Soft skills influencing motivation and their impact on the employee performance: An Indonesian company case

Abstract

Objective: The importance of this study in bridging the gap between existing research literature works of soft skills, motivation and employee performance, and offering an empirical reference to the industry’s experience.

Research Design & Methods: This study reflects an empirical analysis by taking a quantitative approach to finding and demonstrating the degree of the influence of variables on the proposed hypotheses.

Findings: The variables of soft skills, i.e. interpersonal skills and intrapersonal skills have shown a positive influence on motivation and a positive impact on employee performance. These variables have a continuous effect on the overall performance of the company. The analytical results represented empirically through the path analysis conducted in this study.

Contribution & Value Added: This study emphasizes the creation of understanding among companies, primarily to strengthen soft skills that go hand in hand with growing hard skills, to promote encouragement to take the effect of the overall performance of employees and organizations to thrive and indeed grow in the current era of global competition.

Author Biography

Cheng-Wen Lee

Professor in the Department of International Business, College of Business, Chung Yuan Christian University (CYCU) Taiwan. Research interests: International Business Management, International Marketing, International Marketing Management, and Global Logistics Management.

Alum Kusumah

Ph.D. scholar in the Department of International Business, College of Business, Chung Yuan Christian University (CYCU) Taiwan. A master's degree from the University of Muhammadiyah Jakarta and a Ph.D. scholar in CYCU since 2018. Research focus: International Business Management, Human Resources Management, Operational Management, and Organizational Behaviour.

References

1. Abdalkrim, G. M. (2013). The Impact of Strategic Planning Activities on Private Sector Organizations Performance in Sudan: An Empirical Research. International Journal of Business and Management, 8(10), 134-143. https://doi.org/10.5539/ijbm.v8n10p134
2. Altındağ, E., & Kösedağı, Y. (2015). The Relationship Between Emotional Intelligence of Managers, Innovative Corporate Culture and Employee Performance. Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences, 210, 270-282. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2015.11.367
3. Anderson, J. C., Rungtusanatham, M., & Schroeder, R. G. (1994). a Theory of Quality Management Underlying the Deming Management Method. Academy of Management Review, 19(3), 472-509. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.1994.9412271808
4. Cimatti, B. (2016). Definition, development, assessment of soft skills and their role for the quality of organizations and enterprises. International Journal for Quality Research, 10(1), 97-130. https://doi.org/10.18421/IJQR10.01-05
5. De Prins, P., Van Beirendonck, L., De Vos, A., & Segers, J. (2014). Sustainable HRM: Bridging theory and practice through the ’respect openness continuity (ROC)’-model. Management Revue, 25(4), 263-284. https://doi.org/10.1688/mrev-2014-04-Prins
6. Dean, S., & East, J. (2019). Soft Skills Needed for the 21st-Century Workforce. International Journal of Applied Management and Technology, 18(1), 5. https://doi.org/10.5590/IJAMT.2019.18.1.02
7. Demirbag, M., Tatoglu, E., Tekinkus, M., & Zaim, S. (2006). An analysis of the relationship between TQM implementation and organizational performance: Evidence from Turkish SMEs. Journal of Manufacturing Technology Management, 17(6), 829-847. https://doi.org/10.1108/17410380610678828
8. Development of Economics. (2015). the Value of Soft Skills to the UK Economy. The United King-dom.
9. Dietrich, J., Parker, P., & Salmela-Aro, K. (2012). Phase-adequate engagement at the post-school transition. Developmental Psychology, 48(6), 1575-1593. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0030188
10. Ehnert, I., Harry, W., & Zink, K. J. (2013). Sustainability and Human Resource Management – Developing Sustainable Business Organizations. In NHRD Network Journal (Vol. 6). https://doi.org/10.1177/0974173920130413
11. Firdaus, I. (2017). Urgensi Soft Skills dan Character Building Bagi Mahasiswa. Jurnal TAPIs, 14, 60-73.
12. Goodall Jr., H. L. (1992). Empowerment, culture, and postmodern organizing: Deconstructing the nordstrom employee handbook. Journal Organization Change and Management, 5(2), 25-30.
13. Hairi, F., Toee, M. N. A., & Razzaly, W. (2011). Employers’ Perception On Soft Skills Of Graduates: A Study Of Intel Elite Soft Skill Training. International Conference on Teaching & Learning in Higher Education (ICTLHE 2011) Employers’, (Ictlhe).
14. Hendarman, A. F., & Tjakraatmadja, J. H. (2012). Relationship among Soft Skills, Hard Skills, and Innovativeness of Knowledge Workers in the Knowledge Economy Era. Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences, 52, 35-44. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2012.09.439
15. Imran, R., Fatima, A., Zaheer, A., Yousaf, I., & Batool, I. (2012). How to boost employee performance: Investigating the influence of transformational leadership and work environment in a Pakistani perspective. Middle East Journal of Scientific Research, 11(10), 1455-1462. https://doi.org/10.5829/idosi.mejsr.2012.11.10.741
16. Kaba, R., Ogink, A., Nketiah-amponsah, E., Alhassan, R. K., Spieker, N., Ostenberg, P. Van, … Nketiah-amponsah, E. (2013). Association between health worker motivation and healthcare quality efforts in Ghana Association between health worker motivation and healthcare quality efforts in Ghana. Human Resources for Health, 11(1), 1. https://doi.org/10.1186/1478-4491-11-37
17. Kanfer, R., & Chen, G. (2016). Motivation in organizational behavior: History, advances and prospects. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 136(September 2016), 6-19. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.obhdp.2016.06.002
18. Kooij, D. T. A. M., & Kanfer, R. (2019). Lifespan Perspectives on Work Motivation. In Work Across the Lifespan (pp. 475-493). https://doi.org/10.1016/b978-0-12-812756-8.00020-7
19. Muqowim. (2012). Pengembangan Soft Skills Guru. Yogyakarta: Pedagogia.
20. Okoro, E., Cwashington, M., & Thomas, O. (2017). The Impact of Interpersonal Communication Skills on Organizational Effectiveness and Social Self-Efficacy: A Synthesis. International Journal of Language and Linguistics, 4(3), 5. Retrieved on September 21, 2019 from www.ijllnet.com
21. Osman, S., Shariff, S. H., & Lajin, M. N. A. (2016). Does Innovation Contribute to
22. Employee Performance? Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences, 219, 571-579. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2016.05.036
23. Pinder, C. C. (1998). Work Motivation in Organizational Behavior (1998th ed.). Prentice Hall.
24. Robbins, S. T., Judge, T. A., & Hasham, E. S. (2012). Organizational Behavior (13th ed.; F. Gibbons, Ed.). Retrieved on September 21, 2019 from http://www.pearsonmiddleeastawe.com/pdfs/OB-SAMPLE.pdf
25. Sadikoglu, E., & Zehir, C. (2010). Investigating the effects of innovation and employee performance on the relationship between total quality management practices and firm performance: An empirical study of Turkish firms. International Journal of Production Economics, Vol. 127, pp. 13-26. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijpe.2010.02.013
26. Seetha, N. (2014). Are Soft skills Important in the Workplace? A Preliminary Investigation in Malaysia. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 4(4), 44-56. https://doi.org/10.6007/ijarbss/v4-i4/751
27. Vijayalakshmi, V. (2016). Soft Skills-The Need of the Hour for Professional Competence: A Review on Interpersonal Skills and Intrapersonal Skills Theories. International Journal of Applied Engineering Research, 11(4), 2859-2864. Retrieved on September 23, 2019 from https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/2ff5/baed1a51942d446110017d9445d538922e24.pdf