El texto completo de este trabajo no está disponible en el Repositorio Académico UPC por restricciones de la casa editorial donde ha sido publicado. / Soft skills / Revisón por pares

Rápidos avanços da tecnologia e desenvolvimentos em diversos campos da ciência têm provocado mudanças profundas no mercado de trabalho. Nesse contexto, é bem documentado o papel relevante das competências socioemocionais no desenvolvimento de competências para o trabalho, sugerindo que os retornos do mercado de trabalho para habilidades não cognitivas têm aumentado ao longo do tempo e que os retornos são particularmente fortes para indivíduos que possuem habilidades cognitivas e não cognitivas. Nosso estudo busca trazer evidências do retorno associado às competências socioemocionais no mercado de trabalho brasileiro. Encontramos evidências de que existe um retorno positivo associado às competências socioemocionais e que esse retorno é diferente entre grupos de ocupação. Acreditamos que este conhecimento possa incentivar e reforçar as parcerias entre governos, educadores, formadores, trabalhadores e empregadores, a fim de gerir melhor o impacto transformador da Quarta Revolução Industrial no emprego, nas competências e na educação do Brasil. / Rapid advances in technology and developments in various science fields are driving deeply changes in the labor market. In this context, the relevant role of social-emotional skills in the development of job skills is well documented, suggesting that labor market returns to non-cognitive skills have been increasing over time and the pay-offs are particularly strong for individuals who have both cognitive and non-cognitive skills. Our study seeks to bring evidence of the return associated with social-emotional skills in the Brazilian labor market. We found evidence that there is a positive return associated with socialemotional skills and that this return is different between occupation groups. We believe that this knowledge can encourage and strengthen partnerships between governments, educators, trainers, workers and employers in order to better manage the transformative impact of the Fourth Industrial Revolution on employment, skills and education in Brazil.

Rápidos avanços da tecnologia e desenvolvimentos em diversos campos da ciência têm provocado mudanças profundas no mercado de trabalho. Nesse contexto, é bem documentado o papel relevante das competências socioemocionais no desenvolvimento de competências para o trabalho, sugerindo que os retornos do mercado de trabalho para habilidades não cognitivas têm aumentado ao longo do tempo e que os retornos são particularmente fortes para indivíduos que possuem habilidades cognitivas e não cognitivas. Nosso estudo busca trazer evidências do retorno associado às competências socioemocionais no mercado de trabalho brasileiro. Encontramos evidências de que existe um retorno positivo associado às competências socioemocionais e que esse retorno é diferente entre grupos de ocupação. Acreditamos que este conhecimento possa incentivar e reforçar as parcerias entre governos, educadores, formadores, trabalhadores e empregadores, a fim de gerir melhor o impacto transformador da Quarta Revolução Industrial no emprego, nas competências e na educação do Brasil. / Rapid advances in technology and developments in various science fields are driving deeply changes in the labor market. In this context, the relevant role of social-emotional skills in the development of job skills is well documented, suggesting that labor market returns to non-cognitive skills have been increasing over time and the pay-offs are particularly strong for individuals who have both cognitive and non-cognitive skills. Our study seeks to bring evidence of the return associated with social-emotional skills in the Brazilian labor market. We found evidence that there is a positive return associated with socialemotional skills and that this return is different between occupation groups. We believe that this knowledge can encourage and strengthen partnerships between governments, educators, trainers, workers and employers in order to better manage the transformative impact of the Fourth Industrial Revolution on employment, skills and education in Brazil.

Training for interpersonal skills is used widely in organizations but few empirical studies have measured its effectiveness in creating behavioral change. Though the impact of individual differences on training for technical skills has been examined extensively, prior studies in interpersonal skills training have not investigated personal characteristics to determine antecedents of interpersonal knowledge and predictors of learning. The current investigation applies social learning theory to the development of interpersonal skills training for job interviewing and examines the role of personality on training outcomes. In Study 1, I analyzed the interpersonal skills relevant to interviewing for a job and developed a measure of interpersonal interview knowledge. In Study 2, I investigated two formats for training interpersonal skills for interviews. One format used general rules for behavior to teach interpersonal skills for interviews while the other format used a combination of rules and examples of real interview behaviors modeled by actors. The primary aim of Study 2 was to examine the relationships between personality, training format, training’s fit with self-concept, knowledge, and interview performance. Training format did not impact interpersonal interview knowledge but did influence satisfaction with the training. Surprisingly, cognitive ability was not related to interview knowledge before or after training. Agreeableness and conscientiousness were positively related interpersonal interview knowledge. Interpersonal interview knowledge and conscientiousness positively predicted interview performance. Agreeableness, however, was negatively related to interview performance. These findings begin to answer questions about how individual differences can impact the effectiveness of interpersonal skills training in terms of both knowledge development and transfer of skills to job-related contexts.

In 2010, an Association of Public and Land Grant Universities (APLU) study (Crawford, 2010) found that the agricultural industry representatives, Land Grant University alumni, and government employees look for certain skillsets (e.g., communication, leadership) in prospective employees. With the U.S economy recovering from a major economic recession, a greater number of new UA graduates with undergraduate degrees from CALS have cause to be concerned about their overall workforce competitiveness. Crawford's 2010 study examined which soft skills students should possess in order to be deemed hirable by the agriculture industry. Building off of Crawford's research, the current study involves a needs assessment that examines how students perceive 21st century workplace competencies. Specifically, this study will explore and describe the level of perceived importance and ability of 2015 UA CALS students graduating with baccalaureate degrees specific to 21st century workplace soft skill sets. Such identification of needs gaps will lead to greater understanding of the connection between industry demands, higher education institutions, and undergraduate students. The current research required the generation of data capable of leading to insights into the current development needs of undergraduate students in the agriculture and life sciences disciplines specific to 21st century workplace competencies. Student perceptions of such competencies were measured first according to perceived importance, and then perceived ability (Borich, 1980). This descriptive research gathered information from participants with the goal of measuring, summarizing and generalizing among the study's target population (Ary et al., 2010). The results suggest which competencies UA CALS undergraduate students perceive to be important and how they perceive their own abilities within each competency. Descriptive statistics were used to describe the data relevant to each of the four research objectives framing this study. In particular, measures of central tendency and variability were used to assess the perceived levels of importance and ability subjects placed on individual competencies. To describe the professional development needs of CALS students in the seven constructs that together categorize 21st century workplace competencies as a whole (professionalism, team, leadership, decision making/ problem solving, experiences, communication, and self-management), mean weighted discrepancy scores (MWDS) were used to analyze the need for the competencies. Borich's needs assessment model was used to reveal the areas of highest training priority as determined by the MWDS.A web based questionnaire with multiple points of contact yielded 61 respondents with diverse backgrounds (e.g., transfer status, geographical background, major fields of study, co-/extra-curricular involvement) from across the college. Of the 52 competencies included within the seven competency categories, 16 had an MWDS that was prioritized as a tier I professional development need, which is of the highest priority. Of the remaining competencies, 20 of them had MWDS's that indicated tier II priority level set for professional development need. Lastly, there were 23 competencies that had MWDS's that indicated tier III priority level set for professional development need, which is the lowest priority level. Recommendations for curricular innovation to better foster student development in the context of the 21st century workplace are provided.

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This research focuses on project complexity with the aim to better understand it and to highlight the factors that affect/contribute to it. In addition, this research also highlights key project management practices and project critical success factors considered important to manage project complexity/complex projects. The two main motivating factors behind this research were, the lack of understanding of complex projects and the lack of relevance of project management theory to practice, which have been highlighted by many researchers. Since projects in different sectors are increasingly being characterised as complex, this entails a better project management knowledge base focusing on the dynamic, social and complex contexts of projects, so that the interrelationships, interdependencies and uncertainties between different project interfaces can be understood and managed properly. In order to understand this 'project actuality', it was necessary to obtain the views from practitioners working in these project settings and managing project dynamics and intricacies. To establish this pragmatic view, a series of interviews and questionnaire surveys was carried out and all efforts were made to select the participants working on complex projects with complex products falling under the Complex Product Systems (CoPS) category which was the case in the 2nd phase interviews and questionnaire, whereas in the 1st phase practitioners with industrial experience and also involved and/or in the process of getting academic qualification in project management were preferred. The first phase helped in establishing the theoretical and pragmatic perspective and the 2nd phase in refining and validating the findings. The questions were inline with the research focus mentioned earlier.The main findings of the research show that the perception of project complexity and its contributing factors were very much influenced by the project context, i.e. from organization level to work discipline level. No difference in the practitioners' perception of project complexity and its contributing factors was observed among the practitioners based in a similar organization and project setting. Novelty was found to be one of the key project complexity characteristics related to three project elements-people, product and process. In terms of key project management practices and skills considered important in managing project complexity, soft skills were reported useful by majority of the participants. The key processes found useful were either the ones which focused on people or others which helped to manage changes/deviations in projects. Influence and relationship, delegation, flexibility and trust were the main project critical success factors which emerged out of this research for complex projects.

Magister Educationis (Adult Learning and Global Change) - MEd(AL) / The study investigates a Western Cape Technical Vocational and Education and Training (TVET) college internship programmes and how the curriculum prepare students for the workplace. The research utilizes and applies the Human Capital Theory (HCT) to student employability and college internships to generate new theoretical insights into the possibilities and limitations of an internship in preparing college students for the workplace. The study is motivated by observations of students in the workplaces who had completed the National Certificate Vocational (NCV) course with regard to hospitality and office administration who were participating in its associated internships. The research question underlines the relationship between the NCV qualification, HCT and internships.

Background: Competition in today’s markets has made organizations focus greatly on innovative workers and managers to meet up with dynamic market demands, which forms the bedrock of human capital theory as discussed by Crăciun (2015). As part of human capital theory, managers’ skills are the subject of this thesis in relation to innovation. Objectives: To analyze the impact of hard and soft skills on manager’s innovativeness, thereby addressing a real problem facing organizations. This research therefore investigates how hard and soft skills of low-level managers’ impact their innovativeness by drawing inspiration from previous studies. The population for this study is limited to managers in engineering consultancy firms. Methodology: Quantitative analysis is used for this research. Based on the research purpose and question, this study is explanatory. This study approaches theory development in a deductive way, such that hypotheses are proposed first and then data are collected to test the hypotheses. The model contains 3 constructs: Hard skills (HS), soft skills (SS) and managers’ innovativeness (MI). Each of these constructs contain variables that are operationalized in the questionnaire. Cronbach’s alpha and Exploratory Factor Analysis is used to check the reliability of each factor and validity of the constructs. Results: Six models are analyzed with IBM SPSS Statistics 26. Quantitative tools such as Multiple regression and Spearman Rank Order Correlation was used for the analysis. The results show that there is significant and positive relationship between managers’ hard and soft skills and their innovativeness. Conclusions: The empirical analysis shows that managers’ hard and soft skills are positively and significantly related to their innovativeness. This confirms the proposed hypothesis H1, H2 and H4 to be true. The result also shows that soft skills are more positively related to managers’ innovativeness than hard skills. The result of this thesis show that the more hard and soft skills managers have, the more innovative they will be. One of the implications of this study is that firms should ensure that their managers possess both hard and soft skills competencies. Recommendations for future research: Further research on this subject should ensure that larger number of responses are collected. The inability to develop a model to test for hypothesis H3 was a challenge due to the existence of multicollinearity when forming the interaction variable between hard and soft skills. This will be an interesting area for further research. In addition, using other quantitative tools other than multiple linear regression may give more significant result.

Health care complexities have limited the understanding of nursing care and have jeopardized the "soft skills" or foundation of caring as the art of nursing. Hospice nurses provide a deeper, more spiritual and complex type of care for critically ill and end-of-life (EOL) patients, which place them at a high risk for compassion fatigue. Using Reed's middle range theory of self-transcendence, the purpose of this project was to examine the relationship between compassion fatigue and self-transcendence among inpatient hospice nurses. A descriptive, correlational research methodology guided this inquiry surveying a convenience sample of 42 inpatient hospice nurses at 4 hospice locations. The Professional Quality of Life Scale assessment and Reed's Self-Transcendence Scale were used to survey inpatient hospice nurses. According to study results, although self-transcendence was not significantly associated with fatigue, there was a positive correlation between self- transcendence and compassion satisfaction and between affect and self-transcendence. This study leads to positive social change by providing hospice nurses strategies on how to cope with grief and trauma experienced on-the-job, leading to improved hospice care.