VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI VIETNAM JAPAN UNIVERSITY ----------------***---------------- LUU THI NGAN IMPACT OF COMMUNICATION IN AGILE DEVELOPMENT ON THE PERFORMANCE OF ENGINEERS IN SEMICONDUCTOR INDUSTRY MASTER'S THESIS VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI VIETNAM JAPAN UNIVERSITY ----------------***---------------- LUU THI NGAN IMPACT OF COMMUNICATION IN AGILE DEVELOPMENT ON THE PERFORMANCE OF ENGINEERS IN SEMICONDUCTOR INDUSTRY MAJOR: BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION CODE: 8340101 RESEARCH SUPERVISORS: Prof. KURATA HISASHI Dr. TRAN HUY PHUONG Hanoi, 2023 Hanoi, 2021 STATEMENT OF COMMITMENT I affirm that the findings presented in my research, titled "The Impact of Communication in Agile Development on the Performance of Engineers in the Semiconductor Industry," are the original outcome of my own investigation. This thesis has not been previously published or disclosed in any other study.
Throughout the course of my research, I have prioritized research ethics, ensuring that all conclusions are derived from my own efforts. I have diligently followed the appropriate guidelines for citing sources, and I am fully prepared to take accountability for the integrity of my work. 2023 Master student Luu Thi Ngan ACKNOWLEDGMENT I would like to express my heartleft gratitude to Prof. Kurata Hisashi and Dr.
Tran Huy Phuong for their invaluable guidance, advice, and inspiration during my master's thesis research. Their unwavering support and expertise played a pivotal role in helping me overcome various obstacles and successfully complete my thesis within the allotted timeframe. I would like to thank to professors Prof. Motonari Tanabu, Prof.
Sadami Suzuki, Prof. Yoshiki Matsui from Yokohama National University (YNU) for their hosting and guidance, and advice in MIS-OM seminar on every Friday. I want to extend my heartfelt appreciation to all the respondents who graciously participated in the survey during the study period. I am truly grateful for their invaluable assistance.
Furthermore, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Huong-san, the dedicated assistant of the MBA Program, as well as to all the members of the MBA-06 class. Their support and camaraderie have made my time at Vietnam Japan University truly notable and worthwhile. I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my family, whose unwavering love, support in my academic journey. Their belief in my abilities and constant motivation have fueled my determination to excel.
I would like to thank to YNU’s PhD candidate Nguyen Anh Hao san for his comment on my idea, former MBA-05’s student Quynh san, Tung san for their sharing experience research, MBA04’s student Ha san for her thesis reference. My gratitude to all MBA’s alumni for encouraging me to complete the thesis. I am thankful to Vietnam Japan University, YNU, the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), and the Vietnamese and Japanese governments for their valuable support in creating a conducive learning environment at Vietnam Japan University. Their support and encouragement have given me have opened up an incredible opportunity for me to engage in an academic environment where I can gain invaluable knowledge and broaden my perspectives.
Luu Thi Ngan TABLE OF CONTENT LIST OF TABLE. i LIST OF FIGURES. ii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS .1 Background of the research .2 Story at a fabless company .3 Research Objectives and research question .2 Componential Theory of Creativity .3 Ability, Motivation, and Opportunity (AMO) theory.1 Communication in Agile development. HYPOTHESIS DEVELOPMENT AND CONCEPTUAL MODEL .1 Communication and engineer’s performance .1 Face-to-face communication and engineers’ performance.2 Computer-mediated communication and engineers’ performance .2 Employee agility and engineer performance .3 Employee agility moderates the relationship between communication channels and engineers' performance.3 Questionnaire and Pilot testing .2 Variable’s Reliability and validity .4 Test structure of model.
DATA ANALYSIS AND RESULTS .1 Assessing PLS-SEM model .2 Analysis the structure of model .39 CHAPTER 6: DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION .1 Communication Medium and Engineers’ Performance.2 Employee agility and Engineers’ Performance.3 Roles of employee agility on the relationship between a communication medium and engineers’ performance.4 Limitations and future research recommendations .51 APPENDIX 2- SUBJECT COMPANIES PROFILE .62 APPENDIX 3- SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRES IN BILINGUAL .63 APPENDIX 4: MOOR’S LAW.70 LIST OF TABLE Table 2. 1: Review on the description of task performance and creativity. 1: Description of constructs and supporting literature……………………. 1: Profile respondent by age……………………………………………….
2: Respondent by education. 1: Abbreviations of variable in the model…………………………………. 2: Outer loading for algriothium. 4: Discriminant validity according to Fornell- Larcker Criterion.
5: Discriminant validity: Heterotrait - Monotrait Ratio (HTMT. 6: Correlation of latent variable. 7: Collinearity statistics (VIF) of exogenous variables. 10: Results of the hypothesis testing from the structural model .43 i LIST OF FIGURES Figure 2.
1: Media Synchronicity Theory (Adopted from A. Dennis et al. 1: Conceptual research model………………………………………. 1: The measurement model (PLS algorithm)……………………….
3: Path diagram base on analysis result. 4: Simple slope analysis (Source: Pls bootstrapping two tail) .44 ii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AM Agile development AVE Average Variance Extracted CA Cronbach’s alpha CMC Computer-mediated communication EA Employee agility EC Engineer’s creativity F2F Face to face FTFC Face-to-face communication HTMT Heterotrait-Monotrait IC Intergrated circuit IDM Integrated device manufacturers MRT Media richness theory MST Media synchronicity theory PLS Partial Least Squares PLS-SEM Partial Least Square-Structural Equation Modeling R&D Research and development RQ Research question SEM Structural equation modeling TP Engineer’s task performance VIF Variance Inflation Factor WSTS World Semiconductor Trade Statistics iii ABSTRACT One of the most recent trends in new product development management is agile development which has entered many industries, including semiconductors. This study intents to inspect the impacts of communication mediums in agile development on engineers' performance regarding creativity and task performance. The subject scope are engineers who work in fabless companies and research and development (R&D) centers of the semiconductor industry.
The work applied Partial Least Square-Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) was tested to appraise a set of 99 samples gathered from semiconductor engineers. As a consequence of this, several hypotheses were statistically supported. The findings show that computer-mediated communication medium plays an obstacle to engineers' creativity; Employee agility has a positive influence on engineers' performance in both creativity and task performance directly. Besides, the link from computer-mediated communication medium to engineers' creativity is moderated by employee agility.
The finding suggests that managers focus on staff agility when applying agile development within the semiconductor industry. In addition, the finding is a confirmation signal for the agile manifesto and contribute to the Componential Theory of Creativity about the physical environment component of creativity and reveals valuable implication for practitioners. Keyword: Communication, Agile development, Semiconductor design, Engineer’s Performance, Employee agility iv CHAPTER 1.1 Background of the research 1.1 Semiconductor industry The semiconductor industry is a key growth section in the global economy. Firstly, the industry provides vital components to other industrial products such as mobile phones, telecom equipment, robotics, aerospace, and so on.
Secondly, the industry owns a high growth rate (Semiconductor Industry Association, 2023). Due to the global economic downtrend, as forecasted, worldwide semiconductor industry sales would be decreased by about 11.2% and will increase by about 18. Finally, the semiconductor industry is characterized by rapid technological advancement and a high degree of specialization. It involves complex manufacturing processes that require specialized equipment and expertise and significant investment in research and development.
The industry is highly competitive, with companies varying for market share and seeking to develop new and innovative products. The semiconductor industry is classified as the heart of the transformation of advanced economies and agile manufacturing has been recognized as a strategy for achieving sustainable competitiveness (Lee et al.2 Story at a fabless company The semiconductor industry can be categorized into three primary business models: fabless, foundries, and integrated device manufacturers (IDMs). Foundries are chip fabrication companies that focus solely on manufacturing and lack design capabilities. IDMs, on the other hand, are involved in the complete supply chain, encompassing the design, manufacturing, and sales of integrated circuit (IC) products.
Fabless companies specialize in designing and developing new semiconductor products but rely on third- party manufacturers to handle manufacturing. Therefore, fabless companies’ core business goals are innovation and differentiation. A story of a fabless company in Vietnam is discussed in order to point out the research focus of this study. Founded in 2004, this company’s headquarters is in the US, and its 1 other offices in the world and Vietnam office specializes in designing power IC to supply other industries like mobile phones, telecom, medical instrument, etc.
The IC product has a million modules. Thus, creativity and innovation are key to increasing competitiveness. The company used to apply the waterfall method in its design center to manage its design project and has adopted agile methodologies. Their design & development teamwork in co-located offices and shared office facilities.
Due to confidential requirements, all computers are not allowed to be connected to the internet, and peripheral is limited. The company uses a LAN network to manage information. Communication channels include face-to-face, local chat via team, email, and video conference for design review meetings that are rarely used. The conditions look like an ideal environment when applying agile development, which significantly benefits the software industry.
Therefore, most tasks and activities require staff to stand up and join face-to-face communication to save time, then markup by writing formally. However, there are some design managers who confuse standing up frequently may affect engineer performance, like creativity and task completion, as well as lack of information tracking ability. Other managers believe that communication in agile development would help their engineers perform work better and expect engineers proactively communicate to increase personal interaction and team engagement and improve project performance. Their office director pointed out that communication is one of the most essential in R&D projects and expects to perform investigate the effect of communication on the performance of engineers in his company.
Due to the situation, the authors decided to conduct research that relates to management problems in the semiconductor industry.3 Agile development Up to now, agile is not only common in the software industry but also in other industries. Although the concept of "agile development" originated in 2001, when a group of software developers introduced The Agile Manifesto (Beck et al., 2001) until 2018, Schmidt explored that agile development becomes increasingly interesting for the development of physical products, e., IC, consumer electronics, mechatronic systems, or medical devices. Agile development is defined as quick response and adaptably in uncertain situations at dynamic environment. In contrast to the waterfall methodology, 2 which follows a linear project management approach suitable for projects where the desired outcome is clearly defined from the project's outcomes, with specific deliverables at each stage necessary to proceed to the next phase, Agile development was developed as a flexible methodology that embraces the inclusion of late-stage directional changes and emphasizes the incorporation of stakeholders' feedback throughout the process.
Moreover, Cooper & Sommer (2016) proposed that agile development often accompanies changes in customer needs that lead to improved implementation, accelerated development, and improved team communication.4 Communication Communication is the transfer of information from a sender to a receiver (Koontz & Henrich, 1986), which the receiver understands. Communication is a process of transferring information between sender and receiver by the communication medium. Communication media, such as face-to-face communication (FTFC), computer- mediated communication (CMC), and mobile-mediated mediums, provides the channels that deliver the message between sender and receiver. In 2019, Robbins and A.
Judge noted that communication must consist of not only the transfer but also the understanding of meaning. Regarding the organizational level, Kalogiannidis (2021) confirmed that communication is essential for organizational performance and growth. Additionally, Bucăţa and Rizescu (2017) stated effective communication serves as a management tool that fosters interpersonal relationships and creates a conducive environment for the internal growth of an organization. As the content of MRT, different communication mediums provide different information richness, and the performance of team members tends to enhance when they utilize more "rich" or sophisticated forms of communication media.
In terms of the individual level, when there is a high ratio of mediated communication compared to face-to-face communication, individual creativity tends to have a positive overall influence (Thatcher & Brown, 2010).