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Human assets are one of the most important resources available to any organization and employee competence and commitment largely determine the objectives that an organization can set for itself and to its success in achieving them. Therefore, the demand for effective employees continuously increases in both public and private organizations. The 'Competency-based' approach to human resource management has become integral during the last thirty years, with 'Competency' encompassing the knowledge, skills, abilities, traits and behaviors that allow an individual to perform a task within a specific function or job (Boyatzis, 1982).The objective of this study is to identify the required competencies and develop a competency model for effective job performance at the Chief of the General Administrative Sub-Division position level in the Thai Department of Agriculture using the Behavioral Event Interview (BEI) technique (Spencer & Spencer, 1993). The study found that there were twenty-three competencies that superior job performers used in carrying out this job well. Consequently, the researcher uses current level of importance of competency as primary information to recommend nine competencies in a competency model.This competency model will help the Thai Department of Agriculture to respond to government policy regarding human resource management, provide useful information Contemporary Management Research 46 about the specific characteristics required at the Chief of the General Administrative SubDivision level and on how to implement further enhancement of employee performance at this level. These competencies will also enable the Department to determine the critical competencies necessary for current success at this job level and the strategic competencies necessary for future success.

PurposeThis paper aims to show how the adopted technology acceptance model (TAM) is used to measure the acceptance of internet use by naval officers in the Naval Department for the e‐government initiative in Thailand.Design/methodology/approachThe study used two research methodologies for gathering data: the TAM questionnaire and interview. The TAM questionnaire was used to measure naval finance officers' perceptions on the internet and to find the relationship between the 12 external factors (independent factors) and dependent factors within the research framework of the study. The interview was used to explore internet use acceptance in a public organization, and to discover how government officers at one public organization felt about the e‐government initiative and internet usage within their organization.FindingsThe study analysis shows that the external factors influencing naval officers' perception on internet use acceptance were: prior experience, job relevance, commitment, trust, and autonomy. However, training and infrastructure problems are other important factors that can also lead to the acceptance of internet use.Originality/valueThe study outcome can provide useful information to help the organization improve its capacity for successfully implementing the e‐government initiative. Simultaneously, the study can also be used as a guideline for e‐government initiative implementation in other public organizations. As a result, this will lead to a successful e‐government initiative in Thailand.

PurposeTo review an existing enterprise resource planning (ERP) literature and provide the inter‐organizational practice of ERP system.Design/methodology/approachA focus group (FG) method was adopted as an exploratory means to gain insights and perspective of ERP systems.FindingsThe study suggests researchers re‐examine the following ERP issues at the inter‐organizational level, namely: selection of ERP packages, integration of business processes, knowledge and applications, implementation approaches, training as well as organizational transformation and software migration.Originality/valueThe study examined the different ERP lifecycle phases and provided the insight factors that were crucial to overall success in implementing ERP. In addition, the empirical findings would be useful to ERP practitioners by providing better understanding of ERP from both the user and organizational perspectives. Regarding the FG methodology, practitioners can use FG at the beginning of ERP projects to gather customer needs and organizational information, which can facilitate better business and IS planning.

People working in physical proximity have access to information about one another. Much of this information is unavailable when people collaborate remotely using groupware. Being aware of other members of a team in a collaborative environment involves knowing both what people are doing and what is happening to the shared information space or artifact. Increasing the amount of information about the group in a computer-mediated system may increase the group's ability to complete the task. This article reports on a study that examined group performance on a task that was computer mediated with and without awareness information. In particular, the study examined how an awareness tool impacts the quality of the work effort and the communications between group members in the completion of a collaborative authoring task. The study found that the use of an awareness tool decreased the quality of the work effort. The number of communications also decreased when the tool was used. Although the results contradict some of the theoretical predictions, an examination of the data suggests theoretical support for a more complex interaction. There was evidence that the awareness tool may have reduced the users' need to communicate and this reduction in communications may have caused the reduction in the quality of the work effort. There is also data to suggest that the existence of the awareness tool may have negatively influenced the effort of some participants, and it was that effort reduction that caused the reduction in the quality of the product. IntroductionPeople have access to various kinds of information about each other when they are working together. They know whether members of the work group are present or absent. They also have access to information that allows them to infer how actively others are working, what they are working on, who they are working with, and how they "feel" about the project. Consider a team meeting in which group members can note early arrival or tardiness, body posture, tone of voice or changes in tone, lack or presence of eye contact, etc. These verbal and nonverbal cues may be actively used by some and ignored by others. This information and the opportunities to access it are diminished when people collaborate via computer. When people work together, they share a task, one or more artifacts, and a social context. Groupware systems have historically focused on the shared task and artifacts and generally ignored the social context. When the social context has been addressed, it is most often in the form of explicit interactions-two-way video. Little has been done related to the social periphery. Brown and Duguid (1994) propose that being aware of other team members and of the changes in the shared work material are very important in collaborative systems. We call this kind of information peripheral social awareness information and set out to investigate how provision of information of this type might impact some work effort.Hudson and Smith (1996) equate information about the activity of coll...