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Essay: Relationships Between It Certifications And Employee Competence: Does It Certifications Increase Employee Competence?

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Relationships Between It Certifications And Employee Competence: Does It Certifications Increase Employee Competence?

The IT industry is one of the most dynamic industries to work in and this is because of the fact that organizations and employees need to have a set of predefined competence attributes to enable them to perform their work effectively as they are part of information system components. Afyouni (2006) states that information system components are collections of people, data, networks, hardware and software. The following components which are networks, hardware and software are usually acquired from service providers who are the intellectual property owners of those products, for example Cisco provides network routing devices and SAP provides ERP software solutions. The use of those products requires employees to be competent as this enables the organization to utilize those products to the fullest potential, Sandberg (2000) describes human competence as not only the core specific set of attributes but rather as knowledge, skills and other attributes which can be used in accomplishing a specific task in the work environment.
Like many concepts explored in research the is always different viewpoints regarding those concepts, Sandberg (2000) states that one of the core problems mangers face is the development of human competence in the work environment which should enable organizations to have a competitive advantage, the rapid change in technology and communications has added the need for continues development of competence. Different levels of management have different viewpoints regarding the definition of ‘competence’, the HR departments view competence has a set of skills that an employee has which enables them to perform their work, on the other hand first-line mangers view competence beyond the skills but also consider the persons attitude towards the work. Burnejko (2014) sates that there over 1960 IT certifications across 169 vendors, this number poses a number of challenges for organizations, one of those challenges is how will organizations identity which of those certifications add value to the organization and how will it contribute to employee competence in the workplace.
More employees are encouraged to take part in some form of certification that relates to their line of work and it becomes a daunting task to appreciate the value of the certification if employees don’t know how/will the certification increase their work performance.
This study will help contribute to current knowledge by means of adding the employees perspective into the phenomena (do IT certifications contribute to employee competence?), it will also help advance the current practice of competence development by adding more considerations when deciding which certifications employees should take part in, and it will also help fill the current gap of misconceptions regarding IT certifications.
To help facilitate the process of understanding if IT certifications can help increase employee competence, we were more interested in discovering the employee’s view on the phenomena under investigation.
This research project is a survey intended to examine and explore the relationship between industry IT certifications and employee competence for IT professionals based on employee feedbacks.

Aims and objectives
The aim of this study is to examine and explore the relationship between IT certification and employee competence for IT professionals based on the feedback of employees themselves. In order to archive this aim, the following objectives are set:
‘ Perform an analysis on current IT certifications
‘ Identify organizations that require their employees to be certified
‘ Identify employees who are already certified and those considering to be certified
‘ Examine if a relationship exists between IT certifications and employee competence
‘ Explore the relationship in cases where the relationship exists

Literature Review
As highlighted in the introduction, Sandberg (2000) describes human competence as not only the core specific set of attributes but rather as knowledge, skills and other attributes which can be used in accomplishing a specific task in the work environment. The understanding of the term employee competence is growing interest in the business world and this builds on some of the works of people such as Morgan who have contributed to knowledge, Morgna (1988) believed that competence should not only be defined as knowledge itself but it is imperative that competence should be understood to be not all knowledge and skills required to perform work but rather the knowledge and skills people utilize when performing work, for example a baker does not require all the knowledge and skills in running a bakery but only requires the knowledge and skills specific to the type of work he performs. Based on the work done by Sandberg and Morgen, competence can be understood as knowledge, skills, other attributes required when performing a specific task at work.
The use of Information Technology has posed an interesting challenge for management teams because IT is a rapidly changing industry which requires organizations to keep up with those changes by means of having programs that encourage continuous competence development. Jones & George (2009) outline that there are four types of development programs organizations can implement to enable continuous development: 1) Classroom instruction, 2) On-the-job- training, 3) Varied work experiences and 4) Formal education. For organizations to implement any of those programs they should first have clear understanding of the required competence level and align it with the employees understanding of the concept.
Given the established definition of competence in this report, it is of interest that we focus our study on one particular attribute that contributes to competence which is knowledge. Knowledge in its most basic form can be described as ‘facts, information and skills through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject’.
There are a number of ways in which employees or organizations can acquire knowledge but for the purpose of this study will only focus on acquiring knowledge by means of education in particular by means of certification. Certification vendors have different definitions for the team IT certification but the most popular description is ‘professional certifications in computer technology or related technology which are non-degree awards made to those who have achieved by means of being competent in the related computer technology’
There a number of factors that have contributed to the increase in IT certifications but one of the most profound reasons are related to job requirements (Nicklin, 2010). Nicklin (2010) outlines that it is possible to measure the qualitative value of certifications because the certificate will demonstrate that the employee has attained an industry wide approved skill/knowledge in a given technology but she then poses an important question which requires further research ‘what is the quantitative value of IT certifications?.
Nicklin (2010) identifies the value of IT certifications based on the persons involved: the organization (value relates more to ROI, increased team performance, and utilizing time effectively and efficiently) and the employee (values relates more too increased employability, greater potential for growth and networking opportunities). However the values identified by Nicklin cannot be used to measure competence or even quantify competence levels.
In order to effectively examine the relationship between IT certifications and employee competence, there should be a standard which should be developed to ensure accurate measurement of employee competence. Trinder (2008) explains that the measurement of competency is made up of individual units of competency which are areas of work that can logically stand-alone, in his works a unit of competency ‘can be described by its function or purpose. The steps that have to be performed to achieve an outcome and the means of demonstrating that it has been performed satisfactorily should be described, as well as the conditions under which the function will be performed ‘

Based on the mentioned literature review there is clear understanding of the factors that contribute to employee competence in general however the is still a gap in the understanding of how IT certifications can be a contributing factor towards employee competence and this is because the is no competency standard that employees and organizations can use to measure the level of competence and also because employees have not expressed their views relating to competence. To help bridge the gap further research should help by establishing a competency standard for IT professionals, provide quantitative tools to measure competency and, also include the employees understanding of the phenomena under investigation.

Research Design
As part of the process of developing the theoretical framework for this study, I will start by reading and understating the current literature that has been carried out and published by accredited sources and I will also engage critical in the review by means of reflecting and evaluating the concepts explored in the literature. Quinlan (2011) establishes the importance of literature review being: the ability to develop own expertise of the topic under investigation and the process by which you can identify gaps in the current knowledge.
My literature review will focus on the following areas: understanding the current definition of ’employee competence’, examine if competence models/standards have being established, understand the current definition of ‘IT certifications and also examine if employees have being engage in understanding the phenomena.
The study will be developed using a survey as the research methodology, Gable (1994) gives a detailed explanation of the term survey as ‘The survey approach refers to a group of methods which emphasize quantitative analysis, where data for a large number of organizations are collected through methods such as mail questionnaires, telephone interviews, or from published statistics, and these data are analyzed using statistical techniques. By studying a representative sample of organizations, the survey approach seeks to discover relationships that are common across organizations and hence to provide generalizable statements about the object of study’.
Gable (1994) states that one of the weakness of using surveys is the fact that they only give a snap-short of the investigation at a certain point in time and as a result it provides little information on the underlying meaning of the data, however the benefits of surveys include: they can accurately record the norm, highlight extreme outcomes and delineate associations of the variables. The survey is an appropriate approach because it provides medium controllability, deductibility, repeatability, discoverability and repeatability (Gable, 1994). The use of the survey will allow for exploration of the relationship between IT certifications and employee competence across a larger sample of IT professionals.
Data Collection
This study will use a questionnaire as means by which the data for the study will be collected, the questionnaire will be distributed by means of using soft copies and hard copies. The questionnaire will consist of 10 questions that relate to the employee’s understanding of competence Once completed all questionnaires will be printed to assist with the data analyses process.
Data Analyses
Once the questionnaire has been completed, the data will be analyzed with the aim of discovering if a relationship exists between the IT certification and employee competence. To enable effective analysis of the data I will use the services of Statcon at the University of Johannesburg because they are well skilled and resourceful regarding data analyses.

Issues of validity and reliability
Quinlan (2011) defines validity as ‘the degree to which the research project measures what is set out to measure, the degree to which the research project accomplishes what it set to accomplishes’, the validity of this project will be maintained by means of using a properly structured questionnaire that will capture the understanding of competence as it relates to the employees themselves and by means of structured analysis that will provide insight into the study. Quinlan (2011) defines reliability as ‘the degree to which the research can be repeated while obtaining consistent results, the reliability can only be maintained if the same research design is followed and taking into account the weakness of surveys being that they only capture a snap-short at a point in time, meaning those snap-shorts could change overtime.

Ethics
The ethical issues in this study are minor however the participants will be informed of the purpose of research and will also be presented with a an informed consent which will give detailed context of the research purpose. In maintaining the ethical standard for the research I will follow a research process with comprehensive literature review, well managed data, conclusions will be based on the data findings. Once the participants have being identified, a letter will be written to the relative research ethics committee requesting permission to conduct the research. The following issues will be considered in the research process: integrity, validity, transparency and plagiarism. The participants will also be informed that the findings of this research will not be used for any commercial gain and, confidentiality and anonymity will be maintained if requested.

List of References
1. Afyouni,H.A., 2006,Database Security and Auditing, Course Technology Cengage Learning, Boston
2. Burnejko,M., Everything about IT certifications, viewed 24 April 2014 from http://www.itcertificationmaster.com/list-of-all-it-certifications/
3. Gable, G. G., 1994, Integrating case study and survey research methods: an example in information systems, European Journal of Information Systems, 3 (2), 112-126
4. Jones, G.R., & George, J.M.,2009, Contemporary Management seventh edition, McGraw-Hill, New York
5. Nicklin, S., 2010, The value of IT Certification (white paper), in IBM, viewed 02 May 2014, from http://public.dhe.ibm.com/partnerworld/pub/certify/valuecert2010.pdf
6. Quinlan, C., 2010, Business Research Methods, South-Western Cengage Learning, Canada
7. Sandberg, J., 2000, Understanding human competence at work: an interpretative approach, Academy of Management Journal, 43 (01), 9-25.
8. Trinder, J.C., 2008, Competency standards – a measure of the quality of a workforce, The International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences, Beijing

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