A Study on How to Improve Lecturers’ Performance, Doctor of Research in Management Thesis Defense by Nelly
Industry 4.0 has been long-awaited since 2011, though not everyone is ready to welcome it anytime soon. A radical transformation in all sectors of industries, including but not limited to workforce and education, is already upon us with the development of information communication technology. These drastic changes due to the upcoming Industry 4.0 have forced humanity to adapt and possess several new competencies which will be needed in the future.
Enter Education 4.0, a phenomenon that was born as a response to the growing needs of Industry 4.0 adaptabilities, where humans must work together seamlessly with machines. Education 4.0 utilizes high-speed internet, mobile technology, and social media to provide personalized learning materials in which lecturers now become facilitators and mentors. Thanks to Education 4.0, students will be equipped with updated and more humanistic competencies, such as data literacy, technological literacy, and human literacy.
Unfortunately, Indonesia has not yet maximized the abilities of its human resources. This has been proven by the data from the World Economic Forum (WEF) in 2019 that shows Indonesia in 4th place on the Global Competitiveness Index in ASEAN. Indonesia is still running behind its neighbors, Singapore which ranked 1st, Malaysia, and Thailand. The solution is to transform our education system, especially the higher education system in Indonesia. In doing so, one must empower the performance of lecturers.
Lecturers’ performance in Indonesia became the main focus of Dr. Nelly’s thesis for Doctor of Research in Management BINUS Business School, S3 BINUS University. Her thesis titled “The Role of Lecturers’ Competencies in Mediating the Effect of Transformational Leadership, Knowledge Sharing Behavior and Learning Organization Culture to Lecturers’ Performance” was presented in front of a team of promoters and examiners led by Prof. Dr. Mts. Arief, MM, MBA, CPM. Dr. Nelly has been working as BINUS Alam Sutera Campus Director since August 2018.
The role of literacy digital in lecturers’ competencies
In finding the correlation of lecturers’ performance with transformational leadership, knowledge sharing behavior, and learning organization culture, Dr. Nelly added digital literacy as a mediator to further examine the link between lecturers’ competencies and performance. Contrary to previous studies, Dr. Nelly’s research does not confirm that digital literacy has any influence on the learning process and lecturers’ performance.
This finding is not without explanation. According to Dr. Nelly, digital literacy is affected by the individual’s surroundings and access to use digital devices. Therefore, Dr. Nelly argued that most digital literacy could be developed outside of the classroom. Basic digital literacy can be easily obtained and most probably has been calculated as part of the lecturers’ general competencies.
Lecturers’ performance improvement model
Dr. Nelly conducted a descriptive and explanatory survey with data from 223 lecturers from private universities in Jakarta. Based on the data gathered by Dr. Nelly, she made an improvement model for lecturers’ performance. As Dr. Nelly had explained during her thesis defense in front of the promoters and examiners of S3 BINUS University, it is possible to improve lecturers’ performance systematically.
First by empowering knowledge sharing behavior, transformational leadership, and learning organization culture. These are the three foundations for upgrading lecturers’ competencies. Higher education institutions must improve competencies in personality, social, as well as pedagogical and professional aspects within each of the lecturers. In conclusion, all these steps will eventually lead to higher lecturers’ performance, measured by their teaching and mentoring, research papers, publications, and social empowerment.
To close her presentation, Dr. Nelly gave insight for future research. She believed that the different levels of digital literacy could be explored further in terms of its influence on lecturers’ performance. In addition to that, Dr. Nelly considered that this topic could be useful for future research on online learning in higher education. ** (PID)
