This chapters contained six sections: (1) research framework which presented the overall structures of this study, (2) research methods which revealed the methodology utilized in this study to achieve the research objectives, (3) research participants which covered the selection of case companies and interviewees, (4) data collection and analysis which contained data coding procedures , (5) validity and reliability which demonstrated the quality of this research, and (6) research procedures which illustrated the research order of this study.
Research Framework
This research aimed at exploring the competencies needed for corporate training professionals as well as the way to develop these competencies. In accordance with the research purposes and literature reviews, the figure 3.1 reflected what the research intends to find out. With a view to competency modeling for corporate training professionals, through inspecting roles and tasks of corporate training professionals, the researcher will identify the competencies and divide them into three categories. In this research, categories of competencies are adopted from Spencer and Spencer (1993) and use the term “personal attribute” referred to as generalization of self-concept, trait and motive. Other existing literatures serve as the references for competency modeling.
Figure 3.1. Research framework
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Research Method
Conducting a research with qualitative methods which are designed to offer in-depth descriptions of a specific program, practice, or setting (Mertens, 2005) can represent the perspectives of the participants, contribute insights into existing or emerging concepts which may help support explanations of human behaviors (Yin, 2011) . In this regard, due to the lack of study researching on the required competencies of corporate training professionals, this study adopted qualitative methods to investigate and induce required competencies of corporate training professionals and employed behavioral event interview.
Behavioral Event Interview
In order to find out job competencies and its behavioral description from each case company, the researcher adopted behavioral event interview (BEI) with open-ended questions to uncover job performance and map the research participant's behavior in situations where he or she had to demonstrate key competences which are critical to success in the position.
With maintaining flexibility of responses, utilizing open-ended questions enables the researcher to use predetermined questions which are typically asked of each research participant in a systematic and consistent order to reflect that the individuals define the world in varying way (Berg, 1995) . Moreover, the researcher are permitted to probe far beyond the answers to their prepared and standardized questions(Berg, 1995) .
Based on the principle of behavioral event interview that past performance is a predictor of future behavior, the key to successful behavioral event interview is applying the STAR technique concerning the past experiences of the corporate training professionals so as to recognize different required competencies through their descriptions. The components of the STAR technique are “S”, exhibiting the situations in which the interviewee was involved;
“T”, standing for the tasks the interviewee needed to accomplish; “A”, manifesting the actions did the interviewee take; “R”, representing results did the interviewee achieve.
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Research Participants
To select information-rich cases for study in-depth, the researcher adopted purposeful sampling and snowball sampling. With the selection of case companies based on availability of sites and respondents, this research took convenience sampling which is one of type of purposeful sampling to determine some selection criteria in choosing the case companies and research participants to be studied.
This research intended to identify the competencies required for corporate training professionals. Therefore, the focus of this study is the directors or senior managers working in the corporate training centers or well established companies. The directors or senior managers of corporate training centers must have responsibility for corporate training centers with supervisory, policy development or business strategy responsibility rather than holding an important title yet executing little actual power for the operation. The directors or senior managers of well established companies must be in a highest level position related to HR and emphasize employee development.
The researcher selected 6 interviewees who emphasize employee development and are from well-established companies and 4 interviewees who are from the companies earned HR or training related prize with corporate training centers. In order to get the critical information, the interviewees from the selected companies accord with the following two criteria:
1. Interviewees have to be in a highest-level position in making decisions related to HR or operations of corporate training centers.
2. Interviewees have to at least 10-year working experiences and work which is related to HR in current company at least 3 years.
Eight of the interviewees came from different companies. Two of the interviewees are from the same companies but in different departments which are related to HR and training.
Table 3.1 shows the background information of the case company. Case ACDEF are from companies without corporate training centers. Interviewees from case ABCDEF are all in a
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highest-level position related to HR fields. Case GHI are companies with corporate training centers. The corporate training centers from case G and case H operated as functional divisions, whereas the corporate training center of case I conducted as an independent business. Table 3.2 presented the background information of the interviewees.
Table 3.1
Background Information of Interviewees’ Companies
Company Industry Number of employee Position of Research Participants
Case A Bank 5000 HR director, Asia
Case B Bank 4000 1. Head of HR, wholesale banking
2. Vice general manager of HR
Case C Semiconductors 1000 HR director, Taiwan
Case D Electronic testing 1000 HR director, Asia
Case E Electronics 1500 Vice general manager
Case F Telecommunication 2600 Vice general manager
Case G Hypermarket 11000 National T&D Manager
Case H Construction 500 Vice general manager
Case I Electronic power 27000 President
Table 3.2
Background Information of Interviewees
Interviewee Case company Gender Age Total seniority Seniority in company
A Case A F above 50 35 10
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Data Collection and Analysis Data Collection
The data was collected through behavioral event interviews as mentioned in the previous section. The interview questions followed STAR technique regarding the situations, tasks, actions, and results of each competency and cover a range of issue on the roles and tasks of corporate training professionals. In the process of the interview, the data was recorded by a recording device with the permission of the interviewees. In addition to utilization of STAR techniques, the researcher also employed methodological triangulation to collect data from interview to document review including information from official website. The interview questions are presented in Appendix A
Data Analysis
After interview, the basic procedures for data analysis data are illustrated in figure 3.3.
In this study, the researcher adopted thematic analysis to identify and describe both implicit and explicit ideas because it is more involved and nuanced than content analysis which will
Theoretical concepts Thematic coding Category development
Open coding Transcribing data into
transcripts
Reading and rereading transcripts
Segmenting and coding the data
Identify relationships and answer the research questions
Figure 3.2. Data analysis procedures and data coding procedures
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constrained and limit the richness of the summary data produced.
With adoption of thematic analysis, the researcher utilized coding techniques to help organize and analyze the overwhelming amount of data. After successive steps of coding, it provided researchers with documented and well organized answers to research questions. The coding results can be efficiently integrated into the final report.
The process of coding is introduced by Hahn (2008). The first step is to go through the large set of data to identify the information the researcher need. The second step is to
reexamine the code developed by first step to provide broad categories. Previous coding is studied to develop highly refined theme in the third step. At the last step, when the themes become recurrent throughout different data sets, then these data sets can be classified into concepts. Usually, these concepts are linked to the one found in the previous literature. The coding process are provided in Appendix B
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Validity and Reliability
In qualitative research, the criteria of determining the validity and reliability generally corresponded to the four criteria proposed by Lincoln and Guba (1985). These criteria included credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability.
Credibility
Paralleling internal validity, credibility refers to the extent to overlap between the interpretation of the researcher and the realities of the respondents (Guba & Lincoln, 1989).
To achieve credibility, peer debriefing, member checks, triangulation are strategies (Mertens, 2005) . For this study, prior to interviews, the interview questions were checked by two experts and the researcher modified following the suggestions from the experts. After interviewing and transcribing the transcripts, the researcher invited two peers to do peer debriefing. The adoption of methodology triangulation also increased the credibility of this study. Thereby, the information from official website was employed to support the research.
Transferability
Being viewing as the external validity, transferability represents whether the findings can be applied to other scenario (Mertens, 2005). To ensure transferability, the researcher provided detailed description of the time, place and the context of the interview carefully.
Dependability
Equaling to reliability, dependability demonstrates the influence of time on the stability of the data (Guba & Lincoln, 1989). The researcher provided an audit trail to attest to the quality and appropriateness such as the documentation of data, methods, decisions about the research, and so on.
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Confirmability
As the same as the meaning of objectivity, confirmability manifests that data and their interpretation are not figments of the researcher’s imagination (Mertens, 2005). To ensure the confirmability, the researcher invited experts to participate in the design of the questionnaires and in the analysis of the collected data. The researcher’s peers were invited to review the interview transcripts to check if the conclusions are supported by the data or not.
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Research Procedure
In accordance with the research purposes, the procedures of the research are explained in the figure 3.4. The initial step is to review literatures. Then, identifying the research purpose and significance of the research is the next step. After that, framework of the study was formulated. Before selecting interviewee participants, the interview questions were generated and reviewed by experts. Prior to interview, it is necessary to conduct a pilot interview and revise interview questions to improve the internal validity. After interviews were conducted, data analysis is in the next process. Finally, findings were generalized and suggestions and conclusions were proposed to answer the research purposes and questions. (see figure 3.4 for research procedures)
Conduct Literature Review
Identify Research Purpose &
Significance of the study
Develop Research Framework
Design Interview Questions
Select Research
Participants Pretest Interview
Modify interview
Questions Interview Analyze Data
Conclude research findings
Figure 3.3. Research procedures
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