Industrial Park has attracted over 400 manufacturing companies moving in and has positive effect on local development of Changhua. Changhua Coastal Industrial Park not only brings economical effect but also put emphasizes on comprehensive exploitation. Compared with other traditional industrial park, Changhua Coastal Industrial Park possesses diverse development on the basis of the traditional industries. In recent year, Changhua Coastal Industrial Park successfully attracted new technology, new industries corporation stationed. For instance, Google, one of the famous international corporations, had acquired 15 hectares of land in Changhua Coastal Industrial Park with the plans to build a data center.
Although nowadays Changhua Coastal Industrial Park is strive for transforming the industry and keeping sustainable development, manufacturing firms rarely have clear strategy on building human resource, not to mention those corporations want to transfer from labor-intensive model to human knowledge-labor-intensive transferred production. However, the main human capital, employees, is key factor for development of manufacturing firms in Taiwan.
Hence, the ability of employee to learn and relearn is now important within high competitive environment (Arthur & Rousseau, 2001; Hall, 1996). Individual can learn from different ways, for instance, employees could learn from others, especially those who come from different status, background, professional field, such as supervises and senioritis in the organization.
This pivotal work relationship which can promote personal learning called mentoring (Kram, 1996). According to Dymock (1999), application of mentoring can enhance employees’
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Therefore, this study aims to analyze application of mentoring used by manufacturing firms in Changhua Coastal Industrial Park and figure out how application of mentoring facilitate personal learning of employees.
Statement of the Problem
Nowadays, overwhelming changes in the environment and in the content of work have resulted in the urgent demand for employee to acquire and develop competency for personal learning. Such competency is an important element of learning how to learn, which can also increase employability and job security for employees, and build competitive advantage for organizations (Ellinger, 2004; Hall, 2002). Personal learning is necessary competence for each employee, since both “personal skill development” and “relational job learning” help employee acquire new skill and have better understanding of job and role in the organization. Especially manufacturing firm in Taiwan facing the problem of new technical skill development, want their employee to adapt new change and acquire necessary competency for job in short time.
Due to the practicability and effectiveness in mentoring that contributes to personal growth, many scholars have done researches on this field (Hamilton & Scandura, 2003; Higgins
& Kram, 2001; Hirschfeld, Thomas, & Lankau, 2006; Lankau & Scandura, 2002). While a range of topics have been studies on the link between mentoring and personal learning, few studies focused on how mentoring contributes to personal learning, particularly examining
“what” is learned or “how” protégés engage in learning. As a matter of fact, based on Lankau and Scandura (2002), even though application of mentoring might help employees learn to adapt to change situations within work environment, the expected outcomes still differ because of different environmental and organizational changes. As a result, organizations need to identify the need of personal learning before considering the application of mentoring.
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Despite convenient traffic network and highest standard of construction, most manufacturing firms in Changhua Coastal Industrial Park still face problems of transformation and upgrading. Through changing the business model, such as service strategy in manufacturing, organizations expect deepen value chain and attract more investment. On the other hand, organizations also notice important issues that how employees increase effectiveness of personal learning in response to dynamic organizational change. If organizations ignore the importance of personal learning, employees’ contribution of their competence and performance will decrease. Due to lack of competencies, organizations will not success in today’s fast-paced work environment.
Therefore, how mentoring serves as an important resource for personal learning in workplace is really significant and is supposed to catch more attentions from researchers.
Similarly, for enhancing competitive advantage of manufacturing firms in Taiwan, more should be known about how application of mentoring facilitate personal learning in practice.
Research Purpose
The purpose of this study was to identify application of mentoring used by manufacturing firms especially in Changhua Coastal Industrial Park and to explore how application of mentoring facilitate personal learning through examining actual implementation in manufacturing firms located in Changhua Coastal Industrial Park. This study tried to find out
“what” is learned and “how” did employee learn under application of mentoring.
Research Questions
Four research questions were proposed according to the research purpose, namely:
1. What kind of mentoring is applying now to facilitate employees’ personal learning in manufacturing firms of Changhua Coastal Industrial Park?
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2. What mentoring functions are brought out in manufacturing firms of Changhua Coastal Industrial Park?
3. What does protégé learn to increase personal learning through mentoring implementation?
4. How does protégé learn increase personal learning through mentoring implementation?
Significance of the Study
Global economy presents slow growth in 2013. Taiwan’s industry is facing the fierce competition from emerging country in Asia. Nowadays, China and Southeast Asia is emerging, becoming dynamic center of the global economy which has economic impact on manufacturing firms in Taiwan. It’s important to participate in the global economy system and create own competitive advantage to manufacturing firms in Changhua Coastal Industrial Park as well.
Especially, work environment now is quick-paced, fluid because of technological advances and organizational changes (Klehe, Zikic, Van Vianen, & De Pater, 2011). In order to create the opportunities for growth, manufacturing firms in Changhua Coastal Industrial Park should require the capability which could make the response to change rapidly in unexpected environment with limited human resource. In other words, manufacturing firms in Changhua Coastal Industrial Park should pay attention to each employee’s personal learning. Since the advancement in technology and competitive market, personal learning should be taken care of.
As the personal learning becomes more important, to understand how to facilitate personal learning with mentoring is inevitable.
Understanding the application of mentoring that may facilitate employee’s personal learning may provide useful insight to not only development of mentor and protégé, but also development of organization. This study aims to understand how application of mentoring facilitates employees’ personal learning and to improve current application of mentoring in manufacturing firms. Manufacturing firms can benefit more from recognizing importance of
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mentoring application on facilitating employees’ personal learning. Furthermore, manufacturing firms can successfully transfer the knowledge from mentor to protégé effectively and maximize employees’ learning outcomes.
Delimitations
Based on the concern that personal learning is critical in today’s business environment, where application of mentoring also play indispensable role in manufacturing firms. This study aimed to figure out how application of mentoring facilitates personal learning in current manufacturing firms. This study was conducted in Changhua Coastal Industrial Park. The sample of this study was manufacturing firms, comprising mentor, protégé, and supervisor, were selected through the method of convenience sampling.
Definition of Terms
This study used these key terms of conceptual definition below.
Mentoring
Mentoring refers to a mechanism that exists between mentor and protégé in the workplace where individuals are expected to develop skills and ability for adapting organizational changes (Eby, 1997; Kram, 1988b).
Personal Learning
Personal learning includes the concept of relational job learning and personal skill development which means increased understanding about the interdependence of job and new skill and abilities (Lankau & Scandura, 2002).
Manufacturing Firm
Manufacturing firm refers to any business that transforms raw material, components into finished or semi-finished goods that meet a customer's expectations or specifications using machines, tools and labor.
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Changhua Coastal Industrial Park
Changhua Coastal Industrial Park is located in the seacoast of Changhua County of Taiwan, and it’s one of six year national development plan conducted by the Executive Yuan.
Changhua Coastal Industrial Park successfully formed industrial cluster and become the regional center for manufacturing.
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