Acceleration of enhancing human capital to improve performances of users in enterprise content management

Abstract

This study was an action research that combined theories and practices through change and reflection in a problematic situation in a real organization. Pilot research in an organizational case that was a pharmaceutical company in Bangkok, Thailand, indicated critical gaps in enterprise content management (ECM), which was called an electronic trial master file (eTMF). The critical gap was the lack of knowledge of essential documents, eTMF management processes, the master list, and the functional system. Therefore, the research following the gaps identification phase had two objectives regarding human capital development and human capital measurement in eTMF. This research consisted of four stages: pre-implementation, implementation - Phase I, implementation - Phase II, and post-implementation. The research participants comprised 25 employees: the country manager, experts, the assistant, and users of the eTMF. For human capital development, it is not known how an organizational case enhances human capital in an eTMF. Therefore, the first research objective was to enhance expeditious human capital in the eTMF by using shared vision, competency- based management, knowledge creation, experiential learning, and workplace learning. The research used shared vision to set the shared visions, employed competency-based management to identify and validate the competencies in the eTMF, and combined knowledge creation, experiential learning, and workplace learning to develop and validate the training program for users in the eTMF. The research applied a focus group to set the shared visions for human capital development in the eTMF, as well as to develop and validate the competencies and the training program in the eTMF. The research also adopted competence and performance assessment to assess the users' competence and performances and adopted a correlation method to validate the competencies in the eTMF. Moreover, the research utilized a quantitative analysis approach for the analysis of the focus group and a quantitative analysis approach for the analysis of the assessment and correlation. The results presented the competencies and training program in the eTMF in which user participation was critical for establishing the appropriate competencies and the training program to support the achievement of the performances. The competencies in the eTMF consisted of three dimensions comprising knowledge, skills, and attributes with 11 competencies concerning the ECM components and the specific organizational ECM context. The training program in the eTMF consisted of five methods comprising sharing, coaching and teach-back, learn by doing, communication, and monitoring. All users of the eTMF met the standard level of competency and had increased scores of performances. The average level of users' competence for the overall competencies (Sig. = 0.001) and the average score of the users' performances in eTMF: percent of no error found (Sig. = 0.008) significantly increased the end of the implementation - Phase II. For the human capital measurement, it is not known how an organizational case would measure human capital in an eTMF in a monetary value. Although there are many studies in human capital accounting methods, the organizational case could not adopt the existing human capital accounting methods to measure human capital in monetary terms due to the unique organizational ECM contexts. Therefore, the second research objective was to measure human capital in human capital development in an eTMF by using human capital accounting to identify the variables and develop a formula for measuring human capital in a monetary value. Thus, human capital in a monetary value allowed the organizational case to appropriately manage and evaluate human capital development in the eTMF. Additionally, the research applied a literature review, semi-structured interview, documentary search, and human capital accounting to identify the variables, develop the formula, and measure human capital in a monetary value. The research also used a working hypothesis, triangulation, expert review, and practitioner review to validate and analyze these variables, formulas, and values. The required variables included the training cost (expense), opportunity cost (hourly salary and total hours spent in the human capital development), value-added in competency (monthly salary, percentage of time in the eTMF, and competency proportion), and value-added in performance (monthly salary, percentage of time in the eTMF, and performance proportion). The formula for human capital measurement in human capital development in the eTMF was the value-added in the competency and value-added in the performance, and its value was 112,744.23 US Dollars. The results provided the human capital in monetary values comprising the investments and benefits, which most values were intangible. The investments were the training and opportunity costs, and the benefits were value-added in the competencies and performances required for the eTMF. This case evaluated the effectiveness of human development by comparing the investments and benefits, and its value was 1.62. This research contributed to the workplace, pharmaceutical industry, and academics by providing approaches to enhance human capital and measure human capital in a monetary value in ECM, which was called an eTMF. The research also contributed to the gap identification that guided the ways to improve performance in an eTMF. In case people were the primary area for development, organizations that would implement an eTMF and ECM could use this research study's human capital development approaches. In addition, this research proposed human capital management concepts by providing approaches to enhance human capital during the ECM adoption phase and provided methods to measure and evaluate human capital in training and development in monetary terms.