Organizational Competency Management: A Competence Performance Approach (Summary)1

This work is concerned with a new approach to Organizational Competency Management. The goal is to develop a method that is practically feasible for organizational settings, is firmly based in psychological conceptions of human competence and performance in the workplace, and employs a degree of mathematical formalization that improves possibilities for establishing the validity of the implementation. Competency Management is defined to encompass all instruments and methods used in an organization to systematically assess current and future competencies required for the work to be performed, and to assess available competencies of the workforce. Competencies are defined as the cognitive (e.g. knowledge and skills), affective (e.g. attitudes and values), behavioral and motivational (e.g. motives) characteristics or dispositions of a person which enable him or her to perform well in a specific situation (e.g. Boyatzis, 1982; Erpenbeck & Rosenstiel, 2003). A process model is introduced which encompasses five steps that usually guide implementation of a Competency Management initiative. In the first step, setting and purpose of the initiative are analyzed (analyzing setting and purpose). The second step encompasses the definition of a model for the specific organization detailing out which competencies should be measured (defining competencies). In the third step, available competencies of the workforce are assessed (assessing competencies). The fourth step brings about an evaluation of the models and the assessment (evaluating models), and finally the last step puts the models to use (using models). The steps are used as a frame of reference for reviewing existing approaches and methods. A review of current approaches in organizational Competency Management in Human Resource Management (HRM) and Knowledge Management (KM) fields leads me to conclude that instruments that are integrated in existing work processes