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Competence and competency - Part 1, Distinction

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Published: 18Jan2009
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The concept of competence remains one of the most diffuse terms in the organisational and occupational literature (Nordhaug and Gronhaug, 1994). Exactly what does an author mean when using any of the terms of competence?

The concept of individual competence is widely used in human resource management (Boyatzis, 1982, Schroder, 1989, Burgoyne, 1993). This refers to a set of skills that an individual must possess in order to be capable of satisfactorily performing a specified job. Although the concept is well developed, there is continuing debate about its precise meaning.

Others take a job-based competence view that according to Robotham and Jubb (1996) can be applied to any type of business where the competence-based system is based on identifying a list of key activities (McAuley, 1994) and behaviours identified through observing managers in the course of doing their job.

A useful view is to look at competence to mean a skill and the standard of performance, whilst competency refers to behaviour by which it is achieved (Rowe, 1995). That is, competence describes what people do and competency describes how people do it.

Rowe (1995, p16) further distinguishes the attributes an individual exhibits as "morally based" behaviours - these are important drivers of behaviours but especially difficult to measure - and "intellectually based" behaviours as capabilities or competencies. Capabilities are distinguished as these refer to development behaviours - i.e. are graded to note development areas to improve behaviours in how people undertake particular tasks.

Young (2002) develops on a similar theme and builds on Sarawano's (1993) model, linking competency and competence to performance and identifies competency as a personal characteristic (motives, traits, image/role and knowledge) and how the individual behaves (skill). Competence is what a manager is required to do - the job activities (functions, tasks). These in turn lead to performance of the individual [manager].

Jacobs (1989) considers a distinction between hard and soft competences. Soft competences refer to such items as creativity and sensitivity, and comprise more of the personal qualities that lie behind behaviour. These items are viewed as being conceptually different from hard competences, such as the ability to be well organised. Jacob's distinction fits neatly into Young's model with hard competences referring to identifiable behaviours, and soft competences as the personal characteristics of the individual.

Further distinctions relate to the usefulness of measuring competenc[i]es. Cockerill et al. (1995) define threshold and high-performance competences. Threshold competences are units of behaviour which are used by job holders, but which are not considered to be associated with superior performance. They can be thought of as defining the minimum requirements of a job. High performance competences, in contrast, are behaviours that are associated with individuals who perform their jobs at a superior level.

In the UK, the Constable and McCormick Report (1987) suggested that the skill base within UK organisations could no longer keep pace with the then developing business climate. In response, the Management Charter Initiative sought to create a standard model where competence is recognised in the form of job-specific outcomes. Thus, competence is judged on performance of an individual in a specific job role. The competences required in each job role are defined through means of a functional analysis - a top-down process resulting in four levels of description:

* Key purpose * Key role * Units of competence * Elements of competence

Elements are broken down into performance criteria, which describe the characteristics of competent performance, and range statements, which specify the range of situations or contexts in which the competence should be displayed.

The MCI model now includes personal competence, missing in the original, addressing some of the criticisms levelled at the MCI standards. Though the model tends to ignore personal behaviours which may underpin some performance characteristics, particularly in the area of management, where recent work has indicated the importance of behavioural characteristics such as self-confidence, sensitivity, proactivity and stamina.

The US approach to management competence, on the other hand, has focused heavily on behaviours. Boyatzis (1982) identifies a number of behaviours useful for specifying behavioural competence. Schroder (1989) also offers insights into the personal competencies which contribute to effective professional performance.

Personal competencies and their identifying behaviours form the backbone of many company-specific competency frameworks and are used extensively in assessment centres for selection purposes. This is because behavioural (or personal) competence may be a better predictor of capability - i.e. the potential to perform in future posts - than functional competence - which attests to competence in current post. The main weakness of the personal competence approach, according to Cheetham and Chivers(1996), is that it doesn't define or assure effective performance within the job role in terms of the outcomes achieved.

In his seminal work "The Reflective Practitioner", Schon (1983) attempts to define the nature of professional practice. He challenges the orthodoxy of technical rationality - the belief that professionals solve problems by simply applying specialist or scientific knowledge. Instead, Schon offers a new epistemology of professional practice of 'knowing-in-action' - a form of acquired tacit knowledge - and 'reflection' - the ability to learn through and within practice. Schon argues that reflection (both reflection in action and reflection about action) is vital to the process professionals go through in reframing and resolving day-to-day problems that are not answered by the simple application of scientific or technical principles.

Schon (1983) does not offer a comprehensive model of professional competence, rather he argues that the primary competence of any professional is the ability to reflect - this being key to acquiring all other competencies in the cycle of continuous improvement.

There are criticisms of competency-based approaches to management and these tend to argue that managerial tasks are very special in nature, making it impossible to capture and define the required competences or competencies(Wille, 1989). Other writers argue that management skills and competences are too complex and varied to define (Hirsh, 1989, Canning, 1990) and it is an exercise in futility to try and capture them in a mechanistic, reductionist way (Collin, 1989). Burgoyne (1988) suggests that the competence-based approach places too much emphasis on the individual and neglects the importance of organisational development in making management development effective. It has also been argued that generic lists of managerial competences cannot be applied across the diversity of organisations(Burgoyne, 1989b, Canning, 1990).

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