A. Introduction to Excellence in management and leadership
3. Management effectiveness
c. Management competencies
index of contents
The effective workplace manager - The competency approach
Table 1 Countries adopting national competency-based training systems (2000)
Figure 5 Boyatzis's model for competencies and effective performance
Figure 6 The variables impacting a management job in a given environment
(Mintzberg, 1973:103)
Competence - an Australian perspective
The effective workplace manager - The competency approach
Once again, however, the concept of competence as a formal field of research has undergone many evolutions and has inspired a wide range of approaches. Literature around the globe has since the early 1960s presented competencies as a behavioural form of pedagogy, a means to structure work, a basis for organisations achieving competitiveness or the foundations for national vocational education and training systems.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s many writers explored the concept of competence as a basis for improving human and management performance. Such authors include:
Chris Argyris (1962): Interpersonal Competence and Organisational Effectiveness;
D. C. McClelland (1976): A Guide to Job Competency Assessment ;
M. A. Bunda and J. R. Sanders (1979): Practices and Problems in Competency-Based Measurement ;
W. J. Popham (1979): Criterion Referenced Measurement ;
T. Gilbert (1978): Human Competence ;
G. O. Klemp and L. M. Spencer (1980): Job Competence Assessment ;
Richard Boyatzis (1982): The Competent Manager: A Mode for Effective Performance.
Research shows that competency-based approaches to training, assessment and human resource activities (i.e. recruitment, selection, etc.) have been in evidence within organisations since the early 1970s. They are no less prevalent today. While the approaches to implementing competencies usually vary depending on the consultants and the organisational needs, in the 1990s the emergence of formal, national strategies to implement competency-based systems began to have a profound influence on the field of research.
Beginning in the mid-1980s England and Wales started what became codified into the United Kingdom's National Vocational Qualifications (NVQs) system. After examining development in the UK and Europe, New Zealand established a competency-based training agenda under the National Qualifications Framework. After its 1998-1990 European fact-finding taskforce missions returned (TAMOMS-DEET, 1991) Australia also establish a blueprint for a vocational education and training framework based on competency standards. In the same 1989-1992 period the Secretary's Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills (see SCANS at http://wdr.doleta.gov/SCANS/ ) and the National Skills Standards were advanced in the United States. The appearance of the agendas varied from identifying less than a dozen core or key competencies that all entrants to the labour market should hold, to a complete competency-based framework for reforming education, vocational training and industrial productivity.
Wide-ranging advances were made in Australia, New Zealand and the UK by tying competency development to qualifications, workforce mobility, industrial reform and economic growth. Subsequently, a number of other countries began to drive national training reforms based on a competency approach. Table 1 indicates some of these countries.
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Table 1 Countries adopting national competency-based training systems (2000)
Major Imperative |
Evolving Imperative |
England and Wales/United Kingdom
New Zealand
Australia
Malaysia
South Africa
Sweden
Germany |
The European Union
United States
Thailand
Canada
Singapore
Taiwan
Mauritius |
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The approaches to competencies at a national level did enforce some reconsideration of how competencies were framed, grouped and managed. While the literature from the relevant countries on how their approaches are undertaken abounds, the focus for this section is on the foundations of competence that can inform a concept of capability.
Advocates for competency-based approaches to training and HR classically embrace it because it sets a defined standard for both learning and performance outcomes. This outcome is independent of the person, job and situation. As such, there is clarity as to what individuals need to know and do. The consistency of the descriptions and their classification (job families, levels of performance, or such like) also permits mobility between jobs, locations and courses that use competencies. Once a standard of competence has been set this standard becomes the consistent basis for assessment.
Critics of competency-based approaches mainly target its behaviourist origins. Many view it as reductionist, narrow, inflexible, and empirically and pedagogically a 'one size fits all' approach (Chappell, 1996). It has also been criticised because its behaviourist approach could not provide qualifications and curriculum with an indication of the non-skills based attributes that would underpin competent performance (Bowles & Graham, 1994:12). While research and literature continues to establish the new frontiers for competency-based approach or debunks existing approaches, competencies have become embedded as major national as well as industry and organisational approaches to completing the management of learning, performance and knowledge.
While there are many variations on how to frame and write competencies analysis of the literature shows in most cases these all draw upon the theoretical constructs developed by the early writers. Most influential were the early works by Argyris (1962) and Boyatzis (1982). Boyatzis's seminal work formed the basis for defining and producing a model for competency-based education, training and development. It is in Boyatzis's work that one can also find many of the shortcomings of approaches that distinguish what constitutes a definition of a competency required for a specific work context.
Boyatzis proposed a model of management training, education and development based on competency. He stated competencies would make clear:
. . . what sort of person will be effective in our organisation in specific jobs . . . a template for decisions such as selection, promotion, firing and design of and assignment to management development activities . . . interpret responsibility for success or failure with respect to accomplishment of performance objectives . . . communicate to all managers how they should act and what they should be doing . . . basis for the design of management jobs and the organisational systems, policies, procedures and programs (Boyatzis, 1982:13).
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Figure 5 Boyatzis's model for competencies and effective performance
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In very simple terms Boyatzis saw effective performance as requiring a consistent attainment of three factors: job demands, organisational environment and individual competence (Boyatzis, 1982:13). Other dimensions were added by later literature to expand upon these three aspects of effective performance.
Job demands were seen as being formed around roles in planning, organising, controlling, motivating and coordinating (Boyatzis, 1982:17).
The organisational environment was almost exclusively seen as being formed around a study of climate and culture with a heavy emphasis on theorists and concepts associated with identifying the role/function and characteristics of management in a given organisational environment. This was consistent with ideas advanced by such theorists as Mintzberg (1973) and Drucker (1973).
Unlike Mintzberg's earlier contingence approach (1973:102-103), which externalised the common variables that shaped the different ways managers performed specific work, Boyatzis's model sought to integrate organisational environment, functions and personal competencies as variables that shaped management jobs into a common set of performance requirements.
Boyatzis sought to integrate Mintzberg's model (see the figure below) into a concept of 'individual competence' defining the characteristics of managers that enabled them to perform successfully in a job (Boyatzis, 1982:20). This definition included the dimensions of skills, individual characteristics and what were termed traits and motives (Boyatzis, 1982:27, 33, 195). Later Boyatzis went on to identify competence as a dynamic interaction between components of job competency and levels of application.
Figure 6 The variables impacting a management job in a given environment
(Mintzberg, 1973:103)
Boyatzis found common or core management clusters could be determined by examining the groupings of specific sets of competencies under different functions. This is an important factor as Boyatzis was focusing on developing functional management competencies. He stated that the list of specific competencies in a discrete or highly specialised function 'is not as important to this analysis as the predictive accuracy of the entire set' (Boyatzis, 1982:203).
To assist differentiation, levels of job application were broadly grouped into entry, middle and executive level jobs (Boyatzis, 1982:217, 219, 222). Boyatzis identified management clusters that included:
1. Goal and action;
2. Leadership;
3. Human resources management;
4. Directing subordinates;
5. Focus on others; and
6. Specialised knowledge.
It was under the sixth topic that most of the variations or specific management competencies were included when they did not fall into the other clusters. For each function, under each of the clusters one could define tasks that a specific manager at a different level of performance would perform in their organisational environment (Boyatzis, 1982:215, 242). Boyatzis's approach to competency-based development did not effectively address some important considerations, including:
- The concept of generic was related to common functions and clusters of competencies within a level of performance not explicitly related to a function across an industry or nation;
- Analysis did not differentiate how skills may relate to either 'functions' or 'roles';
- Except where it was included as a competency cluster called 'specialised knowledge' the definition of competence excluded knowledge and concentrated on the individual's socio-psychological characteristics, traits, motives and skills;
- The model placed heavy emphasis on both conscious and unconscious behaviours inherent in a manager's functioning but did not define them.
Contemporary research and literature still indicate competence-based approaches at an organisational level will vary ( Hodkinson & Issitt, 1995; Barrie & Pace, 1997). S pencer and Spencer suggested competencies have four defining features (1993:15):
- A competency is an underlying characteristic of an individual that is causally related to criterion-referenced effective and/or superior performance in a job situation.
- Underlying characteristic means the competency is a fairly deep and enduring part of a person's personality and can predict behaviour in a wide variety of situations and job tasks.
- Causally related means that a competency causes or predicts behaviour and performance.
- Criterion-referenced means the competency actually predicts who does something well or poorly, as measured on a specific criterion or standard.
Other authors stress the role of competencies as the core technical skills, knowledge and technologies that enable organisations to maintain unique productive capacity. Such approaches reinforce the need for competencies to be specific to the organisation and unique components of the overall competitive capabilities held by an organisation and its workforce (Prahalad & Hamel, 1990:79; Sanchez & Heene, 1997:5-6; Allee, 1997:21). These types of models may be able to accommodate national approaches to competency frameworks but ultimately these approaches recognise competitiveness cannot be generated from the same skill and knowledge available to anyone in the marketplace.
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Competence - an Australian perspective
Given that this Investigative Research Report is intended in the first instance for an Australian audience it is worth noting the specific approach adopted by Australia. In the early 1990s, Australia moved its national vocational education and training system to one based on competencies. The then National Training Board (now the National Training Quality Council - NTQC), defined competency as:
The specification of the knowledge and skills and the application of that knowledge and skill across industries or within an industry to the standard of performance required in employment. (NTB, 1992:10)
In essence a competency is what a person can actually do within a real job. This involves more than just completing a range of tasks. It requires that performance be assessed to an agreed standard, and can be completed in a range of different contexts when considering variables (e.g. type of technology, time) that may impact performance.
A competency standard is the specification or benchmark which describes the knowledge, skill and attitude required to attain performance outcomes. A National Competency Standard is endorsed by the National Training Framework Committee.
This council ensures that the 'standard' is written in a certain format, is validated, involves wide consultation and is advanced by an institution that can support and promote ongoing review. As competencies are identified they must be aligned with the Australian Qualifications Framework (AQF) to enable cross-industry and cross-occupational comparisons and levels of performance to be benchmarked.
Standards can be submitted to the National Training Framework Committee by:
An industry body e.g. the Wholesale, Retail and Personal Services Industry Training Advisory Board
A cross-industry body e.g. Workplace Assessors, Small Business Management Competency Standards Body
An enterprise e.g. Woolworths, McDonald's, Qantas.
Competency standards and combinations of units of competency (competency standards) are matched against the AQF to produce the relevant qualifications that are to be used nationally. Competency standards therefore form the basis for vocational qualifications. According to the national guidelines developed by the Australian National Training Authority (2000: Chapter 2:3):
Note:
National standards define the competencies required for effective performance in the workplace. A competency comprises the specification of knowledge and skill and the application of that knowledge and skill to the standard of performance required in the workplace. This definition of competency encompasses a range of features:
The concept of competency focuses on what is expected of an employee in the workplace rather than on the learning process, and embodies the ability to transfer and apply skills and knowledge to new situations and environments;
In competency standards the emphasis is on outcomes and on the application of skills and knowledge, not just specification;
Competency standards are therefore concerned with what people are able to do (e.g. maintain and use networks), and also with the ability to do this in a range of contexts (e.g. maintain and use networks of suppliers, government agencies).
A combination of units must cover the four primary components of competency:
- Task skills;
- Task management skills;
- Contingency management skills;
- Job/role environment skills.
- See www.anta.gov.au for more details
The development guidelines for national competencies explicitly include knowledge and skills. They also include information as to how the competency may be deployed across different contexts and contingencies (range of variables) and evidence requirements for judging competency attainment (evidence guide).
Under the Australian model, skills and knowledge are subsets of competencies.
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