/pdf/coaching-for-soft-skill-development-an-action-research-study-omfo5v7fq8.pdf

Coaching for soft-skill development : an action research study with project managers

The purpose of this research was to measure the effect of hard skills, soft skills, organizational learning, and innovation capability on the lectures performance of an Islamic University in Indonesia. Data collection was done by simple random sampling to 261 population an Islamic University in Indonesia. The returned and valid questionnaire results were 244 samples. SEM method with SmartPLS 3.0 software is used for data processing. The findings of the study reveal that hard skills, soft skills, organizational learning, and innovation capability have a direct positive and significant effect on the lecturer's performance. Besides, soft skills have the greatest influence on lecturer performance among other variables. This research proposed a model for building the lecture's performance among the lecturers of an Islamic University in Indonesia through enhancing hard skills, soft skills, organizational learning, and innovation capability. This research could pave the way to improve the lecturer readiness in facing the 4.0 education era.

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Effect of Hard Skills, Soft Skills, Organizational Learning and Innovation Capability on Islamic University Lecturers’ Performance

Higher Education engineering students need to be prepared to address sustainable solutions to the complex problems faced in this century. They should become proficient problem solvers, able to work in multidisciplinary teams, ready to adapt to new technologies, and able to acquire new knowledge and skills when needed. Usually known as soft skills, these competences play a key role in Engineering and have being taught in the last two decades, to a greater or lesser extent, using different methodologies and tools. This study reviews the promotion and teaching of soft skills in Higher Education across 5 European countries: Greece, Estonia, Denmark, Portugal and Spain. It provides an overview of best practices on these countries, focusing also on technological solutions to actually enable the development of soft skills. The purpose of this research is to shed some light about how soft skills are being taught presently and the difficulties involved in that process.

/pdf/teaching-soft-skills-in-engineering-education-an-european-nirgu3ptri.pdf

Teaching Soft Skills in Engineering Education: An European Perspective

Restricted measures for social isolation taken as precautions in the fight against pandemic due to the COVID-19 virus, have changed dramatically the normal business and professional life. Companies in all sectors have to be adaptive and flexible in order to survive in this complex and hardly unpredictable business environment. At first glance ICT sector is not so severely and visibly affected by the COVID-19 economic crisis. Due to numerous reasons companies from the sector have so far shown an enviable level of flexibility and adaptability to the rapid changes in business environment conditions. As a response to the anti-epidemiological requirements, most often used tool from ICT companies is to transform working processes from office to home, following the line of social isolation. In this regard the major objective of the current article is to reveal the specifics of home office work in ICT companies and its impact on the employees' motivation in terms of their perceptions and level of commitment to the achievement of companies goals. For this purpose we used questionnaire survey among employees working in different job positions in ICT companies in Bulgaria (n=158). Our findings reveal that majority of employees (almost 80% of responders) have positive attitude to the home office as a working measure in social isolation conditions. On the other hand, home office does not significantly impact on the level of employees' motivation and their engagement to the achievement of the company's goals. Based on analysis of collected data, we propose divers measures for improving the employees satisfaction and motivation in specific context of home office work during stress crisis situation, such the pandemic is.

/pdf/home-office-effects-on-the-motivation-of-ict-companies-2uk2b7jgwq.pdf

Home office effects on the motivation of ict companies' employees

Purpose




The purpose of this paper is to identify the principal qualities that define a good worker for microenterprises of the trade sector according to the contemporary literature of the human capital and associated with the Big Five personality traits. It also determines the effect of those skills over the success of trade microenterprises in the context of a developing country.




Design/methodology/approach




A total of 393 owners/managers of microenterprises located in six trade zones of Lima district in Peru were involved in this study. They were randomly selected and asked to answer a survey of perceptions about the microenterprise’s performance and workers’ behavior.




Findings




The results demonstrate that workers that possess mainly non-cognitive skills would be considered as good workers for trade microenterprises. These skills are associated with four of the Big Five personality traits: extraversion, agreeableness, openness or autonomy and conscientiousness. Also, the results show that punctuality, honesty and assertiveness, associated with the traits such as extraversion, agreeableness and conscientiousness, are the principal non-cognitive skills that impact positively over microenterprises’ success.




Research limitations/implications




The performance of workers is only based on owners/managers’ perceptions.




Practical implications




The owners/managers’ role is important to help workers to develop the necessary skills that can contribute to the microenterprise. In that sense, if the direct contact that exists between them is leveraged, owners/managers could implement strategies such as mentoring to promote the personal and professional growth of their workers.




Originality/value




This study provides useful information about how specific non-cognitive skills of workers can contribute to the success of trade microenterprises in developing countries like Peru.

Lucian Ionel-Cioca

Papers

Soft Skills Development Needs and Methods in Micro-Companies of ICT Sector