I study relationships between workplace environment (context) and employee’s competencies and their influence on personal and team work performance. In this study I consider complex work environment surrounding employee. Better understanding of studying relationships will give more efficient tools and methods for improving performance.

1. WORKPLACE CONTEXT AND ITS EFFECT ON
INDIVIDUAL COMPETENCIES AND PERFORMANCE
IN A WORK (PROJECT) TEAM
Chief Supervisor: Prof. C.F. Cheung (ISE)
Co-supervisor: Prof. Eric Tsui (ISE)
Mikhail ROZHKOV
Hong Kong, 2013
Summary of the study

2. PROJECT PURPOSE
This study aims to investigate the potential benefits of
considering the relationships between workplace
environment and employees preferences to achieve
improvements in personal professional performance,
work climate and satisfaction.
2

3. Hypotheses
• H1. Organizational Culture, Organizational Climate,
Team, Manager and Task characteristics significantly
influence Employee competencies.
• H2. The higher matching between Employees’
characteristics and project (work) context, the higher
shown competencies, job satisfaction and levels of
personal and team performance.
3

4. What is “competency”?
The
observed
behavior
Motivation
Knowledge
and skills
Personal
traits
Competency
*adopted from presentation of Gregory Finkelshtein, ECOPSY Consulting
Figure 2 – What is competency?
4

5. Literature Review
Competency Management
• Characteristics of competencies (McClelland, 1973; Boyatzis,
1982; Spencer & Spencer, 1993a):
– Underlying characteristic (fairly deep, integral part of personality),
– Causally related to and can predict behavior and performance,
– Criterion-referenced (based on specific criterion or standards),
– Have complex multi-dimensional structure:
• Intensity or completeness of actions involved
• Complexity of factors taking into account
• Time horizon (planning or taking actions to anticipate future situations)
• Breadth of impact (number of people affected)
5

6. Work context
Organization environment
Workplace context
Manager
Person
Team
Task

7. Culture
• Corporate (organizational) culture is
– “a pattern of shared basic assumptions invented,
discovered, or developed by a given group as it
learns to cope with its problems of external
adaptation and internal integration" that have
worked well enough to be considered valid and
therefore, to be taught to new members as the
correct way to perceive, think and feel in relation
to those problems” Schein (2010, p.18).
7

8. Literature Review
Climate
• Organizational climate (Denison,1990) is a relatively enduring
quality of the internal environment of an organization that
a) is experienced by its members,
b) influences their behavior,
c) can be described in terms of the values of a particular set of
characteristics (or attitudes) of the organization”.
• Assumptions about organizational climate concept (Stringer,
2002):
– people feelings about their work has a powerful influence on how they
work,
– climate determines the performance of an organization,
– climate is directly linked to motivation.
8

9. Culture and climate determinants and characteristics
Strategy
Organizational
Arrangements
Management
Practices
Team Behavior
Culture
Past States
(Historical
Forces)
Consensus
(Cons)
Intensity (I)
Organizational
Values
Person Values
Content (C)
Climate
Structure
Standards
Responsibility
Recognition
Commitment
Support

10. Conceptual Model
10
Culture
Climate
Individual
Performance
Employee Motivation
Employee
Competencies
Employee
Values
Manager
Competencies
Manager Values Task
2
Team CompetenciesTeam Values
6
3
1
4
5
7 8

11. Research Project Variables
11
Independent Variables
1. Organizational Culture
2. Organizational Climate
3. Manager Values
4. Manager Competencies
5. Team Values
6. Team Competencies
Dependent Variables
1. Employee individual
competencies
2. Employee Individual
performance
Extraneous Variables
1. Age
2. Gender
3. Education
4. Task (Occupation/Job
Family)
5. Experience
6. Industry
7. Team Size
Mediating Variables
1. Employee Competency
Profile
2. Employee Motivation
3. Employee Values
4. Employee Satisfaction

12. Research deliverables
Decision support model for competency management in
organization units and project teams
Simulation platform for scenario-based analysis and
prediction of project team performance
Tools for individual and team performance improvement
12

13. References
1. Benali, M., & Burlat, P. Modeling cooperation links within networks of firms: A case study. Journal of Intelligent Manufacturing, , 1-7. doi:
10.1007/s10845-011-0511-y
2. Boyatzis, R. E. (1982). The competent manager :A model for effective performance. New York: Wiley.
3. Božić, L., & Radas, S. Surmounting innovation project failure.
4. Brown, K. A., & Hyer, N. L. (2010). Managing projects :A team-based approach. New York, N.Y.: McGraw-Hill Irwin.
5. Bush, E., Nash, J., & Bell, B. S. (2011). Remote work: An examination of current trends and emerging issues. (). Retrieved from
http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/cahrs/research/upload/Spring2011_CAHRSRemoteWorkReport.pdf
6. Castejón-Limas, M., Ordieres-Meré, J., González-Marcos, A., & González-Castro, V. (2011). Effort estimates through project complexity.
Annals of Operations Research, 186(1), 395-406. doi: 10.1007/s10479-010-0776-0
7. Cooper, K. (2000). Effective competency modeling & reporting :A step-by- step guide for improving individual & organizational performance.
New York: Amacom.
8. Crowl, D., Attwood, D., & American Institute of Chemical Engineers. (2007). Human factors methods for improving performance in the
process industries. Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons.
9. Deal, T. E., & Kennedy, A. A. <. (1982). Corporate cultures :The rites and rituals of corporate life. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley Pub. Co.
10. Denison, D. R. (1990). Corporate culture and organizational effectiveness. New York: Wiley.
11. Gutjahr, W. J., Katzensteiner, S., Reiter, P., Stummer, C., & Denk, M. (2008). Competence-driven project portfolio selection, scheduling and
staff assignment. Central European Journal of Operations Research, 16(3), 281-306. doi: 10.1007/s10100-008-0057-z
12. Heneman, R. L., & Ledford, G. E. (1998). Competency pay for professionals and managers in business: A review and implications for teachers.
Journal of Personnel Evaluation in Education, 12(2), 103-121. doi: 10.1023/A:1008076926413
13. Kerzner, H., & Kerzner, H. (2006). Project management :A systems approach to planning, scheduling, and controlling (9th ed.). Hoboken, N.J.:
J. Wiley.
14. Kurz, R., & Bartram, D. (2002; 2008). Competency and individual performance: Modelling the world of work. Organizational effectiveness
(pp. 227-255) John Wiely & Sons, Ltd. doi: 10.1002/9780470696736.ch10
15. Marques, J., Zacarias, M., & Tribolet, J. (2010). A bottom-up competency modeling approach. In A. Albani, & J. L. G. Dietz (Eds.), Advances in
enterprise engineering IV (pp. 50-64) Springer Berlin Heidelberg. doi: 10.1007/978-3-642-13048-9_4
16. McClelland, D. C. (1973). Testing for competence rather than for "intelligence". The American Psychologist, 28(1), 1-14.
17. Schein, E. H. (2010). Organizational culture and leadership (4th ed.). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
18. Sebt, M. H., Shahhosseini, V., & Rezaei, M. (2010). Competency based optimized assignment of project managers to projects. 12th UKSim
International Conference on Modelling and Simulation, UKSim 2010, Cambridge. 311-316. doi: 10.1109/UKSIM.2010.65
19. Spencer, L. M., & Spencer, S. M. (1993). Competence at work :Models for superior performance. New York: Wiley.
20. Stringer, R. (2002). Leadership and organizational climate :The cloud chamber effect. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall.
21. Westergren, U. (2011). Opening up innovation: The impact of contextual factors on the co-creation of IT-enabled value adding services within
the manufacturing industry. Information Systems and E-Business Management, 9(2), 223-245. doi: 10.1007/s10257-010-0144-2
22. Woodruffe, C. (1993). What is meant by a competency? Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 14(1), 29.
13

14. Please, contact me!
Mikhail ROZHKOV
PolyU, PhD (FT)
E-mail: mnrozhkov@gmail.com
14
Especially if
- you have interest to solve related
problems in your company!
- you do research in similar topic
- you have data related to this topic