Primary Gateway Research Articles

The Role of Cultural Values in Motivating the Competencies of Hindu Balinese Human Resources in Tourism to Gain Manager Level Positions in Rated Hotels in Bali

In response to the new era of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) since year 2015 – Bali, as the primary gateway of Indonesian tourism, must improve the quality of Hindu Balinese human resources in tourism (HB HRT). Winata (2014: 6) explained that adat istiadat (customs and traditions) is one of the cause for their low commitment in their job, as HB HRT often take leave due to adat obligations. Therefore, one of the impact, as in the case of a hotel in Kuta, is that hotels often avoid recruiting HB HRT. Hence, issue to be discussed in this study is to understand the role of Balinese Cultural Values as a potential and as an obstacle in HBHRT’s competency to achieve managerial positions in star-rated hotels in Bali. The research will use a concurrent triangulation method on data collected through interviews and questionaires.While sampling will be done with Purposive Sampling method on star-rated hotels located in Sanur, Kuta and Nusa Dua. Finally, the data analysis will be carried out by referring to Motivation Theory (McClelland, 1976), Competency Theory (Spencer and Spencer, 1993), Value Orientations Theory (Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck, 1961), through a descriptive interpretative qualitative approach as well as a quantitative approach based on Principal Component Analysis (PCA) statistics.
 The research results will show that based on the data, HB HRT have good set of competencies, and these good competencies are inseparable from their background of Balinese Cultural Values (BCV), mainly derived from Hindu culture and religion. As part of upholding their culture, a HB HRT is a person with pawongan concept of harmonious relationship between human beings indicated by 79.1% people with tresna (love), the parhyangan concept of harmonious relationship between human beings and God indicated by 75% people engaging in dharma yatra pilgrimages and study, and the palemahan concept of harmonious relationship between human beings and nature indicated by 69.8% people valuing Bali shanti (a peaceful Bali). On the other hand the obstacles in occupying manager positions in star-rated hotels in Bali are mostly due to internal factors – namely, their own personal motives which are often based on erroneous understandings of BCV. Therefore, in order to increase the Spiritual
 Quotient (SQ) of HB HRT in achieving managerial positions, the strategy will be through career development with motivation programs while redefining their Balinese Cultural Values to give positive impact to their living standard, to the company, to the environment, and to God.

The Distinction, physiologically and psychologically considered, between Perception, Memory; Sensation, and Intellect

Perception we define to be the intellectual and presentative consciousness of objects of any kind, internal or external, and the primary gateway of knowledge. In every perception the object is a most prominent feature. It is in the invariable presence of the object in perception, and its absence from memory and imagination, that we behold the striking difference which there is between it and the latter; and it is on this distinction the universal assurance is grounded that what we perceive is different from what we remember or imagine. In every perception there is an intellectual and a sensational element, and memory proper is the persistence of the intellectual element after the sensational element has disappeared from consciousness, or after the peripheral nerves have ceased to excite the sense-centre. In no instance have we been able, by any amount of effort, to make an act of memory or imagination seem a perception; yet Hume divided perceptions into two classes, as distinguished by their different degrees of force and vivacity. The less lively he named thoughts and ideas; the more lively, impressions. Professor Bain seems to take the same view of the question. In reference to the recalling of past feelings, he says:—“The renewed feeling occupies the very same parts, and in the same manner, as the original feeling, and no other parts, nor in any other manner that can be assigned.” It is the opinion of some, then, that memory and imagination only differ from perception in being less lively. The latter is a vivid picture, the former are faint reproductions of it. We fail to see that this is precisely the case. In every perception there is an object present, and cognized as distinct from the consciousness of it—in special instances, as even distinct from the perceiver altogether. When we gaze at a picture, the picture is regarded as one thing, the knowing of it as another; whereas when we only think of the picture, we do not recognize any object as really distinct from thought itself. An imagined external object is still detected to be a mental object. “A representation considered as an object is logically, not really, different from a representation considered as an act. Here object and act are merely the same indivisible mode of mind viewed in two different relations… The same may be said of image and imagination.” “Imagination, regarded as a product, may be defined, the consciousness of an image in the mind resembling and representing an object of intuition.” Though we do not exactly hold with these opinions, we quote them in order to show what view is taken by some psychologists in reference to the distinction between presentative and representative consciousness, or between knowing a thing immediately in perception, and knowing it mediately through an image of the mind's collecting. How is it possible, when contemplating a mountain which one is on the point of ascending—albeit the mountain is to us, as immediately known, in a sense-centre—to regard it as identical, except in vivacity, with the recollection which we afterwards have of it? Perception is, so to speak, a bi-une fact, a synthesis of cognition and object, whereas memory and imagination are not bi-une, for the object is not present in them, in the same manner, at least, as it is in perception. But let us now proceed to adduce facts and deductions confirmatory of this view of the question.