Transformative learning theory: A pilot and some implications for human resource training to help NHK furniture company toward sustainable development

590 TRANSFORMATIVE LEARNING THEORY: A PILOT AND SOME IMPLICATIONS FOR HUMAN RESOURCE TRAINING TO HELP NHK FURNITURE COMPANY TOWARD SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT Pham Duc Thieng1 Mai Van Hung2 Abstract: It is witnessed that the capacity of labors at small-sized enterprises is generally low for different reasons. Capacity is formed with three factors including attitudes, skills and knowledge, so-called ASK model (Bloom, 1956). Low capacity of labors results in low productivity, high production cost and a low rate of profit, which also means low competitiveness among companies. With such low rate of profit, the company can manage to make a limited investment in human resource development, which remains low capacity of labors. Therefore, the company could escape from this repeated loop as well as improve its competitiveness by increasing investment budget in human resource training. To fulfill this task, it is necessary first for theDirector Board to change the irrelevant frames of reference for human resources. In this context, the transformative learning theory developed by Jack Mezirow is considered to be an effective method. Keywords: Transformative; learning; theory; human resource; training; capacity 1. Introduction The global knowledge economy has undergone a period when existing dominant opinion and knowledge have been in a non-stop wheel of movement with changes. Transformative learning theory, which was first developed in 1978 and finalized in 1997 by Jack Mezirow, is considered as an ideal learning model for 1 VNU School of Interdiscriplinary Studies 2 VNU University of Education 591 adults and an educational vision for 21st century (O’Sullivan, 1999). Accordingly, a transformative learner will be more active in questioning himself/herself, and then adjust his/her mental or behavioral activities. NHK Furniture Company (with a total number of 57 labors) is classified as a small-sized company (Vietnam Government, 2018). After more than 6 years of establishment, the company is currently facing with the crisis of self-management and under the risk of being out of control. To be more specific, communication among departments is always stressful. Therefore, service quality and supply capacity are getting lower and lower, that is, late orders are a common practice. In addition, orders from some key customers have been recently reduced. Those are the reasons why the Board of Diretors has decided to restructure the company and make much more investment in human resource training. However, neither specific strategy nor orientation for training program was implemented in 2016. By piloting the transformative learning theory in human resource training at NHK Furniture Company, the research aims to improve capacity of labors, making contribution to the sustainable development of the company. 2. Methodology 2.1. Approaches Three approaches used to conduct the research are systematic approach, interdisciplinary approach, and participatory approach. - Systematic approach: Both supporting and limiting factors to the human resource training are systematically considered in order to design the most appropriate intervention solutions. According to the Minto Pyramid Principle (Minto, 1987), it means all factors are fully and comprehensively analyzed (i) in progress (e.g. the stages of group development are forming, storming, norming, and performing), (ii) in structure (e.g. NHK Furniture Company has 5 departments namely Sales Department, Planning Department, Production Department, Finance & Accounting Department, and Administration & Human Resource Department), and (iii) in causality (e.g. situation, causes and solutions of human resource training). All the intervention solutions are also considered to be integrated into the company’s management system in order to influence the attitude and behavior of labors in a long term. - Interdisciplinary approach: This is a large research topic, which requires interdisciplinary knowledge from different disciplines such as economics, culture, sociology, education, psychology, philosophy, linguistics, and so on. TRANSFORMATIVE LEARNING THEORY: A PILOT AND SOME IMPLICATIONS ... PROCEEDINGS OF INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE EDUCATION FOR ALL KỶ YẾU HỘI THẢO QUỐC TẾ: GIÁO DỤC CHO MỌI NGƯỜI 592 - Participatory approach: The human resource training program requires the participation from different stakeholders such as the Board of Director, labors and trainers. The program will be adjusted from time to time so as to meet the company’s actual demands and its development strategy. 2.2. Methods Three groups of methods used to conduct the research are literature review, non-empirical method and empirical method. - The purpose of literature review is to review previous researches related to the transformative learning theory, human resource training and sustainable development for enterprises. - Non-empirical methods used include (i) focus group discussion with the Board of Director to understand the situation in general, (ii) in-depth interview for labors to understand the situation in details, and (iii) direct observation to collect visual information. - For empirical method, results-based management (RBM) is applied to develop pilot intervention solutions, which are focused on achieving results. The Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) defines RBM as a “management strategy by which processes, outputs and services contribute to the achievement of clearly stated expected accomplishments and objectives. It is focused on achieving results, improving performance, integrating lessons learned into management decisions and monitoring and reporting on performance”. RBM covers theories on the planning, monitoring, evaluation and management of the whole intervention solutions, that is, the handling of the changing process from a start to an end. The purpose of RBM is to achieve sustainable results,outputs, outcomes and impacts. 3. Results and discussion The situation of human resource training at NHK Furniture Company Overall, the capacity (attitudes,skills and knowledge) of labors at NHK Furniture Company is low. Poor communication and cooperation skill, low commitment, and indisciplinable attitude are probably some main reasons for this situation. Moreover, regular conflicts are found among departments. As can be seen from the figure 1, the percentage of those whose work is relevant to their professional knowledge is limited with only 18.9%. Meanwhile, the proportion of irrelevant one is just over a fifth (20.8%). The chart also shows that the most predominant 593 proportion of labors is those with no professional knowledge (60.4%). Figure 1. Labor structure with the professional knowledge Some training courses have been designed for the labors by the Board of Director to cope with these challenges. However, the situation has not been much improved ever since. The ineffectiveness may come from the fact that the labors’ attitudes, skills and knowledge have not been supervised and motivated. Furthermore, another emerging problem is that after the courses, the application to their work has not been monitored. Therefore, just after a short time, the knowledge they have learnt will soon be in vain. As a result, with no clear strategy and orientation, the Board of Director failed to set up an effective training program in 2016. Looking at the figure 2, it can be clearly seen that after more than 6 years of establishment, NHK Furniture Company has stuck into a repeated loop. The vicious cycle shows that low capacity of labors leads to low productivity, quality and efficiency causing high production cost; hence, low profit is an obvious thing. The unfavorable condition of low profit leaded to the fact that the company has tight investment fund for human resource. Accordingly, labors have no chance to improve their capacity. If no effort and prompt actions are taken, the loop TRANSFORMATIVE LEARNING THEORY: A PILOT AND SOME IMPLICATIONS ... Figure 2. A repeated loop of human resource development PROCEEDINGS OF INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE EDUCATION FOR ALL KỶ YẾU HỘI THẢO QUỐC TẾ: GIÁO DỤC CHO MỌI NGƯỜI 594 will repeat annually. Causes of shortcomings of the human resource training at NHK Furniture Company There are four main causes for the shortcomings of human resource training at NHK Furniture Company. Firstly, the human resource training has not been paid full attention to due to the frame of reference of both Board of Director and the labors. It can be explained that while implemeting the company’s development strategy, the Board has only focused mainly on tangible assets such as turnover and cash flow but not on intangible ones such as human resource capital in which labors are not considered as an assets of the company. Regarding to the effectiveness of some training courses, the learning purposes are various among labors. A large proportion of the labors (88.7%) had an aim to gain much more knowledge but only a few of them (28.3%) came up with a wish to improve their performance at work. The sad evidence is that none of them was ready to change their attitude after those courses. Secondly, there has never been a vision of an adequate program for long-term human resource training. In the previous training courses, labors were assigned to attend with an intention of focusing mainly on knowledge, but not on attitude and application at work. The previous training courses have proved to be discontinuous, unsystematic and ineffective because they failed to meet the need and they lacked practicality for labors who are adult learners. Thirdly, there is no environment for labors to applywhat they have learnt to their work. Therefore, after those training courses, the labors will soon forget the content and demotivate to access themselves to application and improvement at work. Lastly, internal communication activities are not made full use of Figure 3. Labors’ aim at training courses 595 their strength to promote the human resource training. Those activities have not been impressed on the importance of the human resource training and promotion of its impacts. Solutions to improve the human resource training at NHK Furniture Company In order to overcome the above mentioned problems, it is highly recommended to have interventions to improve the human resource training. The intervention solutions can be found with the four activities in the result framework (figure 4). Accordingly positive expected outputs, outcomes and impacts are also listed. Firstly, improper frames of reference of the Board of Director and labors should been changed before any intervention so that they can change their attitude and behavior accordingly. Secondly, an adequate program for long-term human resource training should be developed. To do so, it is required to investigate the company’s development strategy and its actual demands of human resource training. Thirdly, to build a skill, labors need to practice it regularly. Therefore, it is necessary to create the environment for labors to apply what they have learnt to their work. It would be great if the application environment is integrated into the company’s management system. Lastly, internal communication activities should be made full use of their strength to promote the human resource training. Those activities should impress on the importance of the human resource training and promotion of its impacts. TRANSFORMATIVE LEARNING THEORY: A PILOT AND SOME IMPLICATIONS ... PROCEEDINGS OF INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE EDUCATION FOR ALL KỶ YẾU HỘI THẢO QUỐC TẾ: GIÁO DỤC CHO MỌI NGƯỜI 596 Figure 4. Result framework 3.4. Piloting the human resource training at NHK Furniture Company After a period of piloting the human resource training, some positive results have been achieved. Firstly, improper frames of reference of both the Board of Director and labors have been changed. Take an illustration of the habit of minds called “training objective”. The transformation has been occurred with an aim to change the point of view of both the Board of Director and labors from focusing on knowledge into capacity (including attitudes, skills and knowledge). Afterwards, the Board of Director would create favorable condition and active environment for labors to apply what they have learnt into their work. Secondly, a human resource training program has been developed for a three- year-period (from March 2017 to February 2020) with core focuses on both soft skills and technical skills for middle managers and labors respectively. After 18 months of implementation, 29 courses with 2,636 training hours have been conducted so far. Thirdly, application environment such as enterprise culture, monthly meetings of the management board, communication language at work, revenue meter, and acknowledgement corner are also created enabling chances for labors to apply the acquired skills into practice. Finally, internal communication activities are made full use to promote applications by labors after training courses. In such a competitive economy, good relationships seemingly plays an important role in the success of a company. 3.5. Evaluation of the human resource training program embedded with the transformative learning theory at NHK Furniture Company Five criteria by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development/ the Development Assistance Committee (ThomazChianca, 2008) including relevance, efficiency; effectiveness, impact, and sustainability are used to evaluate the human resource training embedded with the transformative learning theory at NHK Furniture Company. Firstly, the human resource training program is in the NHK Development Strategy 2020, so it is obviously relevant and its activities are consistent with the intended impacts. Secondly, it is implemented in the most efficient way compared to the alternatives and its activities are costly-efficient. Thirdly, it comes into effect because its activities are delivered as planned. The major factors influencing the achievement of the objectives such as right frame 597 of reference, high commitment of the Board of Director and middle managers or proper training methods are promoted. Meanwhile, the major factors influencing non-achievement of the objectives such as workload of each labor or labors’ comfort zone during the process of transformative learning have now been under tight control. Fourthly, the human resource training program has achieved some good impacts which can be seen as the dicision of the Board of Director to make investment in the human resource development, improvement in the capacity of labors (attitudes, skills and knowledge), more attention paid to production wastes, and crisis under initial control. Last but not least, the human resource training program is promised to experience sustainable development by February 2020. These positive impacts will remain thanks to good working environment with practical application. 4. Conclusion By piloting the transformative learning theory in human resource training at NHK Furniture Company, the research has (i) analyzed the situation of human resource training at NHK Furniture Company, (ii) identified causes of shortcomings, (iii) recommended solutions to improve shortcomings, and (iv) piloted the transformative learning theory in human resource training at NHK Furniture Company. After 18 months of piloting, the human resource training program embedded with the transformative learning theory at NHK Furniture Company has achieved some impacts namely (i) the decision of the Board of Directors to make investment in the human resource development, (ii) improvement in the capacity (attitude, skill and knowledge) of labors in general and the middle manager in particular, (iii) application environment created for labors after training topics, and (iv) self- management crisis under initial control, which help the company move to the stage of management by objectives. The human resource training program embedded with the transformative learning theory at NHK Furniture Company will be continuously implemented in the next 18 months. Therefore, it is recommended to (i) closely monitor its results from now to February 2020 and (ii) promote the major factors influencing the achievement of the objectives and control those of non- achievement one sas well. 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Decree 39/2018/ND-CP guidelines for Law on support for small and medium sized enterprises. 599 ÁP DỤNG THÍ ĐIỂM THUYẾT HỌC TẬP CHUYỂN HOÁ TRONG ĐÀO TẠO NGUỒN NHÂN LỰC NHẰM PHÁT TRIỂN BỀN VỮNG CÔNG TY NỘI THẤT NHK Phạm Đức Thiềng1 Mai Văn Hưng2 Tóm tắt: Vì nhiều lý do khác nhau, năng lực của người lao động tại các doanh nghiệp quy mô nhỏ nhìn chung thấp. Năng lực được cấu thành từ ba yếu tố, gồm thái độ, kỹ năng và kiến thức. Năng lực của người lao động thấp dẫn đến năng suất thấp, chi phí sản xuất cao và tỷ suất lợi nhuận thấp. Điều này cũng đồng nghĩa với việc năng lực cạnh tranh của doanh nghiệp thấp. Khi tỷ suất lợi nhuận thấp, công ty chỉ có thể dành một khoản ngân sách hạn hẹp cho hoạt động phát triển nguồn nhân lực. Và điều này khiến năng lực của người lao động tiếp tục duy trì ở mức thấp. Công ty có thể thoát khỏi vòng luẩn quẩn này cũng như nâng cao năng lực cạnh tranh của mình bằng cách tăng đầu tư cho phát triển nguồn nhân lực. Để làm được điều này, đầu tiên cần thay đổi những hệ quy chiếu liên quan đến nguồn nhân lực không còn phù hợp của ban giám đốc công ty. Trong phạm vi này, thuyết học tập chuyển hoá do Jack Mezirow xây dựng được xem là một phương pháp hiệu quả. Từ khóa: học thuyết, học tập, chuyển hoá, đào tạo, nguồn nhân lực, năng lực. 1 Khoa các khoa học liên ngành, ĐHQGHN 2 Trường ĐHGD, ĐHQGHN. TRANSFORMATIVE LEARNING THEORY: A PILOT AND SOME IMPLICATIONS ...