#MSC10 ABSTRACT & FULL PAPER FORMAT
A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF KNOWLEDGE ACQUISITION IN ICT COMPANIES IN BRUNEI DARUSSALAM AND MALAYSIA RAMLI NORDIN & FARAH PURWANINGRUM Institute of Asian Studies – Universiti Brunei Darussalam Corresponding author’s email:
[email protected]
ABSTRACT The paper examines how knowledge is acquired amongst Information Communication Technology (ICT) companies in Brunei Darussalam and in Malaysia. Malaysia accords Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) Malaysia status to ICT companies as part of its commitment in implementing a global ICT hub; whilst Brunei Darussalam through Brunei Economic Development Board (BEDB) and Authority for Info-Communications Technology Industry (AiTi) provides start-up grants to ICT companies and establishes Anggerek Desa Technology Park. Both countries are members of Association of Southeast Asian Nation States (ASEAN) which support the implementation of ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) and an ASEAN ICT Masterplan. The latter, in particular, was agreed to support further regional integration and to materialise a digital economy. A vision that is of relevance for our paper is to propel ASEAN towards a digitally enabled economy that is secure, sustainable, and transformative (ASEAN, 2015). Bearing in mind this vision and the need of an empirical research on knowledge in the ICT sector, a study is warranted to inform the current state of knowledge amongst ICT companies in Southeast Asia. Upon knowing this then strategies can be adapted to enable further private sector development to enable knowledge to be capitalised in the ICT sector. ‘Knowledge’ is understood as tacit knowledge and human capital in this paper. Our study contributes in understanding how prepared the two countries are in achieving digital economy in Southeast Asia. Specifically, our research asks the following main research question: how is knowledge acquired among ICT companies at regional level in Brunei Darussalam and Malaysia? Through our comparative qualitative study in 2010-2015, we highlight similarities and differences of knowledge acquisition in Cyberjaya Industrial Cluster and in Brunei-Muara district. Such similarities and differences should be seen in light of socio-economic conditions in the two countries. Keywords : ICT companies, knowledge acquisition, Malaysia, Brunei Darussalam, comparative study.
FULL PAPER A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF KNOWLEDGE ACQUISITION IN ICT COMPANIES IN BRUNEI DARUSSALAM AND MALAYSIA
I. Introduction The paper is a comparative study of how information and communications technology (ICT) companies in Brunei Darussalam and Malaysia acquire knowledge. When a country uses ICT to conduct a greater number of its activities, its economy can become more transparent and efficient because it is through ICT that societies can use digital tools to move towards their collective goals at a faster pace (The Economist, 2010). Southeast Asian nation-states support the implementation of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) economic community (AEC). An ASEAN ICT master plan 2020 was created in 2015 to support further regional integration and to materialise a digital economy
#MSC10 ABSTRACT & FULL PAPER FORMAT (ASEAN, 2016). The AEC Blueprint and ASEAN ICT master plan are normative initiatives showing the good will of ASEAN nation-states. Nonetheless, both carry a vision for the ‘AIM 2020’. i One vision that is of relevance for our paper is to propel ASEAN towards a digitally enabled economy that is secure, sustainable and transformative (ASEAN, 2015). In light of this vision, an empirical study is needed to inform the current state of knowledge acquisition amongst ICT companies in Southeast Asia. Consequently, strategies can be adopted to enable further private sector development in the capitalisation of knowledge in the ICT sector. Scholarly studies on knowledge have dealt with typologies of knowledge from the perspectives of economic geography (Asheim and Hansen, 2009), sociology of knowledge (Hornidge, 2011), and comparative studies of knowledge societies (Hornidge, 2007; Evers, 2003). Our proposed study intends to contribute empirically to the current state of knowledge acquisition through a comparative lens in Southeast Asia. The research question posed in this paper, thus, is as follows: how is knowledge acquired by ICT companies in Malaysia and Brunei Darussalam? Brunei Darussalam is an Islamic monarchy with a population of approximately 400,000. Its 2012-2017 economic development plan states that one of the pillars of progress is productive and progressive development based on knowledge and innovation (EPU-Office, 2012). Malaysia, which was ranked 36 in 2010 of 70 countries in the world in terms of digital economy rankings and scores by The Economist (2010), has a population of 29.3 million. In 1991, the prime minister at the time, Mahathir, introduced a long-term development plan known as Wawasan (Vision) 2020, the aim of which was to establish a modern and developed Malaysia by the year 2020 using new industrial clusters focusing on specialised sectors such as software development to develop various parts of Malaysia (Nordin, 2012). Based on our research, we contend that there are similarities and differences in knowledge acquisition between the two case studies. Both should be seen in light of different socio-economic contexts; Malaysia has Cyberjaya, which is an industrial cluster designed purposefully for the ICT sector, while Brunei Darussalam has a cluster of companies in the Brunei-Muara district that grew naturally from internal market needs. ICT companies in Cyberjaya are more diversified and can be clustered into large, middle- and small-sized companies, whereas in the Brunei-Muara district, the ICT companies can be categorised into mostly middle- and small sized companies. Both cases emphasise the need for face-toface meetings to attain tacit knowledge of ICT companies, yet they differ in terms of human capital recruitment, job-hopping and the roles of the government in facilitating the development of ICT companies. The next section discusses a human capital approach to knowledge. The methods of data collection are discussed in section three. Section four delves into ICT policy in Brunei Darussalam and Malaysia and concentrates on the gist of the paper whereby we analyse our empirical data on knowledge acquisition in Malaysia and Brunei Darussalam. Towards the end of this section, differences and similarities are highlighted. The last section summarises the paper. II. A Human Capital Approach of Knowledge: Literature Review This section will discuss knowledge as a conceptual framework from the perspective of sociology of knowledge, human capital and intellectual capital. The concept of knowledge as a source of production was coined by sociologists (Evers, 2003; Krings, 2011; Hornidge, 2011; Bell 1999). The economic dynamic of knowledge was coined by Daniel Bell, a sociologist who was accounted for social processes in a transition towards a knowledge society (see Knorr Cettina, 1999). Through an economic dynamic, Bell pinpoints how knowledge has become a productive force replacing capital, labour and natural resources as the central value- and wealth-creating factor (Bell, 1999; Knorr Cettina, 1999). Knowledge is both a constitutive feature of our modern economy and an elemental organisational principle of how people run their lives (Bechmann, 2009, as cited by Krings, 2011). Such a concept acquires two meanings (Krings, 2011, p. 13): i) knowledge as an operational parameter, which, as a guide for formalised efficiency criterion, is subject to the economic logic of organisations and ii) knowledge as an integral characteristic of the resource ‘working capacity’, which is manifested by humans who have
#MSC10 ABSTRACT & FULL PAPER FORMAT their own working and living contexts, ideas, ambitions, hopes and doubts regarding this societal transformation. From a knowledge management perspective, Leonard-Barton specifies four main traits of organisational knowledge production, i.e., problem solving, implementation and integration, experimentation and importation (Leonard-Barton, 1992). She later argues that companies are dependent on and prone to employees who possess ‘deep smarts’, or accumulated wisdom. Deep smarts embrace expertise and highly developed ways of thinking that lead to decisions that benefit an organisation (Leonard et al., 2013). Often, they are a product of an individual’s experience; hence, it may take years to cultivate such ways of thinking before finally gaining fruition of an unconscious action (Leonard et al., 2013). Experience brings value to knowledge workers or, in this case, employees who possess ‘deep smarts’. Another approach is the human capital approach pioneered by Nonaka (1994). He captures the process of knowledge creation through his model of socialisation, externalisation, combination and internalisation (SECI) (Nonaka, 1998; Nonaka, 1994). These advocates of the human capital approach assert that many of the assets that individuals bring to the organisation are intangible and premised in individual, tacit knowledge rather than more explicit, explicated, formal, routine and standardised knowledge. There are several frameworks for analysing human capital from a knowledge management perspective (see Snell et al., 1999; Pablos, 2013). From this point of view, forms of human capital are positioned within a two-dimensional matrix of uniqueness and strategic value. Based on this matrix, a classification of four forms of human capital was proposed: idiosyncratic, ancillary, core and compulsory (Pablos, 2003). Human capital theory posits that knowledge entices greater cognitive skills to individuals, which, in turn, propels their efficiency and productivity to develop activities (see Mincer, 1974, as cited in Augusto et al., 2014). This does not only concern cognitive skill; continuity in career management practices is also vital from an organisational perspective on knowledge management (De Vos and Dries, 2013). Based on their study of privately owned organisations in Belgium in 2012, the pertinence of continuity was found to facilitate the relationship amongst human capital composition and an approach to career management. Furthermore, their results show that careers may be becoming more concentrated on individual results and accountability instead of preference for intra-organisational career mobility and formalised career management practices. In light of career management practices, Inkson (2008) advocates a more individually centred approach that is not human resources–oriented but instead proposes a view that propounds the construction of organisations from the perspectives of individuals working in the organisations. Hence, questions such as ‘How do I, the individual, motivate and
influence organisations to contribute to my personal goals?’ are asked (Inkson, 2008). In this regard, career aspirations and, mostly likely, biographical aspirations have a bearing. Intellectual capital, however, can be seen as the future basis of sustained competitive advantage, as firms are concentrating on their intangible assets (Pablos, 2003). This includes ICT companies, which offer information and software services (Pablos, 2003). Intellectual capital is often associated with human capital. According to Bontis (1998), the term ‘intellectual capital’ was first published by John Kenneth Galbraith in 1969 (Feiwal, 1975). Gailbrath claims that intellectual capital means more than ‘intellect as pure intellect’ but rather includes a degree of ‘intellectual action’; in this sense, intellectual capital is not only a static intangible asset per se but is an ideological process and a means to an end (Feiwal, 1975). Bontis (1998) examines the difference between information and knowledge, i.e., information is the raw material, and knowledge is the finished product. Intellectual capital is, therefore, the pursuit of the effective use of knowledge as opposed to information. Artificial intelligence (AI), which is linked to ICT, has not been sufficiently discussed. AI is a part of intellectual capital and is the idea of agency not belonging to humans but instead being managed by machines through distributed agency. Speaking from a system theory, Rammert (see 2008 and 2006) argues that advanced technologies partake in the course and constellation of human action and that their
#MSC10 ABSTRACT & FULL PAPER FORMAT impacts are real and not only metaphorical. For the purpose of this paper, we conceptually define knowledge as incorporating a tacit knowing aspect and human capital aspect, especially with regard to human capital working in an ICT company. Thus, we leave out the idea of intellectual capital in AI. The next section outlines the methods used for data collection and analysis in this paper. III. Methods This paper has a qualitative comparative feature in its data collection and analysis. Comparison in qualitative analysis must achieve abstraction by paying particular attention to the context in which the different cases are embedded (Palmberger and Gingrich, 2014). Qualitative comparison attempts to draw attention to both differences and similarities, to consider endogenous and exogenous actors and to carve out diversity as well as similarity (May, 2011, p. 187). With regard to methods, the researchers collected some of the data through semi-structured interviews with 51 companies working in the private sector in Brunei Darussalam listed in the Authority for InfoCommunications Technology Industry (AiTi) list of companies. In addition, there were also expert interviews with policymakers of the Brunei Economic Development Board (BEDB), E-Government National Center (EGNC) and AiTi of Brunei Darussalam. We conducted a total of 55 interviews and used data from AiTi’s list of accredited business in 2013. Fieldwork and data collection were performed from 2013-2015. As for Malaysia, in-depth semi-structured interviews with 28 knowledge workers with different technical backgrounds and working experience were conducted. The interviews lasted between approximately 45 minutes and one hour. The profiles of the knowledge workers interviewed during the fieldwork showed that the majority of those interviewed had more than three years of working experience. The survey covered 97 companies and was composed of 443 respondents in Cyberjaya, Malaysia. Fieldwork and data collection were conducted from 2010- 2011. In addition to the interviews, we also carried out observation and archival analysis on ICT policy and planning documents in both countries. There are several limitations to our data; first, Brunei Darussalam and Malaysia are different in terms of economy size and population. Malaysia has a larger economy and population compared to Brunei Darussalam. Second, there is also a gap in the years of data collection. It was impractical to conduct the research at the same time that the data for the Malaysia case study was collected because one of the coauthors was completing his PhD in Bonn, Germany, at the time, and the data for the Brunei Darussalam case study was collected while one of the co-authors was completing her fellowship in Gadong, Brunei Darussalam. To address these limitations, we used the same unit of analysis and locational requirements, i.e., knowledge workers and ICT companies located in urban districts/areas. IV. From Policy to Acquiring Knowledge in the ICT sector: Case Study of Malaysia and Brunei Darussalam ICT plans in Brunei Darussalam hinge on the existing policies of the Ministry of Communications, BEDB, in Brunei Darussalam and AiTi. The latter is closer to the private sector and is responsible for the regulation of telecommunications and radio communications, radiofrequency spectrum planning and management and ICT industry development. It was established on 1 January 2003. AiTi collaborates with the BEDB and DST which is the first Brunei ICT firm to establish a seed-funding scheme for ICT start-ups. With regard to the former, the government’s existing viewpoint is that the role of the ICT industry is mainly as an implementer. E-government and ICT policy in Brunei Darussalam sees data integration on the side of the government as an establishment of common data sharing a framework and standards that apply to all systems put in place. ICT policy in Brunei Darussalam is, in large part, extremely government oriented, which is evident because most ICT companies receive projects, such as consulting projects, from the government, i.e., the establishment of
#MSC10 ABSTRACT & FULL PAPER FORMAT the Anggerek Desa industrial cluster and facilities of start-up funds supported by the BEDB (Purwaningrum and Lim, forthcoming). Although most economic activities are centred in the Belait and Brunei-Muara districts, it is the BruneiMuara district that remains urban in Brunei because it hosts the capital of Brunei and because most companies, including ICT companies, are located in this district. Clustering activity centres in the Brunei-Muara district, and, in fact, the clustering in Brunei Darussalam is dense and closely related to population density (Evers et al., 2014). Malaysia designed the Multimedia Development Corporation (MDeC) to manage the project together with various incentives to encourage ICT development. Companies that are located within the physical zone and have fulfilled the requirements set by MDeC will be rewarded a special status (known as MSC or Multimedia Super Corridor Malaysia status). They will then benefit from various financial and nonfinancial incentivesii . Basically, these companies fall into the categories of creative multimedia, software development, support services, hardware design, shared services and outsourcing (SSO) and Internet-based businesses (IBB) (MSC Malaysia, 2009). The number of companies with MSC (Malaysia status has shown a steady increase since it was launched, from 94 in 1997 to 2,173 in 2008. In addition, revenues created by the companies rose from RM12.99 billion in 2006 to RM17.06 billion in 2007 and created job opportunities for 63,883 people (MDeC, 2008). In contrast to the Brunei-Muara district, Cyberjaya is a city embedded with ICT technology, or at least this is what policymakers attempt to convey. Cyberjaya was developed from a green field into a modern city with all of the necessary ICT facilities. Political elites used Cyberjaya to legitimise and construct the Malaysian definition of a developed country as having ICT as its foundation. Bunnell (2004) argued how the creation of MSC Malaysia with Cyberjaya as the focal point was created with particular ‘ideological meanings and symbolism’. This idea has penetrated into society in various forms. Education is one such form used to highlight the importance of ICT and how MSC Malaysia, including Cyberjaya, contributes to achieving this status. The Malaysian government was instrumental in ensuring that ICT education has grown rapidly since the 1990s; ICT is currently offered at all levels of education, from certificate level to post graduate. Different forms of support were given to those interested in pursuing their studies in the field. i. ICT Companies in Cyberjaya: Malaysia Case Study The people working in Cyberjaya are a reflection of the success of the policy of education. Majority of them are highly educated. Almost all the respondents in the survey have post-secondary qualification and majority of them in the ICT related field. 79% of the people working in Cyberjaya have a bachelor degree with information technology and computer science as the most common skills acquired. Only six people i.e. 1% of the respondents, based on the survey we did, do not have a post-secondary qualification. Most of them work as clerical support personnel. Even though the sample does not have anybody with a PhD qualification, during the field work one of the interviewee hold a PhD in artificial intelligence. The level of education among people working in Cyberjaya is evident in AT&&, the American based telecommunication companies. According to the human resource manager: We currently employ 230 staff. All of them are professionals with engineering background (Personal communication, 03 November 2009). The same was also observed in Ericsson during the field work, according to the receptionist all the clerical staff i.e. those without post-secondary qualification are hired on a temporary basis through a job hunting services. The permanent or technical staffs normally have post-secondary qualification. This shows the educational level of people working in Cyberjaya and having a post-secondary qualification is a must in order to be part of it. Another factor that contributes towards acquiring ICT knowledge is experience. Out of the 406 people who responded to the question, the survey recorded that more than 50% of the respondents have between
#MSC10 ABSTRACT & FULL PAPER FORMAT one to six years of working experience. Companies in Cyberjaya requires workers to have at least some years of working experience in order to be able to function well within the organisation. Furthermore, experience contributes to less training requirement and better productivity. This observation was shared by most of the human resource managers or company’s owner interviewed during the field work. For the workers, experiences also allow them to obtain better remuneration or promoted to higher position. A Team Leader in AT&T, describes his experience: My degree was in general IT but I have programming background based on my working experience. I have work with Solsis Malaysia. I was doing programming and development work there. Then, I worked for Shell IT and doing helpdesk work. I was there for two years. In 2004 I was a system engineer and was promoted to the technical lead and remote access in 2007. In 2008, Shell IT outsources the whole thing to AT&T so I technically joined them (Personal communication, 04 December 2009). Individual knowledge and experience have a strong correlation with team dynamics. Our study demonstrates that both are important and lack of either one has a negative implication to the team overall performance. It creates dissatisfaction and tension among team members. As voiced out by an Assistant Manager in TM Net Sdn Bhd: Well, some of the group member lacks the basic IT knowledge. This is especially among the junior staff. They just don’t know. I don’t know what they have learned in the university (Personal communication, 14 October 2009). In addition to doing the same work through the years’ experience also gained through job mobility. The chance to work in different companies exposed one to different methods of doing things and working culture. Subsequently, this will enrich and enhanced personal experience and work quality. The survey result shows the number of companies the respondents have worked. Based on the response, almost 50% of them have worked in two to three companies prior to joining the current one. Moreover, 52% of the respondents declare that they have changed jobs in different companies within Cyberjaya. This shows the high number of companies and easy job mobility among people working there. Cyberjaya is filled with some of the biggest and reputable companies involve in ICT. The ability to be able to secure a job in one of these companies also contributes towards job mobility. An electronics engineer in Hewlett-Packard (HP), shares his experience: My first job after graduating from a Korean University was as an engineer in M-mobile. I did R&D work. The company is located in Shah Alam. The job didn’t last long. I do not want to continue working there. I want a stable job. I joined Samsung in Klang. The job lasted for only five month.. After Samsung, I joined an IT company in Cyberjaya for a few months. I was offered to join BAT in TPM (outside of Cyberjaya). It lasted for a year. Then I was offered a job in Dell Cyberjaya and subsequently I secured a better paid position in HP Cyberjaya (Personal communication, 04 December 2009). It was observed during the fieldwork that some workers do not want to work in small companies due to various reasons. In one interview, a R&D engineer expresses disappointment with her current company because of the unchallenging job specification and insufficient workload. She believes her current knowledge would not help her future career advancement. She opined this is because the company performance is deteriorating compared to the previous years. Here is her observation of the company performance:
#MSC10 ABSTRACT & FULL PAPER FORMAT Last year we have lunch together. We celebrated birthday, New Year, together with the directors. We have more events. My workloads were more. This year the company is just ‘so and so’ (Personal communication, 28 December 2009). Hence, the two interviews show that workers changed jobs based on company’s stability, working environment, job specification, location and financial returns. The criteria listed mostly refer to situation at the company level and shows strong connection between the situations within companies with job mobility. Location is not the determining factor if the company is able to provide the best working environment, stability and preferred remuneration package. Cyberjaya is well connected to all major satellite cities in the Klang Valley. As a result of this people commute to work on daily basis. These shows Cyberjaya’s location is not a hindrance to create a dynamic cluster as much as having an enabling environment. As discussed, two of the most common mode of acquiring ICT knowledge among people working in Cyberjaya is through formal education and working experience. Our field work shows that only 5% of the total respondents attend courses related to their work on a part time basis. Majority of the respondents depend on their prior knowledge through education and experience to do their daily task. During the field work it was also observed that some company owners do not believe in sending their workers for training. They believe the best way to acquire the right skill and knowledge about ICT is through doing the task. A managing director of Asian IT made a relevant remark: There is no need to send them for training. If a person cannot study then they are no good. That person is not useful (Personal communication, 07 January 2010). Most of the companies surveyed during the field work share the same view with the managing director. On the job training is the best method to acquire the right ICT knowledge and skill. Some companies have a structured and well organise work based training. This is done to ensure the team members in a project are aware of the technical skill required from them. On the other hand, MDeC and some private companies provide free training for smaller companies which do not have the capacity to send their workers for training. The trainings are provided for free. Most people working in Cyberjaya utilise the opportunity. Information about the training are circulated through their companies and posted on Cyberjaya networking site. This form of training is popular among people working in Cyberjaya and 50% of the respondents have attended them between 2008 and 2009. Mr Muhamad, a network engineer in AJV Multimedia Sdn Bhd, shares his experience: I have attended five courses in 2009. Each lasted for three days. Most of them are free. The courses are organised by MDeC and some private co mpanies. The one organised by MDeC, I attended twice (Personal communication, 07 January 2010). Thus, this section has discussed how people working in Cyberjaya acquire their knowledge related to their daily task. Although the city is embedded with all the latest ICT facilities and majority of the workers are trained to utilise ICT in their daily task. It is evident that conventional form to acquire knowledge is still the best mode. Cyberjaya proves that ICT knowledge workers are not living in a ‘virtual’ world as most would suggest. They still require face to face interaction and human contact to enhance and enrich their ICT knowledge. And technology does not seem to lessen the importance of human contact. Subsequent paragraphs will discuss Brunei Darussalam case study in terms of acquisition of knowledge in the ICT sector. ii. ICT Companies in Brunei-Muara District: Brunei Darussalam Case Study
#MSC10 ABSTRACT & FULL PAPER FORMAT Brunei Muara district hosts ICT companies which are not start-ups and located outside the government initiated technology park; i.e. they are located in Brunei-Muara District. In Brunei Darussalam there is only one entry level, when workers are recruited, is usually from within two ranges. One is the professional standard, as one respondent aptly pointed out the professionals make their mark as quite highly-skilled people. The other is those who have just started; i.e. students who recently graduated and A’-level graduates. The ICT companies generally find that the knowledge displayed by A’-level graduates and recent students who hold degrees is basic or they do not know which field they should be concentrating on. A company that we interviewed has a core focus on providing ICT solutions. It specialises in server virtualisation and security. For the purposes of problem solving and project implementation internally, there is an internal team consisting of people variously specialising in the fields of system, security, network and back up. This is the internal categorisation in team project implementation. Particular strengths in the team are built internally (Interview, 11.07.2013). Presumably, A’-level graduates will not be integrated directly as team members. On-the-job training for those who graduated from A-level or HND (Higher National Diploma) is one means of transferring skills and tacit knowledge from the company. As opposed to classroom-based training, on-the-job training takes place most weekdays and, in several companies, on Fridays. A company’s manager shared his firm’s rationale for the choice of Friday training. It is because, on Friday, there is no government work: the employees may have a casual day on Friday and they can be on standby. The manager added how, on Fridays, they are able to carry out training in the morning for new staff members and new students (Interview, 11.07.2013). This enables them to get an idea of how technical aspects should work. Sharing sessions, thus, are likely to take place on Fridays. There would be a mentor or ‘a specialist’. These specialists need not be supervisors: often they are foreigners who are qualified in specific ICT areas. A director of an ICT company states how technology products swiftly become obsolete and that this is why learning should be fast, as well. For specialists, his company employs a Microsoft certified engineer, HP certified engineer and EPSON specialist (Interview, 23.09. 2013). His firm was handling ICT services and projects for oil and gas companies in Kuala Belait and government bureaus in Brunei Muara district. Some of the specialists share the same vision with the company. On-the-job learning thus engages new level recruits with specialists in an ICT company. Another level is training through certain projects that the companies handle. This is often referred to as project-related training. From certain projects managed by an ICT company, the company would then send its workers for trainings. Destination of training would depend on where is the country of origin of the products the company is selling. In some cases, the project manager would send them to China. The company may have to bear the cost of training if not being included in the project. A project manager was saying how he has to be realistic with the market in Brunei as he added that he has to deal with a product that has very low demand. Nonetheless, education takes time and efforts. When the new trainees come back from project training and are ready to implement the projects in the government, they have to deal with a different reality; i.e. how the government of Brunei Darussalam is very resistant to new technology (Interview, 02.07.2013). Training is indeed pivotal. First-hand training would be dependent on how fast the trainee or newlyrecruited human capital can learn in absorbing new knowledge attained during training. In a few instances, it could be hands-on or a prior briefing – a semi training type of training. Despite these varieties, one similar strand is that trainings are through given assignments. A senior expert in online document management explained how she trained someone new in business process management, hoping that the person becomes an expert in the field. So she introduced him to key features and functionality plus business process management solutions used in the company and assignments were delegated. From thereon, learning takes place. This type of mentorship is mostly face-to-face. Only in instances where the senior expert is away Skype sessions are used or queries sent via email. These are linked to problem solving whereby the expert will go through the sessions one by one (Interview, 17.07.2013). Mentorship is also prevalent in a company that provided government support projects for Bru-Hims (Brunei Darussalam Healthcare Information and Management System) in 2013. The ICT company
#MSC10 ABSTRACT & FULL PAPER FORMAT faced a challenge with the arrival of many interns. To counter this, those who were recipients of the training were people who were already in the project for a minimum of six months per year. They were attached to an experienced professional already involved in the project. This one-to-one mentorship is also fostered by demonstration and storytelling. Both of them visit and talk to a client together. It is likely that after two months, the trainee is already doing that which is needed. Evaluation is carried out towards the end of the training by means of interview, to gauge performance. Mentorship thus assists in nurturing human capital training (Interview, 11.06.2013). An alternative term used for this is ‘product training’. Companies functioning as resellers of products, or selling ICT solutions, would be recipients of this training. This is in line with the fact that this training is due to their roles as parts of a supply chain whereby they are positioned as suppliers tied to largescale principals, such as IBM, Microsoft or CISCO. The training takes place in the vendor’s or the principal’s main office in Southeast Asia. For IBM, it will be in the IBM Center in Singapore. In a few instances, the company will send staff members to Singapore, Bangkok, and Malaysia Training is in a form of classroom training and, in addition to this, the manager who has a software engineering background explained to us how he also involves them to attend online training from IBM (Interview 08.07.2013). An engineer who works in an ICT company that provides CISCO related services stated how, in this product training, the principal or vendor sets a strategy on what kind of technology would be marketed and used for three years. Upon hearing this, the company would then devise a training plan, sending the right people. This normally takes place within Microsoft, CISTRIX and CISCO. For CISTRIX, training is held in Malaysia and Singapore, whilst for CISCO, it would be in Singapore. These trainings are at Level Two (see Purwaningrum and Lim forthcoming 2015 for a discussion of Level One and Level Two of knowledge) (Interview, 29.06.2013). In contrast to on-the-job training, project-based training may well require human resources trained at a minimum of diploma level or, alternatively, degree holders with years of experience. The number of years of experience is subject to the internal company’s assessment and history. A Managing Director of a company located in Gadong, Brunei Darussalam, who has been in business for over 30 years, explained that for technical support these people would have, for instance, a bachelor engineering degree, a degree in science, electronics and communication. They should have at least three years of experience plus up to ten year’s experience in handling computer systems. The academic training that these employees receive will make it easier to integrate them into real problems that the company is about to face when it implements a project, either in a government bureau or in another company (Interview, 26.06.2013). In an interview, a respondent divulged how it is easier to give technical training to those who are degree holders or those who have diplomas for this project level training (Interview, 03.07.2013). This enables an expansion of a subject or an area within the company. It is easier to integrate, in terms of participation, those who are diploma holders or degree holders and in addition to this those who have years of experience in project-based training. Nonetheless, on-the-job training and project based training allude the need for a face-to-face meeting for processes of knowledge acquisition. A key prerequisite for such training is trust with the principal company. A logical inquiry, following this assertion, is how is trust established? Our field data suggests that time is a vital element in building trust. (Interview, 19.06.2013). During an interview with the manager of an ICT company, he informed us that his company has been working with IBM for 15 years (Interview 16.07.2013). The second necessity is experience: specifically, positive experience. There are two tenets related to this; the first is previous experience of working with the principal company on an institutional level. This is pertinent as institutional support is required for the integration of tacit knowledge from the training to the projects managed by the company. Following this requirement is individual experience. The social tie created from previous experience of working in a company that sells the principal’s products or ICT solutions, or even working in the principal’s company itself, is useful in knowing people and attaining information as an expert in the principal’s company (Interview, 16.07.2013). In each company, within which we conducted interviews, there is a product or service that is offered either directly to customers in Brunei Darussalam, to other companies such as Telecommunications, or to government offices for ICT projects, such as the BRUHIMS project. To maintain a competitive edge, human resource specialisation is vital. Specialisations are achieved by a few means: internal
#MSC10 ABSTRACT & FULL PAPER FORMAT specialisation is one such example. A company representative, whom we interviewed, described how each of their employees has a different role in order to achieve specialisation., They have a specialist in the ICT section, one in security, one in the network and one in Microsoft. In the A/V collaboration, few specialisations are required, particularly in cabling infrastructure and in switching. These specialisations are tuned in with the company’s core business. In another interview, a company director shared with us how his specialists have worked in his firm for a long time (Interview, 26. 06.2013). Some of them have been employed up to 30 years, or 15 years and they are, in some cases, Filipinos. Having specialists trained in-house is beneficial to enable supporting after-project implementation. A respondent described her experience of how ICT project implementation for her company is about supporting. If a customer and those outside of the ICT industry do not use ICT, the company will not exist. She was implying there is a need for specialisation internally. Externally, the need arises due to product-related preparedness for marketing and project implementation and due to interactions with principals. The former is demonstrated in an interview with an IT company providing ICT solutions to government ministries in Brunei Darussalam. The company has Enterprise Resource Planning software related to Systems Application Products (SAP) and a certified engineer in SAP. The engineer has been sent to Singapore for SAP courses. In this regard, he has been completing the courses and exam. In October 2012 he passed the exam and received his certification. Now the company may use his qualification which would be widely accepted by any client who is using SAP; for instance, Shell, Telbru, DST. This is due to the fact that SAP resources are scarce. There are no other companies who have it except Brunei Shell. DST, he mentioned to us, does not even have it: they are using the system but they are outsourcing it from a Malaysian company (Interview, 18.06.2013). Project implementation calls for technical certification. A sales manager who often deals with government projects and training of Microsoft applications explained the significance of a certificate if one wants to implement a server or any other applications solutions. He added that, before sitting the certification exam, one should learn how to configure, all the relevant terms and how to do troubleshooting. His company policy, thus, is to encourage their technical personnel to go to the course they want to focus on because the company cannot just pull them and dictate on what they should do. Hence, staff choose their own career paths. There are many career aspects in Microsoft on which a technical expert can focus in terms of product implementation and selling (Interview, 04.10.2013). What is another route of recruitment to access the human capital level of certified technical experts or engineers? In this regard, there will be open recruitment in some cases. A company’s representative shared with us her experience of recruitment of experts with certification. She told us how her company employs a Microsoft certified engineer, Extron specialist and Hewlett Packard certified engineer. She stated: “We have clear one specialist is available on standby. Indeed, the company needs to recruit them at a level. She conceded that specialists in the company are from abroad. The majority of manpower - 87% - is local.” (Interview, 27.09.2013). Her company has, however, followed a practice whereby the locals will see the skills that the foreigners display, when they are brought in, including the competitive nature of how fast they work. In addition to this, there is also skill transfer (Interview, 27.09.2013). This does not mean that the ICT companies do not rely on local sources of knowledge. By ‘local’, we refer to training centres, schools or vocational schools based in Brunei Darussalam. For basic training, in terms of parts and not frequency nor programming, a company that sells a Motorolla product would send its employees for training to Sultan Saifur Rijal Technical College, located in Muara Street, Brunei. This would be a Level One of knowledge. There have been instances whereby the company tried to recruit graduates from the college. The interviewee stated how he was a seasonal lecturer at the School of Business and Economics, Universiti Brunei Darussalam (Interview, 28. 06.2013). The work attachment programme also enables reliance on local sources of knowledge. The next recruitment route is curriculum building, which the company manages with the public sector.
#MSC10 ABSTRACT & FULL PAPER FORMAT Curriculum built in for a module also calls for collaboration with the government, for instance with the AITI. A company that provides ICT training for government teachers receives the support of a subsidy programme from AITI. The developed module is designed internally at their training centre. The interviewee stated in an interview to us how for ordinary people to learn about data basics and everything it makes more sense to train the teachers for IC3 (Internet and Computing Core Certification). Trainers for this module are local and they are senior trainers who are certified IC3 educators. They have been teaching IC3 for about three to four years for a mature audience and for the civil services institutes. The interviewee explained how both of their senior trainers are well adapted to the audience (Interview, 08. 07.2013). Frequent interactions with the Ministry of Education and AITI enables the ICT companies to not only get support in terms of funding but also guidance for guidelines for curriculum in IT education, such as the BDTVEC guideline used by the Technical and Vocational Education Council (Interview, 11.07.2013). Frequent interactions with Ministries in Brunei Darussalam either due to job requests bring ‘knowledge loss’ as they, the locals who used to work in ICT companies prefer to hop to jobs in the government sector which frequently require them to have had a two-year work experience. This problem was expressed strongly by a female director of an ICT company located in Kiulap, Brunei-Muara District: “Actually local people are very fast learner and this is I can see that they change already. But then same thing, their heart is government sector. So this one gives us a lot of problem because we are training school, I told you already, we use our heart to train them, every day I train them myself”(Interview, 12.07.2013). Hence, the recruitment in ICT companies is either through A level or HND level; or via specialist route. Knowledge is very much associated with experience. Face-to-face meeting make up a viable means of knowledge transfer internally in a company, or when needed, externally. Such practice is enabled by project training, product training, mentorship and on-the-job training. Yet, practice of job-hopping is prevalent not within the ICT sector, but horizontally to a different sector namely the government.
We wish to highlight several differences between the two case studies. First, there are different roles of government between the two. Malaysia, despite the fact it is a centralised country like Brunei Darussalam, has different patterns of job-hopping. In Malaysia, it is normal to job-hop in the private sector, whereas in Brunei Darussalam, it is normal to job-hop from the private sector to the government sector. Recruitment of human capital in ICT in Malaysia hinges on educational background, whereby in Brunei Darussalam, it is mainly on the A or HND level. Malaysia has MDeC, which mediates knowledge sharing at a meso level; Brunei does not have this at the moment. AiTI and BEDB, the two agencies that deal directly with ICT companies, take a more regulative than partnership style when it comes to working with ICT companies. This represents a manifestation of an overarching government policy in Brunei, e.g., ICT companies are seen as implementers of government policy. However, both cases have similarities; a lack of research and development can be found in both cases as well as a reliance on experience and tacit knowing. In this regard, face-to-face meetings are still pertinent. Another similarity is that funding for business start-ups is provided mainly through the government.
V. Concluding Remarks Our paper is a comparative study of two different countries that are often referred to as part of the Malay world. They share this similarity in addition to geographical proximity to each other. Nonetheless, the two countries concerned in this paper also differ in terms of population, market size and political system. Malaysia is leading in terms of digital economy rankings and scores compared to Brunei Darussalam. It was ranked 36 in 2010 out of 70 countries ranked by The Economist in 2010.
#MSC10 ABSTRACT & FULL PAPER FORMAT In this paper, we focus on comparing how Brunei Darussalam and Malaysia acquire knowledge in the ICT sector. This is a sector that is vital for realising a digitally enabled economy in Southeast Asia. ASEAN envisions a digitally enabled economy that is secure, sustainable and transformative (ASEAN, 2015). Our study contributes to the ICT aspect of such a digital economy in ASEAN. We base our study on a qualitative explorative approach in which we derive our analysis from observation, archival analysis of ICT policy and documents, and semi-structured interviews with 51 companies in Brunei Darussalam and 97 companies in Malaysia. The literature review gauges the topic of knowledge from the perspectives of sociology of knowledge, human capital and intellectual capital. Knowledge is indeed a constitutive feature of our modern economy and, simultaneously, a key organisational principle of how people run their lives (Bechmann, 2009, as cited by Krings, 2011). This paper incorporates an operational definition of knowledge as tacit knowing elements and human capital elements in ICT companies. We contend that there are both parallels and distinctive patterns in terms of knowledge acquisition in both case studies. In terms of similarities, both exemplify how face-to-face meetings are still important for tacit knowledge to be shared and acquired amongst ICT workers. Next, on-the-job training and mentorship are essential for human capital to upgrade knowledge in their companies. Hence, experiential knowledge acquired through work experience in ICT companies is valuable in the private sector in both countries. However, there are also differences; Brunei-Muara is not a region that resembles that of the Cyberjaya cluster. Most of the clients of ICT companies in Brunei Darussalam are ministries apart from direct customers; thus, learning occurs mostly during projects. The Cyberjaya industrial cluster hosts companies that are large-, middle- and small-sized, whereas, in Brunei Darussalam, there are only two categories: small- and middle-sized. In other words, Brunei-Muara and Brunei Darussalam have different economy sizes, and their job-hopping patterns are different as well. The Cyberjaya industrial cluster’s job-hopping pattern is from one company to another, while, in Brunei-Muara, it is normal to job-hop from a private company to a ministry/government sector. Additionally, the Cyberjaya industrial cluster’s ICT workers have a higher level of educational background compared to those in the BruneiMuara district. The latter has an entry level on mostly the A and HND level, whereas, in the former, 79% have a bachelor’s degree in information technology and computer science. The divergence from our study shows that heading towards an ASEAN region that is integrated in terms of the ASEAN economic community is not an easy path. The digital economy calls for more than closing a gap in the ICT literacy and security- and ICT-based commercial transactions. The workers in the ICT sector need to be able to thrive with regard to skill level as well as professionally.
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Paper to be presented at the 10th International M alaysian Studies Conference (M SC10) on ‘Globalization and Regionalis m: M alaysia in ASEAN Community Building’, sub-theme: Economic development, poverty and social inequality, 15-17 August 2016, in Universiti M alaysia Sabah (UM S), Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, M alaysia. i
The creation of an integrated digital economy , according to the ASEAN ICT M asterplan, however, goes further than enabling connectivity and focusing on the exciting and disruptive developments. The policy document states that: ‘Increasingly, all sectors of the economy are adopting and embedding ICT and fostering economy -wide growth and innovation. Thus, the next development of the ASEAN ICT M asterplan (2016-2020) (AIM 2020) is to focus on enabling such economy -wide transformation’ (ASEAN 2016: p 7). ii
The incentives are known as the M SC M alaysia Bill of Guarantees. Some of the incentives are the unrestricted hiring of foreign knowledge workers, non-censorship of the Internet, tax exemption (for pioneer status companies) and government procurement. For further details, visit http://www.mscmalaysia.my/topic/Why+MSC+Malaysia+Status.
