Cambodia and the ASEAN Economic Community: Opportunities, Challenges, and Implications for Human Resource Development

The purpose of this paper is to examine the opportunities, challenges, and implications for human resource development (HRD) for Cambodia in joining the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Economic Community in 2015. The paper starts by providing an overview of ASEAN as a regional institution and the rationale for the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) 2015. The second section outlines and discusses current HRD practices in Cambodia, which include the country’s National Strategic Development Plan and Rectangular Strategy, higher education system, vocational and technical education system, and HRD through the private sector. What follows is an in-depth analysis ofthe main HRD challenges facing Cambodia, namely ASEAN integration challenges, mismatches between education and employment, problems with higher education and technical and vocational education systems, challenges in technology development and HRD, and a lack of awareness and engagement in the AEC processes. The paper concludes by discussing the implications for research and practices as regards Cambodia’s integration in the ASEAN Economic Community

The Roles of Entrepreneurial Competencies and organizational Life Cycle Stages in Malaysian Tourism and Hospitality SMEs: A Proposed Framework

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the tourism and hospitality industry are important contributors to the development of the Malaysian economy. Despite considerable support and incentives provided by the government, many SMEs still fail at different stages of their ventures. Since successful SMEs have a huge impact on a nation’s growth and economic well being, it is therefore critical to understand predictors of SME success. Some scholars attribute SME success to the competencies of the entrepreneurs themselves. This working paper proposes a conceptual framework for further empirical investigation. The framework integrates existing gaps in entrepreneurial SMEs by examining competencies required at different stages of SME growth, taking into consideration the uniqueness of the industry and the Malaysian context. The proposed framework is also anticipated for use by entrepreneurs, educators and trainers to develop the required competencies to facilitate SME growth and success. Keywords: SME; entrepreneurial competencies; Malaysia; tourism and hospitality industr

Building Ethical Business Cultures: BRIC by BRIC

As the economies of Brazil, Russia, India, and China (BRICs) continue to grow both in size and clout, and their resident multinational corporations become major players in global markets, questions pertaining to trust and integrity, and of universally shared standards for ethical business behavior become important concerns for numerous stakeholders. Whether or not managers and employees behave ethically depends on how one defines ethical behavior and applies it to an organization’s culture. We start this article by discussing attributes of ethical business behavior and cultures in each of the four BRICs countries, and then present results of our recent large scale survey-based studies, comparing managers’ and employees’ perceptions of ethical cultures in BRICs and in economically developed Western economies

Modeling Evolutionary Dynamics of Lurking in Social Networks

Lurking is a complex user-behavioral phenomenon that occurs in all large-scale online communities and social networks. It generally refers to the behavior characterizing users that benefit from the information produced by others in the community without actively contributing back to the production of social content. The amount and evolution of lurkers may strongly affect an online social environment, therefore understanding the lurking dynamics and identifying strategies to curb this trend are relevant problems. In this regard, we introduce the Lurker Game, i.e., a model for analyzing the transitions from a lurking to a non-lurking (i.e., active) user role, and vice versa, in terms of evolutionary game theory. We evaluate the proposed Lurker Game by arranging agents on complex networks and analyzing the system evolution, seeking relations between the network topology and the final equilibrium of the game. Results suggest that the Lurker Game is suitable to model the lurking dynamics, showing how the adoption of rewarding mechanisms combined with the modeling of hypothetical heterogeneity of users' interests may lead users in an online community towards a cooperative behavior.Comment: 13 pages, 5 figures. Accepted at CompleNet 201

Human capital development in Central and Eastern Europe: An analysis of trends and challenges facing Estonia, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovenia

This paper presents the findings of a comparative study of trends and challenges of human capital development (HCD) in four Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs)—Estonia, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Slovenia— through the lens of education and training as important predictors of HCD. Analyzing the dynamics of key variables utilized for assessment of human capital, the study reveals the increase of investment in education and in training as a positive trend. At the same time, the decline in students’ performance in math and science, high levels of skill mismatch over the analyzed time period, as well as demographic changes that are characterized by aging and shrinking of the workforce, are found to be barriers to HCD in the four CEECs. Emphasizing the interplay of three systems—education, training, and the labor markets—the study highlights the importance of the systemic approach in the development and implementation of HCD policies. The paper also advocates for the increasing role of HRD (and National HRD, in particular), if such an approach is undertaken.Niniejszy dokument przedstawia wyniki analizy porównawczej trendów i wyzwań z zakresu rozwoju kapitału ludzkiego (Human Capital Development – HCD) w czterech państwach Europy Środkowo-Wschodniej – w Estonii, na Węgrzech, w Czechach i Słowenii – przez pryzmat edukacji i szkoleń jako ważnych wyznaczników HCD. Analizując dynamikę kluczowych zmiennych używanych w ocenie kapitału ludzkiego, studium pokazuje wzrost inwestycji w edukację i szkolenia jako pozytywny trend. Równocześnie pogorszenie wyników studentów w naukach ścisłych, mocne niedopasowanie w sferze umiejętności w analizowanym okresie, jak również zmiany demograficzne przejawiające się w starzeniu i niedoborze pra¬cowników ukazane są jako bariery dla HCD w czterech wymienionych państwach. Kładąc nacisk na współgranie trzech systemów, tzn. edukacji, szkoleń i rynków pracy, studium podkreśla wagę podejścia systemowego do rozwoju i wdrażania strategii HCD. Podkreślono również rosnącą rolę HRD (Human Resource Development), tu szczególnie krajowego, o ile takie podejście zostanie zastosowane

Ethical Business Cultures: A Literature Review and Implications for HRD

This literature review identifies characteristics of ethical business cultures, describes factors, considered to be important in developing such cultures, describes current practices of developing ethical culture programs, and discusses the role of HRD in developing ethical business cultures. We argue that ethical thinking and behavior can be learned and internalized as a result of work-based interpretive interactions, and this learning process constitutes an important part of organizational learning. Therefore, to help the organization develop an ethical culture, HRD needs to play a key role in several interrelated activities which include: culture change efforts, focused on the creation of conditions, conducive to ethical behaviors; creation of a dynamic program of ethical training for employees on all levels of the organization; and development of up-to-date codes of ethics

HRD and business ethics

Corporate scandals of 2000–01; the global financial and economic crisis of 2008–09 that was accompanied by revelations about major violations of ethical and moral codes at a range of large business institutions; mounting evidence that the negative impact of business activity on the global ecosystem is not only real but also rapidly escalating; wars and armed confrontations in various regions of the world, most of which were triggered by conflicts over resources and had further devastating impact on the environment. These and numerous other recent events suggest that business and economic models dominant in the Western developed societies may not be sustainable in the long run and need to be updated. Likewise, HRD practitioners and academics are actively searching for new approaches that would help our organizations to remain sustainable in the new uncertain business and socio-economic conditions. One of the manifestations of this search is the call for a more aggressive and encompassing integration of HRD and corporate social responsibility, sustainability, and business ethics (Garavan and McGuire, 2010)