StrAtegic HumAn reSource development – A mAnoeuvre for future competencieS

The changing role and function of Human Resource Development professionals due to social, economic, political and technological alterations lead the way for strategic HRD practices in organizations. In this current world of industrialization, this term relates to the achievement of competitive benefits by aligning organizational goals and priorities with structured and futureoriented activities. A study on strategic HRD lends a hand to eliminate the hitches of an organization by rational planning and people development with a focus on predictability and consistency. This research not only enlightens the implication of strategic activities but also it strengthens individual creativity, knowledge management, career planning, and individual competencies amongst employees in industrial sectors. It highlights on the employee perception about these SHRD practices of companies, which is a fundamental factor for the employee contentment, performance, and for the necessity of socio-technical systems. Accordingly, the study is focused at Dubai, U.A.E., in the shape of “Strategic Human Resource Development – A manoeuvre for future competencies” with a sample size of 300 from various companies by quantitative and qualitative analysis. Accordingly, it has been statistically confirmed that four independent variables show a positive relationship with strategic HRD activities. Along with this, it identifies the extent to which the HRD and its related work-life factors are provided by the selected companies. The result of the survey generated a key model and a framework for SHRD by creating a valuable contribution to the organization in facing the future challenges.

methods through deliberate environmental scanning. In this knowledge-based economy, many HRD experts are in dilemma and anxious in relation to the work-life activities in which they are engaged in (McGuire, 2014). In most circumstances the talent force feels uncongenial to discharge their new roles in organizational operational issues. Especially, the rapid growth of information technology, globalization, and industrialization has transformed international business in to a multifaceted structure where every individual must be aware and equipped to meet cross-cultural global players. In light of this, current HRD practices should be responsive to corporate strategy and market trends. Garavan (1991) first defined strategic HRD as 'the strategic management of training, development, and of management/professional education interventions so as to achieve the objectives of the organization while at the same time ensuring the full utilization of the knowledge in details and skills of individual employees. It is concerned with the management of employee learning for the long-term keeping in mind the explicit corporate and business strategies'. According to Gold et al. (2010) HRD practices itself is strategic and is designed to have a long -term impact. However, they argue that the intent of a strategic approach to HRD is to concern itself with performance at the organizational as opposed to the individual level long-term impact from HRD interventions. Literature provides wide varieties of SHRD measures in organizations depends on its economy, market, social, political and cultural environment (Harrison, 2002;Grieves, 2003;Friedman, 2006;Ulrich, 2007;Mello, 2015;Anderson, 2018). Strategic management process identifies and executes the organization's strategic plan which elucidates company's plan and it specifies how internal strengths and weaknesses match with external opportunities and threats in order to maintain a competitive advantage. Basic steps in this process are translating the mission into strategic goals, formulating strategies to achieve the strategic goals, implementing strategies, and evaluating performance. At this point, the study utilizes the implication of latent constructs namely; creativity, knowledge management, career planning, competencies as SHRD plans in selected industrial sectors.
Creative ideas keep organizations to adjust to the changing market-demand (Shalley et al., 2004), significantly add to levels of innovation, effectiveness and productivity in organizations (Amabile & Conti, 1999;Nonaka, 1991) and this in turn helps to sustain the growth and could deliver products/services with respect to customer satisfaction (McLean, 2005). Moreover, innovation and creativity cannot flourish in a stringent work environment. Individuals need autonomy and motivation with adequate knowledge sharing, engagement in experimentation, willingness to accept challenges and to foresee new possibilities (Thite, 2004). Encountered with intricate issues, organizations are realizing that it is requisite to build appropriate strategies to foster knowledge creation and share this power to achieve sustainable competitive advantage. To support this, Conley and Zheng (2009) stress that technology is empowering the creation of online communities of practice and is becoming central to assisting the development of effective relationships amongst employees who are geographically dispersed. In this technological world, organizations view career development and planning as an important aspect of identifying, developing and retaining their work-force. In addition to this, Sullivan and Mainiero (2007) argue that individuals themselves are greatly aware about their own career planning to achieve a balance between work and family and need to be proactive in managing their careers and in providing outcomes (Sturges et al., 2005). Thus, providing different opportunities for employee development, otherwise, talent development by environmental scanning, employee branding, self-assessment and objective setting, promotion of HR policies and organizational cultures, current and future planning, and developmental needs enhances individual competencies and brings pathway to a competitive advantage in the marketplace for organizations (Souder, 1983;Gandz, 2006;Lievens, 2007;Kucherov & Zavyalova, 2012).
Hence, this research examines how individual creativity, career planning, knowledge management, and individual competencies can be recognized and fostered in the workplace through organizational and cultural strategies that encourage individual performance amongst employees.
In particular, the model manifested from this study could help in bridging the gap between individual desires and organizational outcome.

Background to the study
Dubai, one of the Emirates in U.A.E, the dream land is always renowned for its own growth in tourism, stable political structure, infrastructure, and with most liberal trade systems that attracts many business people from all over the world which guides Dubai a hub for industrial development with work force from over two hundred nationalities. To add feather on its cap, Dubai has won the bid to host Expo 2020, and surely provide an impetus to its economy and employment. According to the reports by World Bank, U.A.E. improved by ten ranks to become the eleventh position in doing business globally (National Business, 2019). In Gender inequality Index, U.A.E. ranked forty-ninth position globally by UNDP reports (Emirates news agency, 2019). Besides, an annual global report published by the Positive Economy Institute since 2013, it stated that the U.A.E. has been ranked eighth on the Positivity Index of Nations, which measures positive economy indicators in OECD member countries (www.arabianbusiness.com). In this above background, this study has heaps of scope towards the above listed variables in SHRD plans and is applicable and reliable in different sectors in Dubai in order to contribute a person's career exploration, establishment, achievement, and fulfilment.

literAture revieW
A variety of strategic human resource development approaches have been developed over the last 20 years to accentuate the human resource management principles and procedures by which organizations can align themselves to the external environment and improve the competences and competencies of their internal processes. Well-known models of strategic HRD are Garavan's (1991Garavan's ( , 2007 'Characteristics of SHRD, ' Ulrich's (1998' Ulrich's ( , 2007 ' and Grieve's (2003) 'strategic HRD characteristics.' The synopsis of all models indicates notions such as; that there should be a distinct strategy for HRD plans/policies by employee-centered learning and development in aligned with organizational goals, vision and mission, active involvement and commitment of line managers with HRD professionals for continual organizational transformation, adaptability to corporate and diverse culture by environmental scanning and costeffectiveness evaluation. In a global perspective, the insight to SHRD stands in its political changes, labour-market characteristics, technological changes and cross-cultural differences. In relation to this point, Friedman (2006) singles out ten globalization forces which affect the business operations and delivering products and services in today's economy. He argues those forces such as; creation of economic trading, global connectivity, workflow software, communities, outsourcing, offshoring, supply-chaining, insourcing, informing, and personal digital assistants (PDAs) could make organizations more effective and technologically advanced. In 2009, he added an eleventh force affecting globalization, namely environmentalism and green movement. Therefore, SHRD topic is a continuous process with alterations in organizational policies for its adaptability.
At the same time, some of the bottlenecks for the implementation of SHRD approaches are the involvement of line managers in relation to their work-related activities (Reilly & Williams, 2006), lack of resistance to change in work delivery, especially in the case of long established companies (Guire, 2014), deficiency of environmental scanning and organizational development (Tamkin, et al., 2006). There are many literatures that highlights on HRD measures which focusses on organizational structures and systems for the purpose of achieving sustainable advantage by controlling human capital (McLagan, 1989;Watkins & Marsick, 1997;Slotte et. al., 2004). But this study is unique in such a way that, this concentrates on SHRD by increasing human capabilities, emphasis on knowledge management, impact of career planning and implication of individual competencies for proper environmental scanning and proactive steps in selected organizations.
While considering creativity as a latent variable in SHRD, it is understated in the fields of social and organizational psychology and identified six barriers (Sternberg & Lubart, 1999). Furthermore, different approaches to understand creativity are cognitive (Gardner, 1993), behavioural (Baer et al., 2003), personality (Barron & Harrington, 1981) and social (Amabile, 1996;Perry-Smith, 2006). In 1999, Feldman identified a multi-factorial approach to examine the creativity where he mentioned about the dependency between perception (work environment, leader support and intrinsic motivation), perspective (cognitive style, prior experience, and risk-taking disposition) and positionality (social, cultural, historical identity) (Feldman, 1999). The main objective is to examine how various variables in creativity can be accepted and adopted in SHRD to encourage risk-taking amongst employees in selected industries. Hence, the first hypothesis formulated for the study is as follows: Hypothesis 1: The variable, creativity and in organizations has a significant role in SHRD plans to achieve its goals and objectives. Brown and Duguid (2001)  In 'encultured knowledge', culture of an organization guides employees a frame of mindset, through which they can interpret organizational activity (Schein, 2010). Some knowledge sharing is in the form of 'embodied,' where it is related to problem at hand and is strongly applied in its focus. Otherwise, in 'embraced' case, it would be formal or theoretical knowledge which focuses on universal principles and scientific understanding (Lam, 2000). Undoubtedly, knowledge transfer has an imperative role in organizational innovation (Jovanic et al, 2018). Various studies stressed on the lack of appropriate knowledge sharing and its barriers in organizations as individual, organizational and technological barriers in the form of lack of leadership, inappropriate reward system and unsuitable sharing opportunities (Reige, 2005;Gagne, 2009;Conley & Zheng, 2009). This argument leads to next hypothesis, Hypothesis 2: The variable, knowledge management in organizations has a significant role in SHRD plans to achieve its goals and objectives.
According to Chen (1998) three wide areas of career are; career as life process, career as individual agency and career as meaning-making. However, modern career concepts are in different angles such as; as boundaryless career (Sommerlund & Boutaiba, 2007), protean career (Manikoth & Cseh, 2011), authentic career (Craddock, 2004), kaleidoscopic career (Cabrera, 2009) and portfolio career (Platman, 2003) which insights into the notion that career is not the only obligation of organizations but interest, effort, contribution from the employees' part as well. Based on these above factors, the third hypothesis is as follows; Hypothesis 3: The variable, career planning in organizations has a significant role in SHRD plans to achieve its goals and objectives.
Garavan et al, 2012 mentioned that employee competencies can be achieved through formal programmes, relationship based and job-based developmental experiences, and both informal and formal developmental activities. Literature identifies that there is much discussion has taken place on the distinction between competences and competencies (Post, 1997;Hafeez & Essmail, 2007). Mapping employee skills, knowledge, and experience to achieve organization's goals by various strategic activities can increase the competitiveness of the organization. This fact urges to formulate the fourth hypothesis for the study,

Hypothesis 4: The variable, individual competencies in organizations has a significant role in SHRD plans to achieve its goals and objectives.
Hence, all the above factors can be reflected in SHRD process in any organization to achieve an economical advantage in the market-place.
Demographic factors play a pivotal role in employee performance and leads to enhance employee productivity and organizational output. For this, creating a culture that manages demographic factors is inevitable (Fernandez, 1991;Hayles & Mendez, 1997;Auden, 2009;. In the light of these evidences, the other objective is to inspect the variation of employees' outlook on the above mentioned latent variables with respect to the demographic factors. Therefore, the influence of demographic factors on each latent variable has measured by following hypothesis. Thus the study combines the above theoretical aspects with identified factors and its relationship with various industrial sectors' work settings.

metHodologY
The study utilizes adequate theoretical aspects to comprehend the meaning of SHRD for the effectiveness of human resources along with piloted interaction, interviews and a survey aided to realize the deep-rooted insights of employees on their strategic human resource plans in achieving goals.
The pilot study helped to construct a selfstructured, open-ended questionnaire with five-point Likert scale ranging from 'Very good' to 'Very bad' with 30 indicators. It consists of demographic factors in the beginning section, followed by independent variables namely; individual creativity, knowledge management, career planning, and individual competencies towards SHRD. An outline of the questionnaire with dependent variable and independent variables and its related measures is represented in the below  To what extend you and your organization alert to technological and market trends? Source: Literature review and pilot study the data as the study consists of demographic factors, which helps to recognize the disparity in employees' outlooks on mentioned latent variables. This can be demonstrated as Table 2.
From the Table 2, it shows that the percentage for gender male (54%) is more than females, (46%) with majority were in age group 41-50, (37%) and a major share were professionals (65%) and of experience with 40% for 16-20 years. This helps to acquire a wide notion about their approaches on SHRD components as majority of the respondents were professional and experienced.

dAtA AnAlYSiS
The questionnaire for the survey was assessed using Cronbach's alpha for its reliability. Analysis part consists of two stages. The first stage involves descriptive statistics of the measurements to estimate the reliability and validity of the measures applied in this study. Initially, an input model was established using AMOS 18 graphics. Subsequently, the study tested the proposed research model by assessing the contributions and significance of the manifest variables path coefficients. SPSS 20.0 was used to analyze the response from the sample. Another measure, Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) provides a confirmatory approach to the analysis of a structural theory bearing on some phenomenon. It conveys two important aspects of the procedures; a. causal process under study which is represented by a series of structural (regression) equations, and b. these structural relationships can be modelled to facilitate a stronger conceptualization of the theory under study.
The hypothesized model is statistically tested simultaneously to examine its consistency with the data through goodness of fit measures. This allows the examination of a series of dependence relationships between exogenous (independent) and endogenous (dependent) variables concurrently and it incorporates the strengths of multiple regression analysis, factor analysis, and 360 H. Parameswaran / SJM 15 (2) (2020) Table 2. Demographic Data multivariate ANOVA. This was done using the two-stage analysis in which the measurement model is first estimated and then the measurement model is kept fixed in the next step in which the structural model is estimated. The justification for this approach is that accurate representation of the indicators' reliability is best accomplished in two steps by avoiding interaction of structural and measurement models. According to the usual procedures, the goodness of fit is measured by checking the statistical and substantive validity of estimates, the convergence of the estimation procedure, the empirical identification of the model, the statistical significance of the parameters, and the goodness of fit to the covariance matrix. Also, parametric statistics like one-way ANOVA and Z-test were used for comparison of the factors considered between different levels of the demographic variables. A level of 0.05 was established as a priority for determining significance.

reSultS And diScuSSion
Following are the various tests and its measures.
Except for career planning, all other constructs in Table 3, have reliability greater than 0.4, so further analysis have been proceeded with these variables.

confirmatory factor Analysis
As a next step, the study analysis the measurement model of factors to test the convergent validity. Accordingly, all the factors in each dependent variable were tested using Confirmatory Factory Analysis and is represented in Table 4.
All the attributes loaded significantly on the latent constructs. The value of the fit indices indicates a reasonable fit of the measurement model with data. Regression coefficients were also established and is illustrated below as Table 5.

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H. Parameswaran / SJM 15 (2) (2020) Table 3. Reliability test For creativity, it explains that the regulatory construct IC1(0.2), IC6 (0.1) IC7 (0.1), IC8 (-0.05) has no significant influence as it is less than the recommended value of 0.4. On the other hand, for IC2 (0.6), IC3 (0.6), IC4 (0.5), and IC5 (0.6) p value is significant. For knowledge management, except KM3 and KM6, all other constructs have significant influence on knowledge management as the value is greater than the recommended value. For career planning, results showed that except CP4 and CP6 all other constructs, values were < 0.4 and for last variable four constructs have significant values except for ICo1 and ICo2.
This can be diagrammatically exemplified as Figure 1 to Figure 4 for each variable.
The rectangle specifies observed factors and unobserved factors in the form of ovals. The curved double headed arrows imply correlations or co-variances among the unobserved variables. The straight headed arrow denotes the factor loadings of the observed variables. The small circles with arrows pointing from the circles to the observed variables indicate errors/unique factors otherwise known as squared multiple correlation of the standard error. This initial model is refined to reach the final model.

Hypothesis tests
The result for hypotheses test is shown as Table 6.
The Table 6 revealed that the regulatory construct, creativity has significant influence on SHRD of the employees as the standardised direct effect of this construct is 0.577, which is more than the recommended value of 0.4 (p value is significant). Similarly, for knowledge, it is 1.1, and for competencies, it is 0.6. But for career, it is 0.2, which is less than 0.4 and proves that it has no direct significance on SHRD. So, the hypotheses, H1, H2, and H4 were accepted and H3 was rejected. Also, this is diagrammatically represented by AMOS 18 graphics to reach the final model as Figure 5.
The Figure 5 clarifies the relationship between each variable towards SHRD. Mapping employee competencies through these above-mentioned variables and determining future challenges can help organizations to achieve the strategic goals and goal-setting procedures.

demographic factors
Results for Demographic factors for different variables are showed in Table 7.
The result from the Table 7 shows that significant difference exists between males and females for the factors, creativity as the p value is less than 0.05. But, for Knowledge 363 H. Parameswaran / SJM 15 (2) (2020) Figure 5. Model for relationship between SHRD and its related variables management, Career planning and Competencies, there is no such significant differences for gender since the p value is equal to or greater than 0.05. So, the hypothesis H1a, was rejected and H1b, H1c, H1d were accepted. In the case of Age, it reveals that a statistical value of p is less than 0.05 for the variables Creativity, Knowledge Management and Competencies. It concludes that the mean score for these mentioned variables differs with age groups. Hence, the study rejected the hypotheses H2a, H2b, H2d, and accept H2c. The result of multiple comparison test indicates that for the variable Creativity, all the age group differs significantly with each other. The results of the ANOVA test for the factors, Qualification and years of Experience reveals that a statistical value of p is less than 0.05 for all the variables considered, which means that the mean scores of all variables differs with qualifications and experiences. Hence, the study rejected the hypothesis H3a to H3d and also, H4a to H4d. Similarly, multiple comparison tests were performed for all other variables to confirm which variable shows difference for qualification and experiences (for age, experience, and qualification tables are not exhibited here).

concluSion
In this study four variables were investigated towards strategic human resource planning. The above findings are generally more in line and interrelated with the theories of SHRD by Garavan (1991), Ulrich (1998Ulrich ( , 2007, McCracken andWallace (2000a), Harrison (2002), Grieves (2003) that organizations should ensure learning and development activities by knowledge sharing and environmental scanning to know about opportunities and threats. Moreover, the study supports the theories by highlighting the fact that the involvement of line managers with senior managers and good leadership styles in implementing strategic policies.
In the case of variables, firstly, the outcomes strengthen the theoretical aspects on creativity and enlightens new notions. It concludes that all these constructs contribute positively to creativity. This supports the significance of multi-factorial approach (Feldman, 1999) Table 7. Mean, Standard deviation and z value for Gender coordination from the top management to line managers in supporting challenging duties, inspiring environment for expressing new ideas and embracing a diverse culture without any racial discrimination. In simple terms, creativity is the combination of cognitive skills, personality, behavioral and social characters (Gardner, 1993;Baer et al., 2003;Barron & Harrington, 1981;Perry-Smith, 2006;Feldman, 1999) as the values for IC1, IC6, IC7, IC8 are <4 (Table 5 and Figure 1).
For knowledge management, these indicators prove that the knowledge about their own organization, its policies/objectives, culture and, working conditions, leadership style, and work-place relationships leads to stability and identity for employees. Naturally, it directs to creative minds in the work place. Employees need up-to-date information on technological changes and clear evidence of organizational goals and mission. In this aspect, four different knowledge concepts namely, embedded (tacit), encultured, embodied and embraced forms are equally important in this selected companies as the values for regression coefficient are <4 for KM3, KM4, and KM6 (Table 5 and Figure 2). This proves the priority of knowledge sharing in HRD mechanisms in order to stimulate work-place commitment, relationships, stability and identity to the individuals (McGuire, 2014). So, selected sectors should invest in support to knowledge workers by environmental scanning for its competitiveness and survivability.
Besides, the results clarified that career planning (values for CP1, CP2, and CP7 is >4 in Table 5 and Figure 3) is not the only responsibility of a particular organization, but the perception, perspective, and cognitive skills of individuals about their career, in different terms as as boundaryless career (Sommerlund & Boutaiba, 2007), protean career (Manikoth & Cseh, 2011), authentic career (Craddock, 2004, kaleidoscopic career (Cabrera, 2009) and portfolio career (Platman, 2003), is crucial in their career growth. In order to achieve their goals in life by retaining their employability, training and development from organizations, learning assistance programs, and adequate mentoring are necessary. Thus, employees can maintain a good work-life balance and perform well in their various roles such as a spouse, a parent, a good citizen to the society and to the entire nation. But, certainly, the study stipulates that some kind of career inventory instruments can be incorporated in sectors for guiding them to select their jobs. Also, career counselling and continuous professional development are imperative to ensure a good fit between individuals' personality and occupational selections and to update knowledge, skills and connect with other learners. Lastly, for individual competencies, extrinsic and intrinsic rewards by a flawless, transparent and accountable process based on their performance are imperative in organizations as it is evident from the values for ICo1 and ICo2, <4 (Table 5 and Figure 4). This maintains the concept that employees need both formal and informal activities in their skill development (Garavan et. al., 2012).
Demographic factors should also be considered in SHRD plans as the result proves the variation in their outlooks towards SHRD practices towards the employee productivity.
Further, this study has lots of scope for future researches as SHRD activities are very complex and dynamic in this turbulent world. In recent times, this notion in organizations is becoming increasingly important as work becomes internationalized to a greater degree and needs to place a stronger emphasis on creativity, knowledge management, competencies and, of course, results for career planning explains the need for new strategies. Future study can be concentrated using other work-life variables in other sectors in U.A.E and internationally as well. As a result of current recessionary pressures and job insecurity, there is an increasing attention and prominence on SHRD practices in organizations by employee branding and benchmarking. In order to support employment and economic developments, Dubai government always supports for more events such as World Economic Forum, Global Innovation Summit, Public Policy Forum and World Tolerance Summit every year for exchanging ideas and knowledge globally. Hence, in all aspect this study could shed light on the future policy formulation and implementation procedures in all sectors of employment.
It is equally important to point the limitations for the study. The human feelings and motives are always changing according to their socio-environmental factors and could be subjective during the survey/interaction/interviews. Additionally, it is to be emphasized that the abovementioned variables are not the only tactics in SHRD in an organization, so the employees' priority depends on its strategies, policies, vision and mission.