Exploring core competencies for R&D technical professionals

In order to maintain technical competitiveness, companies have an ongoing need to identify and foster core competencies for technical professionals in the area of research and development (R&D). Exploring core competencies is, however, a qualitative problem. The rough set theory (RST), which has recently become well known as a data-mining technique, is a good tool for data reduction in qualitative analysis. Thus, the rough set approach is suitable for dealing with the problem of exploring competencies. This study extends practical applications of RST in mining the critical competencies for R&D technical professionals employed by semiconductor manufacturers in Taiwan. This paper demonstrates a successful reduction of the numerous essential competencies into a more compact set, and arrived at six core competencies which can be regarded as the as indispensable attributes for the design of competency development programs for R&D technical professionals.