Success factors of human resource profession in Malaysia: a quantitative study

Abstract

Human Resource (HR) profession is moving toward being more aligned with business outcomes. To function constructively and to play critical roles more effectively, HR professionals must master the necessary competencies. The competencies that are examined in this study are business knowledge, strategy architect, HR delivery, credible activist and HR technology. The findings show that the top nine ranking HR competency factors are from the domain of credible activist and HR delivery. The respondents' self-rated competencies show that personal communication, legal compliance, effective relationship and performance management rank above all other factors. The study reveals that competencies such as strategy architect, business knowledge and HR technology have significant correlation with a firm performance. Furthermore, through difference of mean analysis, this study found that there is significant variation among respondents with respect to their business knowledge in terms of such success factors as HR experience, education level, salary and firm size.