<![CDATA[This study examines the effects of employee competence and compensation on employee performance at PT. Rakyat Sulawesi Selatan Intermedia, a local news company in Makassar, Indonesia. The study addresses the need for context-sensitive human resource management research in small media organizations facing limited resources, high work pressure, and changing digital demands. A quantitative associative design was applied using a census of all 32 employees. Data were collected through a structured questionnaire and analyzed using multiple linear regression. The findings show that compensation has a positive and significant effect on employee performance, while competence has a positive but statistically insignificant effect. The model explains 35.6% of the variance in employee performance. These results indicate that, in a resource-constrained local media setting, tangible rewards and perceived economic recognition may have a stronger immediate influence on employee performance than competence alone. The study contributes to human resource management literature by showing that the role of competence and compensation may vary depending on organizational context. Practically, local media firms should strengthen fair and transparent compensation systems while creating supportive conditions that enable employees to apply their competencies effectively.Keywords: Compensation, Employee Competence, Employee Performance, Human Resource Management, Local Media Organization]]>
