Required competencies for knowledge management related jobs in Asia : an analysis of job advertisements.

• Main Author: Rianto Mulia.
• Other Authors: Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information
• Format: Theses and Dissertations
• Language: English
• Published: 2009
• Subjects: DRNTU::Library and information science::General::Careers and profession
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/15480
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

The ever-increasing and exploding amount of information generated over the years has pressured organisations to put in more effort in hiring staff to manage their knowledge resources. The main aim of this study is to identify the competencies and skill-set requirements of the job market and to analyse the trend from the findings. Analysis of job competencies was done by looking at current job advertisements posted on online job portals. Twenty one KM core/process competencies, 21 IT applications and infrastructure competencies, 65 personality competencies and 54 qualification types were identified from the job advertisements analysed. This study chose to use job advertisements as the method of analysis duet to various reasons which are aligned with the objectives of this study. One of the reasons is that they provide an effective way to extract any gaps that may exist between the academic world and the talent skill-set requirements in the job market. The data used in the study was retrieved from 108 knowledge management specific job advertisements posted on different English language job portals in Asia. The findings suggest that most countries put the highest emphasis on personality compared to other competencies namely KM processes, IT applications and infrastructure, and qualifications. The findings also give some indicator to a certain degree of various levels of knowledge management maturity in different countries. The results suggest that different countries lean towards different aspect of three basic pillars of knowledge management namely people, technology, and process. The most noticeable trend is that 88% of the job advertisements are seeking for candidates with at least a bachelor’s degree. It indicates that the current knowledge management positions require mostly qualified professionals. Recommendations have also been made to assist organisations and academic entities on how they could tap on the findings for their usage. One of the uses could be to help academicians in analysing the degree of the gap between their existing curricula and the current skill-sets required by the job markets. Hence it could provide valuable information for academicians on whether there is a need to revise their existing curricula or design their subsequent curricula to further align them with the demands of the job markets.