NATIONAL ECONOMICS UNIVERSITY

INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT AND ECONOMICS

HIGHER NATIONALS
BTEC HIGHER NATIONAL DIPLOMA IN BUSINESS (RQF)

Unit Code, Number and Title

D/508/0491 – Unit 6: Managing a Successful Business Project

Semester and Academic Year Semester 1, Academic year 2020-2021

Unit Assessor(s) Ms. Pham Tran Minh Trang; Mr. Nguyen Van Dai

Assignment Number and Title MSBP: Managing a Research Project (Assignment 1 of 1)

Logbook 4

Submission Date 10:00 am, Saturday, May 15th, 2021

Student Name Le Ngoc Quang

NEU Student ID 10190688 Pearson ID

Plagiarism is a particular form of cheating. Plagiarism must be avoided at all costs and students who
break the rules, however innocently, may be penalised. It is your responsibility to ensure that you
understand correct referencing practices. As a university level student, you are expected to use
appropriate references throughout and keep carefully detailed notes of all your sources of materials
for material you have used in your work, including any material downloaded from the Internet. Please
consult the relevant unit lecturer or your course tutor if you need any further advice.
I certify that the assignment submission is entirely my own work and
Student declaration I fully understand the consequences of plagiarism. I understand that
making a false declaration is a form of malpractice.

Student name / Signature Date:

Logbook 4
Findings
In-brief review of your past work by ticking X where applicable (it may help you know how far you
have gone since your first steps)

Statements YES NO On-going/not

sure
Have you collected all of the data you x
expected before?
Have you had any problems with your data x
collected?
Have you still had challenges with the x
research technique in your research
methodology?
In general, do you think you are on the right x
track and within deadlines set?
1. Please submit your Literature Review (remember that this is Week 11, you must have a
complete LR by now). Clearly state the research gap and justify how your methodology is
appropriate to fill such gap. (Remember that Quantitative methodology starts with theory,
hypothesis testing while Qualitative methodology is about theory building, new theme/concept)

The definition of talent, as it has been evolving over time in conjunction with
demographic and societal changes, could be ambiguous. Early 2000s researchers identified
talents as those that possess outstanding intrinsic qualities in cognitive ability and potential
(Michaels et al., 2001; Stahl et al., 2007) or systematically developed knowledge and skills
(Gagne, 2000), describing the term in a technical and characterized perspective of individual
capabilities and performance. Later works, however, took a more specific and organization-
associated approach on interpreting the concept, illustrating it as people, through their
exceptional competencies, effectively contribute to the job and the company (Silzer &
Dowell, 2010; Bethke-Langenegger & Mahler, 2011). Regardless, most studies share a
general consensus that talents or experts, while scarce in number, are the main factor that
productively generates most benefits and value within the whole organizational workforce
(Tarique & Schuler, 2010; Rita Ifeoma & Purity, 2015), hence a rare resource that drew
massively increased interest from business enterprises (Kim & McLean, 2012).
The idea of talent management, ever since the 1997 ground-breaking study “War for
Talent” which consolidated the value of high-performing workers, has been capturing
widespread attention as practitioners progressively realized the competitive advantage of
owning a highly skilled workforce, especially in knowledge-oriented sectors (Ansar & Baloch,
2018). Information Technology (IT), being a unique case of those abovementioned
intellectual-demanding industries as the majority of its tech-savvy members can arguably be
regarded as valuable human assets in the emerging digital era of 21 st century, subsequently
witnessed a fierce competition between organizations in talent recruiting, developing and
retaining practices as the race for a quality and sustainable labor force is heating up (Acar &
Yener, 2016). As a result, there are notably spiking difficulties in employing computer
professionals, as well as retaining them, over the past few years (Sivanesan, 2014).
One major obstacle that has been a headache for IT managers is the increasing gap
between human resource demand and supply. There has been a controversy among
academicians regarding the explanation for the situation as some believed it is a projected
outcome of a rapidly mushrooming digital economy that has exceeded the talent production
rate (Luftman & Kempaiah, 2007), while others argued that the current IT employee
shortfall is an inevitable consequence of poor pre-college career orientation process, which
has deviated personal enthusiasm of several individuals from computer pathway during high
school period (Bowman, 2018).
Another challenge that has been ever pertaining to the IT sector since its early
development is maintaining healthy work-life balance of the workers. According to
Messersmith (2007), due to extensive increase in computer-related practices, IT
professionals are demanded to work relentlessly for a longer period and be ready to support
around-the-clock, which in turn greatly demotivates employees and ultimately contributes
to a large fraction of turnover rate (Korunka & Hoonakker, 2008). With rapid technological
transition taken into account, skillful and flexible management in mitigating and resolving
alternative work-life conflicts of employees should become a top priority in general IT
human resource management (Oosthuizen & Coetzee, 2016).
A third and final controversial topic in IT talent management is the importance of
working environment for IT experts. Although the Information Technology sector is widely
known as one of the least workplace-tied job (and thus, considered a very fluid environment
for workers – Field, 2017), a research study by American Society of Interior Designers (1999)
stated that for over half of the interviewees, working environment quality is a very crucial
factor for their loyalty.
As a result, this paper is hoping to be a very initial attempt to determine if the previous
research results on these challenges (supply-demand gap, work-life balance maintenance
and working environment quality) are compatible with the current situation in Vietnamese
IT sector. Consequently, suggestions for improvement based on primary research data will
be made.
 H1: There is a supply-demand gap in IT recruitment of Vietnamese firms
 H2: Terrible work-life balance lowers job satisfaction of IT workers in Vietnam
 H3: Terrible work environment quality lowers job satisfaction of IT workers in Vietnam

2. Please submit either your Interview guideline or Survey Questionnaire [For Quantitative
methodology, you should clearly explain how the questions/statements in the questionnaire
relate to your objectives and the Literature Review; For Qualitative methodology, you should
relate some key questions in Interview guideline to your research objective and research
question(s)]

My name is Le Ngoc Quang, currently studying Bachelor of Business Management at NEU. I

am interviewing managers and Human resource officers working at tech companies in Hanoi
to conduct a research on the current obstacles of talent management in the field of
Information Technology (IT). All collected data is only for the purpose of the study, and will
remain confidential.

 Personal description
1. Your current firm (please specify)
2. Your position
a. Manager
b. HR officer
c. Other (please specify)
3. Your experience
a. Less than 3 years
b. Between 3 and 5 years
c. More than 5 years

 Demand-supply gap in recruitment

Very Very
Demand-supply gap in recruitment Disagree Neutral Agree
disagree agree
 There is a lack of talent resource in the
labor market

Applicants’ qualifications rarely satisfy our

expectation
The company has difficulties in attracting
talent application
Most applicants have little working
experience
Talents’ demands are too high

 Work-life balance

Very Very
Difficulties in maintaining work-life balance Disagree Neutral Agree
disagree agree
Talents’ working time are not fixed
Talents are often asked to provide support
more than 8 hours a day
Talents are often asked to work on holidays
Talents often appear exhausted at work

Talents do not have enough time for families

and friends

 Working environment

Very Very
Working environment Disagree Neutral Agree
disagree agree
Workplace infrastructures aren’t in good
condition
Working regulations are strict
New ideas from subordinates are generally
not encouraged
Talents don’t really fit in the company well

Thank you very much for spending time filling my survey!

3. Could you please some key results from your research? (you can use bullet point for each
result)

Characteristic Frequency Percentage

Working for Viettel 10 33.3
FPT 7 23.3
Tek Experts 3 10
BKAV 2 6.7
Others 8 26.7
Position HR Officer 19 63.3
Manager 9 30
 HR Intern 2 6.67
Experience (years) <3 14 46.7
3-5 9 30
>5 7 23.3

Demand-supply gap in recruitment Mean S.D.

There is a lack of talent resource in the labor market 3.33 1.06
Applicants’ qualifications rarely satisfy our expectation 3.57 0.97
The company has difficulties in attracting talent application 2.43 1.25
Most applicants have little working experience 3.57 1.22
Talents’ demands are too high 3.1 1.16

Difficulties in maintaining work-life balance Mean S.D.

Talents’ working time are not fixed 2.77 1.22
Talents are often asked to provide support more than 8 hours a
3 1.20
day
Talents are often asked to work on holidays 2.7 1.12
Talents often appear exhausted at work 2.83 1.05
Talents do not have enough time for families and friends 2.47 1.01

Working environment Mean S.D.

Workplace infrastructures aren’t in good condition 2.23 1.3
Working regulations are strict 3.77 1.14
New ideas from subordinates are generally not encouraged 2.77 1.14
Talents don’t really fit in the company well 2.5 1.22

4. Points to consider for Results

 In what way do you want to present your results?

Table for statistical data, and probably charts for visualization

 Do you think you will provide interesting result(s)? if yes, please briefly explain how?
Based on preliminary answers, there aren’t any surprising result

 What do you recommend for future research agenda and organizational policy based on
your research results?
Working environment is a seriously underrated factor that IT firms should pay much more
attention to in order to retain their best workers

Opportunities, Risks and Risk Management Plan1 related to Methodology

1
Opportunities and risks here refer to the advantage and challenges, respectively, that you can face in the
coming phase of your research project
 Opportunities Risk(s) What do you plan to respond
to those potential risks,
please provide in-brief ideas

1
2
3
4
…

Any other concerns and questions for your tutor? For example

Question 1:

Question 2:

Questions…