Jörgen sandberg. Stockholm School of Economics. A classic managerial problem

Organizational actions such as producing cars, treating illnesses, transporting, and educating are always based on human competence. A fundamental managerial problem is to develop human competence at work in a way that enables an organization to remain viable. Today, developing competence is also becoming an increasingly important issue. Rapid technological change within areas such as microelectronics and communications in combination with growth in service and knowledge-based industries (Ekstedt, 1988; Eliasson, Fölster, Lindberg, Pousette, & Taymaz, 1990; Neef, 1998) has led to the need for an ongoing development of competence for competitive success (Kanter, 1983; Porter, 1990). Thus, from a managerial perspective, this need leads to a further demand for efficient ways to manage training and development in organizations. However, in order to manage training and development efficiently, managers need to understand what constitutes human competence at work. Without such an understanding, competence development cannot be managed effectively and, therefore, effectiveness in organizations cannot be achieved.

The aim of this study was to investigate what constitutes human competence at work. In this artiCle, an interpretative approach is proposed as an alternative to the prevalent rationalistic approaches. In the rationalistic approaches, competence is seen as constituted by specific sets of attributes, such as the knowledge and skills used in performing particular

work. Approaches to competence developed within the interpretative research tradition are reviewed to further clarify what constitutes competence. On the basis of that review, I propose an interpretative approach, "phenomenography," and report an empirical examination of that approach conducted through a competence analysis of engine optimizers at the Volvo Car Corporation in Sweden.

IDENTIFYING HUMAN CONOETENCE:

A CLASSIC MANAGERIAL PROBLEM

Only recently has the concept of competence been used more systematically in management. Primarily, it is the concept's focus on the relation between person and work that researchers such as McClelland (1973), Boyatzis (1982), Kolb (1984), Morgan (1988), and Nordhaug (1993) have found attractive when identifying and describing essential human knowledge and skills at work. As Morgan (1988) argued, the concept of competence encourages scholars to think not only about knowledge itself, but also about the knowledge that is required in competent work performance. Hence, the expression "human competence at work" used in this study does not refer to all knowledge and skills, but to those people use when working.

Although the concept of competence has not been in frequent use until recently, the problem of identifying what constitutes competence at work is not new. Taylor (1911) was one of the first in modern times to address this problem. When working as an engineer, he noticed a large difference between the least and most competent workers' ways of accomplishing their work. To enable the identification of what constituted competence among the most competent workers, Taylor argued for leadership based on scientific principles from the rational9

istic tradition. Drawing on those principles, he elaborated his well-known "time and motion studies." Taylor proposed that by using these studies, managers should be able to identify what constitutes workers' competence by classifying, tabulating and reducing it to rules, laws, and formulas. Using these descriptions of competence as a starting point, Taylor demonstrated that managers could set up systematic training and development activities that yielded improvements in workers' competence and consequently, increased effectiveness in organizations.