Development of leadership competency framework for board of management members in private enterprises using a delphi method

VNU Journal of Science: Policy and Management Studies, Vol. 32, No. 1 (2016) 79-94 
 79 
Development of Leadership Competency Framework 
for Board of Management Members in Private Enterprises 
Using a Delphi Method 
Hồ Như Hải1,*, Đỗ Vũ Phương Anh2 
VNU Vietnam Japan University, 144 Xuân Thủy, Cầu Giấy, Hanoi, Vietnam 
VNU University of Economics and Business, 144 Xuân Thủy, Cầu Giấy, Hanoi, Vietnam 
Received 18 February 2016 
Revised 8 March 2016; Accepted 16 March 2015 
Abstract: There are many methods to develop leadership competency framework but none can be 
consider perfect as there are pros and consto of each method. The purpose of this paper is to 
present the use of Delphi method to develop leadership competency framework for members of the 
board of management in private enterprises. The Delphi method is a qualitative research approach 
used to obtain a consensus of opinion of the group of experts using questionnaires. The Delphi 
research was conducted based on the initial list of 27 leadership competencies collected from 
multinational corporations. After the third round of the Delphi research, the developed competency 
frameworks for chief executive officer, chief people officer, chief customer officer, chief financial 
officer, chief marketing officer and chief information officer using the Delphi method are valid 
and reliable. Each competency framework contains the 12 most important competencies to the 
board of management member out of the initial list of 27 leadership competencies. 
Keywords: leadership competency framework, members of the board of management, private 
enterprises, Delphi method. 
1. Introduction∗ 
Speaking of "business leaders", we often 
think of the leader as a business owner, board 
chairman or chief executive officer. However, 
when the market trend is continuously 
developing with new technologies and methods, 
corporate governance is also changing. The role 
of the board of management is growing, 
critically influencing the development of the 
business. The competitiveness of enterprises is 
_______ 
∗Corresponding author. Tel.: 84-983292403 
 Email: haihn@vnu.edu.vn 
determined by the quality of the board of 
management [1]. Successful businesses focus 
on competency building for the board of 
management in the present and future [2-4]. 
The period 2015-2016 marked an 
international integration of Vietnam's economy 
with a series of trade agreements were signed. 
According to the trend of international 
economic integration, business leaders need to 
see their business as a "commitment" instead of 
"short-lived opportunities" as before, since the 
mission of the business is associated with the 
management model and the execution of tasks 
H.N. Hải, Đ.V.P. Anh/ VNU Journal of Science: Policy and Management Studies, Vol. 32, No. 1 (2016) 79-94 
80 
in the new context. Today's market is no longer 
a domestic market with nearly 100 million 
people; it is now an ASEAN common market 
with over 600 million people and a common 
market with 12 countries in the TPP blocks. 
That means Vietnamese private enterprises are 
starting to compete in the world's largest free 
trade area (accounting for nearly 40% of global 
GDP)1. 
In this context, awareness of the impact of 
international factors is key in the process of 
transformation of the Vietnamese private 
enterprises to be able to compete effectively in 
the global context. The spreading process of 
diversity, complexity and dynamism, which are 
the characteristic elements of the international 
business environment, when moving to the 
domestic environment it requires leadership 
competency development [5]. In this process 
there exists a gap between the capacity to 
implement the business strategy at the 
international level with the competency of the 
board of management to meet that [6]. To 
identify this gap, a possible solution is to use a 
competency framework. The effectiveness 
when applying this framework depends on the 
suitability and reliability of the framework 
itself. However, to build such a model is always 
a challenge to Vietnamese private enterprises 
for there are a lot of competencies that are 
difficult to measure and does not express 
explicitly. 
2. Literature review 
2.1. Board of management 
Board of management is the subject which 
is now attracting the attention of many scholars 
and researchers. Typical research directions in 
recent years can be cited as the contribution of 
the board of management in planning and 
implementing strategies [7], the relationship 
_______ 
1
lobal-trade-graphics 
between the size of the board of management 
and the results of business activity [8], the 
relationship between the diversity of the board 
of management (in terms of education, age, 
gender, nationality, experience, etc.) and results 
of operations of the enterprises [7, 9]. Therefore 
who or which title  ... ource: Authors (2015) 
5. Conclusion 
By adopting Delphi methods, the authors 
proposed leadership competency frameworks 
for the board of management members in 
private enteprises, including chief executive 
officer, chief human resources officer, chief 
financial officer, chief customer officer, chief 
marketing officer, chief product officer, chief 
supply chain officer and chief information 
officer. Each competency framework contains 
the 12 most important competencies to the 
board of management member according to the 
point of views of Delphi research members. 
Some competencies appear in more than 6 out 
of 8 competency frameworks such as Global 
and strategic vision, Building the market, 
Domain expertise, Networking, Team 
H.N. Hải, Đ.V.P. Anh / VNU Journal of Science: Policy and Management Studies, Vol. 32, No. 1 (2016) 79-94 91 
development and Problem solving. These 
competencies must be considered as core 
competencies of the board of management in 
private enterprises. 
Scientifically, this research has two new 
contributions. Firstly, the development of 
leadership competency framework adopting the 
Delphi’s method has the relevance and 
reliability. Secondly, the research developed 
competency frameworks for the board of 
management members of private enterprises 
while other previous researches focused on 
leadership competency framework development 
for a single member such as chief executive 
officer. This contributed to the current trend of 
research in team leadership. 
Practically, competency frameworks of the 
board of management members could be used 
as a tool to develop and implement human 
resource policies and leadership development 
programs in private enterprises. 
However, this research has limitations. As 
Delphi method was used for this research, some 
competency frameworks could only be applied 
in enterprises that have similar characteristics to 
the enterprises where Delphi research members 
manage. 
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Xây dựng khung năng lực lãnh đạo cho Ban điều hành doanh 
nghiệp tư nhân sử dụng phương pháp Delphi 
Hồ Như Hải1, Đỗ Vũ Phương Anh2 
1Trường Đại học Việt Nhật, ĐHQGHN, 144 Xuân Thủy, Cầu Giấy, Hà Nội, Việt Nam 
2Trường Đại học Kinh tế, ĐHQGHN, 144 Xuân Thủy, Cầu Giấy, Hà Nội, Việt Nam 
Tóm tắt: Có nhiều phương pháp xây dựng khung năng lực lãnh đạo nhưng không phương pháp 
nào là tối ưu do đều có ưu điểm và hạn chế. Bài báo này giới thiệu ứng dụng phương pháp Delphi vào 
nghiên cứu khung năng lực lãnh đạo của ban điều hành doanh nghiệp ngoài quốc doanh Việt Nam. 
Đây là một phương pháp định tính nhằm đạt được sự đồng thuận của nhóm nghiên cứu bằng cách sử 
dụng các bảng hỏi. Phương pháp Delphi được áp dụng kết hợp với danh mục 27 năng lực lãnh đạo 
doanh nghiệp được tổng hợp từ các nghiên cứu lý thuyết và thực tiễn tại một số công ty đa quốc gia. 
Kết quả nghiên cứu là khung năng lực của các vị trí giám đốc điều hành, giám đốc nhân sự, giám đốc 
tài chính, giám đốc bán hàng, giám đốc marketing và giám đốc thông tin có độ tin cậy cao. Mỗi khung 
năng lực gồm có 12 năng lực quan trọng nhất theo vị trí được lựa chọn từ danh mục 27 năng lực 
ban đầu. 
Từ khóa: Khung năng lực lãnh đạo, thành viên của Hội đồng quản trị, doanh nghiệp tư nhân, 
phương pháp Delphi.