PurposeRelying on a design science paradigm, the purpose of this paper is to describe the development and evaluation of items for an ICT artefact that supports the assessment of transversal professional competences within the validation of prior learning (VPL). To do so, the authors build a conceptual bridge between the Occupational Information Network (O*NET) and the European Qualifications Framework (EQF).Design/methodology/approachDesign science research paradigm, in particular the participatory development of candidate items and their evaluation in a multi-stakeholder approach.FindingsThe authors find that a self-assessment of professional competences should be comprised of 160 items in order to cover the breadth and depth of the O*NET in the hierarchical taxonomy. Such quantity of items sufficiently builds a conceptual bridge between the O*NET and the; EQF.Practical implicationsWhen designing procedures for the VPL, it is imperative to bear in mind the purpose of the validation procedure, in order to determine relevant stakeholders and their needs in advance as well as the; required language proficiency of the assessment instrument.Social implicationsThe innovative value of this approach lies in the combination of an underlying hierarchical taxonomy with assessment items that are developed based on the qualification standards of different Austrian professions. Together with specific verbs that were adapted for each particular item, an innovative self-assessment is proposed. Thereby the authors aim to account for some of the mentioned shortcomings of the EQF.Originality/valueThis paper applies a design science paradigm to develop an ICT artefact that should support the VPL. By reflecting on the design process, the authors introduce a theoretical bridge between the O*NET and the EQF. Thereby the authors aim to account for some of the mentioned shortcomings of the EQF.

Need satisfaction plays a fundamental role in human wellbeing. Hence understanding citizens' needs is crucial for developing a successful social and economic policy. This notwithstanding, the concept of need has not yet found its place in information systems and online tools. Furthermore, assessing needs itself remains a labor-intensive, mostly offline activity, where only a limited support by computational tools is available. In this paper, we make the first step towards employing need management in the design of information systems supporting participation and participatory innovation by proposing OpeNeeD, a family of ontologies for representing human needs data. As a proof of concept, OpeNeeD has been used to represent, enrich and query the results of a needs assessment study in a local citizen community in one of the Vienna districts. The proposed ontology will facilitate such studies and enable the representation of citizens' needs as Linked Data, fostering its co-creation and incentivizing the use of Open Data and services based on it.

This paper is based on the observation that literature on shared visions is either mainly dominated by top-down vision communication, which aims at followers taking over the vision of a leader, or accounts on shared visions are too narrow and too unspecific to be of much use for organizational practice. As a consequence, we currently lack an applicable process model that facilitates the creation of a shared organizational visions in a bottom-up manner. This paper aims at introducing and theoretically grounding such a process model. We find that the creation of a shared organizational vision can be seen as an instance of a knowledge creating and organizational learning process that transforms personal visions and personal organizational visions through a dialectic process towards a shared organizational vision. During this process, knowledge about needs, values, resources and desires is created and shared in the organization. In so doing, we summarize extant literature on developing shared visions and synthesize the literature into a process model which can be applied by academics and practitioners alike.

Purpose Considering personality as changeable through a bottom-up process of altering states, habits and traits, constitutes a shift in the predominant paradigm within personality psychology. The purpose of this paper is to reconsider Bateson’s theory of learning and organizational triple-loop learning in light of this recent empirical evidence. Design/methodology/approach This paper uses a multi-disciplinary conceptual approach. Based on an integrative analysis of literature from recent work in personality psychology, four dimensions (process, content, time and context) are identified that allow linking personality change and triple-loop learning. Findings Identifying a bottom-up process of changing states, habits and traits as being central to change personality, allows for reconsidering Bateson’s theory of learning as a theory of personality development (Learning II) and personality change (Learning III). Functionally equivalent, organizational triple-loop learning is conceptualized as a change in an organization’s identity over time that may be facilitated through a change in responding to events and a change in the organization’s routines. Practical implications Interventions that change how organizations respond to events and that change the routines within an organization may be suitable to facilitate triple-loop learning in terms of changing organizational identity over time. Originality/value This paper contributes to the discussion on Bateson’s theory of learning and organizational triple-loop learning. As interest in personality change grows in organization studies, this paper aims to transfer these findings to organizational learning.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a conceptual model which integrates the well-established US-based occupational information network (O*Net) into a competence perspective. Taking serious claims about lifelong learning, one of the biggest challenges is the assessment of tacit knowledge and competences. To tackle this challenge, we depart from four wellestablished competences (personal competence, social competence, methodic competence and domain competence), and integrate descriptors from the O*Net. We argue that learning outcomes (what a person should be able to do) can be made comparable and accessible when linking them with the descriptors from the O*Net. This approach is in line with the European Qualification Framework (EQF), that aims at establishing comparability of learning outcomes within the European Union and relies on theories linking individual to organizational learning.