Proceedings of the 12th European Conference on Knowledge ...

Thi Hai Hang Nguyen et al
working process form categories, from which a <strong>the</strong>ory or engineered hypo<strong>the</strong>ses can be developed
(Allan, 2003;Martin and Turner, 1986).
4.2 Hypo<strong>the</strong>ses development in stage 2
The objective <strong>of</strong> this paper is to verify whe<strong>the</strong>r <strong>the</strong> inference <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> authors really hold for <strong>the</strong> general
population <strong>of</strong> Vietnamese SMEs. The orientation survey had revealed that SMEs <strong>of</strong> Vietnam are
doing <strong>the</strong>ir best to deal with KM issues without being aware <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> terminologies. They do this
primarily to maintain <strong>the</strong>ir business, and secondarily to develop it. The result also identified <strong>the</strong> main
motivation for SMEs in implementing KM-related activities, which is <strong>the</strong> search for solutions to a
chronic shortage <strong>of</strong> competent employees, as well as <strong>the</strong> two probable main causes for this shortage:
(1) <strong>the</strong> departure <strong>of</strong> knowledge employees from SMEs and/or (2) o<strong>the</strong>r employees don’t learn how to
work effectively. This raises issues that are not dealt with in <strong>the</strong> literature and, accordingly, lead to
hypo<strong>the</strong>ses not suggested by <strong>the</strong> literature. We focused on two main null hypo<strong>the</strong>ses:
H1: High staff turnover is not harmful for business in Vietnam SMEs.
H2: Employees <strong>of</strong> SMEs learn (how to do <strong>the</strong> work, how to do work better) effectively on
<strong>the</strong> job.
From <strong>the</strong> point <strong>of</strong> view <strong>of</strong> company management, <strong>the</strong> symptom <strong>of</strong> knowledge hoarding, an ineffective
record system to capture existing knowledge in <strong>the</strong> organization, an ineffective training policy are
determined as KM-related factors that would influence <strong>the</strong> learning effectiveness <strong>of</strong> employees in <strong>the</strong>
organization. In <strong>the</strong> framework <strong>of</strong> this research, to examine <strong>the</strong> existence <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong>se factors, four subhypo<strong>the</strong>ses
are set as follows (o<strong>the</strong>r factors were not focused upon in this study):
H2a: Company has an effective training policy
H2b: Knowledgeable people are willing to share <strong>the</strong>ir knowledge
H2c: Company’s record system captures knowledge <strong>of</strong> employees
H2d: Employees have recourse to <strong>the</strong> company’s record system
The inter-relationships <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> hypo<strong>the</strong>ses/sub-hypo<strong>the</strong>ses are illustrated in figure 2 as follows:
Figure 3: Possible causes for <strong>the</strong> shortage <strong>of</strong> competent employees in Vietnamese SMEs
4.3 The research instrument
The survey method was used for this study. A questionnaire for SME’s CEOs or business owners was
designed and presented both online and in a printable version (taking into account <strong>the</strong> fact that <strong>the</strong>re
is a big percentage <strong>of</strong> SME’s CEOs or business owners who are not familiar with using computer yet).
CEOs/business owners <strong>of</strong> SMEs gave <strong>the</strong>ir evaluation <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> firm’s performance and <strong>the</strong>ir views on
firm management. Their responses were used as <strong>the</strong> primary data for analysis.
The questionnaire was developed based on <strong>the</strong> findings from an intensive review <strong>of</strong> previous studies.
A five point scale was used in this questionnaire.
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