Present status and perceived importance of computer skills in a Taiwanese service industry

The purpose of this study was to provide researchers, computer technologists, management and trainers with information concerning the current status and importance regarding computer skills for agents in the Taiwanese life insurance industry. This research also identified important computer skills for this population and investigated differences in perceptions of computer directors (system developers), sales managers (training providers), and life insurance agents (end-users) regarding the current status and importance of computer skills for life insurance agents. Survey instruments were developed through the literature review and expert interviews and validations. Investigated samples include all 30 computer directors of member companies of the Taipei Life Insurance Association, 200 randomly selected members of the General Agents and Managers Association, and 400 randomly selected members of the Life Underwriters Association in Taiwan. The usable return rate was 55.2%. In this study, 49 important skills were identified in 8 categories: basic computer skills, database management, spreadsheet, word processing, communication, presentation, computer-based training, and artificial intelligence. One-way ANOVAs at the.05 level were used to detect differences of perceptions among the three groups. The Fisher\u27s Least Significant Difference Procedure (three t-tests at the.01 level) was used for all significant ANOVAs to identify the significant differences between each two groups. The majority of significant differences, 28 out of 49 regarding importance level and 8 concerning level of expertise, were found between sales managers and agents; 4 significant differences concerning importance level and 1 concerning level of expertise were found between sales managers and computer directors; only 4 items related to importance level were found significantly different between agents and computer directors. The ranking of both levels of importance and expertise showed more consensus between agents and sales managers than agents and computer directors. However, because of the difference in sample sizes, this finding should be interpreted with caution