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

5.2 Reliability
Thi Hai Hang Nguyen et al
The reliability <strong>of</strong> related constructs in <strong>the</strong> questionnaire was evaluated by calculating Cronbach’s
coefficient alpha while face validity was conducted during <strong>the</strong> pilot test to modify <strong>the</strong> wording and
scales. The results are presented in Table 2. With <strong>the</strong> alpha value >0.7, <strong>the</strong> two main constructs in <strong>the</strong>
questionnaire are proven internally consistent and reliable.
Construct No. <strong>of</strong> items Alpha value
Knowledge sharing level <strong>of</strong>
working environment
9 0.829
Training effectiveness 5 0.780
Table 2: Summary results from reliability and validity tests (SPSS ver.16)
5.3 Findings
The companies are classified into 3 different classes in term <strong>of</strong> general administrative management
practice (named Good, Moderate, and Bad) basing on five criteria: (1) The level <strong>of</strong> applied IT, (2) The
level <strong>of</strong> applied management tools, (3) The knowledge sharing working culture & environment, (4) The
effectiveness <strong>of</strong> learning <strong>of</strong> employees at <strong>the</strong> firm, and (5) The vision <strong>of</strong> top management (long-term
vs. short term).
A chi-square test was employed to test <strong>the</strong> first hypo<strong>the</strong>sis: High staff turnover is not harmful for
business in Vietnam SMEs. Analysis <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> data brought out <strong>the</strong> following result:
X^2 (Chi Square) Test value Degree <strong>of</strong> freedom P-Value
Likelihood Ratio 8.85 8 0.37549
Pearson 8.98 8 0.36825
According to this result, we cannot reject <strong>the</strong> null hypo<strong>the</strong>sis H1 as <strong>the</strong>re is no relationship between
turnover <strong>of</strong> employees and <strong>the</strong> company class. The obvious interpretation is that we cannot make a
conclusion as to whe<strong>the</strong>r <strong>the</strong> rate <strong>of</strong> staff turnover negatively affects <strong>the</strong> performance <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> firm or
not. This may be caused by (1) <strong>the</strong> sample not being purely random (as explained in 4.3) or/and (2)
<strong>the</strong> sample size not being big enough. It also may be a simple truth about businesses in Vietnam:
among <strong>the</strong> companies that were visited, very few confirmed having difficulties with a high staff
turnover rate. In SMEs, <strong>the</strong> turnover rate is high mostly in <strong>the</strong> manufacturing sector and this happens
with workers who are not competent enough or who are dealing with simple tasks in factories and are
easily replaced by new employees. Normally, SMEs don’t have any problem at <strong>the</strong> management level.
This finding rejected <strong>the</strong> first intuition <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> researchers but is congruent with a finding by Desouza
and Awazu (2006) that SMEs never consider knowledge loss caused by <strong>the</strong> departure <strong>of</strong> skilled
employees a real problem or issue as it is in large organizations. Only a few mature SMEs had some
deliberate mechanism in <strong>the</strong> firms to prevent knowledge loss (Desouza and Awazu, 2006). Reasons
may vary, but CEOs are also <strong>the</strong> business owners and <strong>the</strong> people who possess <strong>the</strong> key knowledge in
SMEs. And as <strong>the</strong>ir business is small, <strong>the</strong>y can easily find sufficient new workers to be trained to fill
vacancies. Ano<strong>the</strong>r fact that can somehow explain this symptom is that in SMEs most management
positions or key positions are assigned to persons in <strong>the</strong> same family or close friends who have a
good relationship with <strong>the</strong> CEOs/business owners. The CEOs <strong>of</strong> some o<strong>the</strong>r SMEs revealed that a
high staff turnover rate is considered as part <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> nature <strong>of</strong> business in that industry, and <strong>the</strong>y just
purposefully limit <strong>of</strong> business to a size <strong>the</strong>y can handle.
Fuzzy logic was used to set up <strong>the</strong> scale, <strong>the</strong> rule <strong>of</strong> assessment to test hypo<strong>the</strong>sis 2. The following
steps describe <strong>the</strong> fuzzy rule:
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