Competence (also called competency or capabilityLeonard-Barton, Dorothy. (1992). Core capabilities and core rigidities: A paradox in managing new product development. Strategic Management Journal. Vol. 13.) is a polysemeAyala, Otto. (2020). Information skills and research competences in university students. National Major University of San Marcos. Vol. 2, No. 4, pp. 668–679Climent Bonilla, Juan B. (2017). Strengths and weaknesses of the polysemic concept of "competencies". Vol. 17, No. 3, pp. 33–63. ISSN 1409-4703.Tamayo M.J.V. & Rodríguez L.R.F. (2023). The conceptual treatment of professional competences an approximation. pp. 7–9 indicating a variety of different notions. In current literature, three notions are most evident. The first notion is that of a general competence, which is someone's capacity or ability to perform effectively on a specified set of behavioral attributes (e.g. performances, skills, attitudes, tasks, roles, talents, and so forth).Škrinjarić, Bruno. (2022). Competence-based approaches in organizational and individual context. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications. Vol. 9.Van Aken, M.A.G. (1992). The development of general competence and domain-specific competencies. Wiley Online Library. Vol. 6.Arifin, M. A. (2021). Competence, Competency, and Competencies: A Misunderstanding in Theory and Practice for Future Reference. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences. pp. 755–764. The second notion refers to someone's capacity or ability to successfully perform a specific behavioral attribute — be it overt or covert — like learning a language, reading a book or playing a musical instrument.Aberšek, Boris. (2018). Problem-Based Learning and Proprioception. Cambridge Scholars Publishing.Coit Butler, F. (1978). The Concept of Competence: An Operational Definition. Educational Technology Publications, Inc. Vol. 18, No. 1. pp. 7–18 In both notions, someone may be qualified as being competent. In a third notion, a competence is the behavioral attribute itself, instead of a general or specific capacity or ability.Gervais, J. (2016). The operational definition of competency-based education. Wiley Online Library. https://doi.org/10.1002/cbe2.1011Wong, S.C. (2020). Competency Definitions, Development and Assessment: A Brief Review. International Journal of Academic Research in Progressive Education and Development. pp. 95–114. One may for example excel at the competence of baking, at the competency of ceramics, or at the capability of reflexivity.
The pluralized forms of competence and competency are respectively competences and competencies.Vitello, S., Greatorex, J., Shaw, S. (2021). What is competence? A shared interpretation of competence to support teaching, learning and assessment. Cambridge University Press & Assessment According to Boyatzis (2008) competencies are part of a behavioral approach to emotional, social, and cognitive intelligence.Boyatzis, R.E. (2008). Competencies in the 21st century. Journal of Management Development. ISSN: 0262-1711. Moreover, competence is measurable and can be developed through training. In the context of human resources, practice may enable someone to improve the efficiency or performance of an activity or a job.
Concepts like knowledge, expertise, values or desires are not behavioral attributes but can be contained in behavior once executed. Take for example sharing knowledge or actualizing a desire.
Etymology
The term 'competence' is not novel, and it predates literature in the 20th century.Hall, W. W. (1869). The Guide-board to Health, Peace and Competence: Or, The Road to Happy Old Age. Literary Licensing, LLC, 2014 It first entered professional literature via the article Motivation reconsidered: The concept of competence authored by R.W. White in 1959. He introduced the term competence to describe those personality characteristics associated with high motivation and superior performance. Postulating a relationship between achieved capacity and competence motivation, White defined competence as an ‘effective interaction (of the individual) with the environment’.White, R. W. (1959). Motivation reconsidered: The concept of competence. Psychological Review. pp. 297–333.
In the late 1960s, the 'Competence movement' had been initiated by David McClelland.Spencer, L. M., & Spencer, S. M. (1993). Competence at Work. New York: Wiley.Ambrose, Jacqueline. (2000). The Formulation of Competencies for General Workers within an International Foods Manufacturer. University of Natal The movement has its origins in the conspicuous failure of educational qualifications to predict occupational success.Raven, J.S. (2001). The McClelland/McBer Competency Models. In Raven, J., & Stephenson, J. (Eds.). (2001). Competence in the Learning Society (pp. 225–235, 253–274). Peter Lang. The term gained traction in 1973, when McClelland wrote a seminal paper entitled Testing for Competence Rather Than for Intelligence.McClelland, D. C. (1973). Testing for Competence Rather than for “Intelligence”. American Psychologist. pp. 1-14. McClelland followed White's approach in arguing that capacity is more important than intelligence.
The term has since been popularized, most notably, by individuals such as:
Thomas F. Gilbert, in Human competence: engineering worthy performance (1978);Gilbert, T. F. (1978). Human Competence—Engineering Worthy Performance. NSPI Journal. pp. 19–27. Richard E. Boyatzis, in The Competent Manager: A Model for Effective Performance (1982);Boyatzis, Richard E. (1982). The Competent Manager. A Model For Effective Performance. John Wiley and Sons, Inc., New York. C. K. Prahalad and Gary Hamel, in The Core Competence of the Corporation (1990) andPrahalad, C.K. and Hamel, G. (1990). The core competence of the corporation. Harvard Business Review. Vol. 68, No. 3, pp. 79–91. Daniel Goleman, in Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ (1995).Goldman, Daniel. (1995). Emotional Intelligence: Why it matters more than I.Q. Bantam Books.Goleman, D. (2000). Emotional intelligence: Issues in paradigm building. In D. Goleman, & C. Cherniss (eds.), The Emotionally Intelligent Workplace: How to Select for, Measure, and Improve Emotional Intelligence in Individuals, Groups, and Organizations. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.Boyatzis, R. E., Goleman, D., and Rhee, K. (2000). Clustering competence in emotional intelligence: Insights from the Emotional Competence Inventory (ECI)s. In R. Bar-On and J.D.A. Parker (eds.), Handbook of emotional intelligence. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, pp. 343–362.
Its uses vary widely, which has led to considerable misunderstanding. Studies on competence indicate that competence covers a very complicated and extensive range of disciplines, ranging from human resources to psychology and from science to education, with various scholars holding different interpretations of the term. According to Zemke (1982), the terms 'competency', 'competence', and their affiliated counterparts are akin to "Humpty Dumpty words" that derive their meaning solely from the interpreter's intent. This issue arises not due to ill intentions, ignorance, or commercial motives, but stems from procedural and philosophical variations among those vying to establish and shape the concept. This involves constructing the blueprint for how the broader population will incorporate competencies into their routine training endeavors.Zemke, Ron. (1982). Job competencies: can they help you design better training?. Training. p. 28.
Competence and capability In an influential paper from 1992, Dorothy A. Leonard took on a knowledge-based approach when discussing competency in the context of managerial and technical systems. She defined a 'core capability' as a set of knowledge that distinguishes a company strategically. Core capability wasn't new concept, back in the '90s. Other scholars have also referred to it using various terms like distinctive competences, core competencies, resource deployments, and invisible assets. Leonard was however the first to explicitly plot core capabilities against core rigidities. In a narrow sense, core rigidities represent inappropriate knowledge-sets that can hinder a firm's progress. Following the release of this paper, a tendency has grown to employ the terms competencies and capabilities interchangeably, often without clear differentiation. In other instances, a more precise definition is given priority over a highly inclusive scope.Galunic, Charles D. and Rodan, Simon. (1998). Resource recombinations in the firm: knowledge structures and the potential for schumpeterian innovation. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Competence and performance Performance has been described by some scholars as the capacity or ability to accomplish specific tasks. Noteworthy figures such as White, McClelland, and Boyatzis have all upheld the notion that competence is tantamount to effective performance. Furthermore, a consensus has arisen among scholars like McClelland, Boyatzis, Spencer and Spencer, as well as H.F. Evarts, regarding the similarity between competence and superior performance.Evarts, H.F. (1987), "The Competency Programme of the American Management Association", Industrial and Commercial Training, Vol. 19, No. 1, pp. 3-7. Authors including McClelland, Kanungo and Misra, and Martin and Staines consider competence to be successful performance.Kanungo, R. N., & Misra, S. (1992). Managerial resourcefulness: A reconceptualization of management skills. Human Relations. pp. 1311–1332. Martin, G. and Staines, H. (1994), "Managerial Competences in Small Firms", Journal of Management Development, Vol. 13, No. 7, pp. 23-34. All these conceptualizations corroborate performance's role as a neutral carrier for competence. Oftentimes, the term "performance" is extended to delineate the capacity or ability of mechanical, rather than biological systems, to fulfill certain tasks.Oakley, D.R., Sues, H.R. & Rhodes, G.S. (1998). Performance optimization of multidisciplinary mechanical systems subject to uncertainties. Probabilistic Engineering Mechanics. Vol. 13, pp. 15-26Nordin, M. & Gutman, P. (2002). Controlling mechanical systems with backlash—a survey. Automatica. Vol. 38, pp. 1633-1649 This task-oriented approach diverges from a behavioral approach as to evade anthropomorphisms. Amidst ongoing developments in artificial intelligence, mechanistic systems receive anthropomorphic characteristics increasingly often.Grimm, Cindy M. (2021). The danger of anthropomorphic language in robotic AI systems. Brookings. The way performance is being defined mirrors attempts made by authors to emphasize core competence in a similar light.Arifin, M. A. (2021). Competence, Competency, and Competencies: A Misunderstanding in Theory and Practice for Future Reference. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences. p. 760. This attempt has failed however, since a consensus on consistent use of competence and competency as separate terms has not been established.
Competence and intelligence In his influential paper 'Testing for Competence Rather Than for Intelligence' David McClelland sheds light on the advantages of measuring competence over intelligence. McClelland points out that the traits measured by traditional intelligence tests do not reliably correlate with high-level performance in society. He goes on to identify a significant error in categorizing these abilities as "general intelligence", advocating for a more nuanced approach. McClelland's approach acknowledges the multifaceted nature of human capabilities, signaling a departure from a singular focus on cognitive or intellectual abilities.