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Recruitment and retention of knowledge workers in Taiwan's high technology industry

Abstract Organisations need to have the ability to recruit and retain appropriate knowledge workers in order to create an inflow of knowledge and skills to develop and maintain their competitiveness. High technology organisations, particularly, rely on knowledge workers to transfer human capital into intellectual capital by turning technological knowledge into products. Taiwan is renowned for information and communication technology (ICT) product design and manufacture. This research uses Taiwan’s high technology industry as a sample to examine the recruitment, selection and retention practices for knowledge workers. Three organisation ownership types exist in Taiwan’s context: Taiwanese-owned,foreign-owned and non-private. This study asks: what are the current recruitment, selection and retention practices for knowledge workers in Taiwan’s high technology industry? Are there any differences in the three types of ownership group? Do ownership groups influence knowledge workers’ decisions to join or stay in their organisations? To answer these questions, a quantitative survey was conducted from September 2009 to March 2010, and two hundred valid questionnaire responses were collected (a response rate: 67%). Additionally, interviews were conducted with human resource managers in 10 organisations under various ownerships to collect information that was unobtainable in the questionnaire survey. This research contributes empirical evidence about the current recruitment/selection and retention practices for knowledge workers in Taiwan’s high technology industry. The results showed that organisations within various ownership groups preferred to use different practices. Taiwanese-owned firms predominantly used on-line agents to recruit knowledge workers and relied on employee ownership bonus programmes to attract and retain knowledge workers. Foreign-owned firms, significantly, used head hunters. They provided their knowledge workers with high base salaries, challenging and interesting work, and influential power over work-related decisions. Non-private organisations were significantly different in their adoption of company websites. They offered good training programmes, opportunities to access new technology, and attractive work-life balance, reflecting their research-oriented ethos.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:567309
Date January 2012
CreatorsWang, Yi-Hui
PublisherCardiff University
Source SetsEthos UK
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeElectronic Thesis or Dissertation
Sourcehttp://orca.cf.ac.uk/31279/

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