A competence model for professional practice in the clerical–administrative occupations

Abstract

This article is one of a series which draws on qualitative and quantitative data to determine: the nature of recruitment and selection practices; the types of competency information employers want to know about applicants when making clerical-administrative (office) personnel hiring decisions; and in what form they want to receive the information so that it is most useful. It also builds on a previous article which explored what and how much employers needed to know about reporting trainee competence. Fifty-two administrators and clerical-administrative personnel drawn from the Australian Council of Private Education Training Providers (ACPET) constituted the sample. A multimethod approach was used incorporating telephone interviews, personal interviews and questionnaire design. Of the respondents, 21 persons responded to a postal questionnaire and 31 to telephone interviews. This article reports on qualitative results derived from personal interviews with 14 non-managerial and managerial staff who were drawn from the original sample, and reports on four conceptions of the nature of a clerical-administrative worker as: the technically proficient worker; the knowledgeably-supportive worker; the skilled adviser; and the multiskilled, interactive, decision-maker. The results were obtained using a particular qualitative research approach called phenomenography, which reveals the differences in people's experience of the nature of a clerical-administrative worker. It also draws from the results of the two previous articles associated with this study in a triangulation process to inform the development of a model for assessing and reporting trainee competence in the clerical-administrative occupations.

Professional Competence as Ways of Being: An Existential Ontological Perspective

“…These findings have also been confirmed in more recent empirical studies on competence (e.g. Blomberg, 2004; Chen and Partington, 2004; Dall'Alba, 2004; Gerber and Velde, 1996, 1997; Partington et al., 2005; Sandberg, 2001a; Stålsby‐Lundborg et al., 1999).…”

Valoração Do Conhecimento Nas Organizações: Percepções Dos Indivíduos E Impactos Nas Práticas Organizacionais

“…Pode-se pressupor que essa trajetória tenha ocorrido graças à fronteira entre a educação profissional e de nível superior com a expectativa sobre o desenvolvimento de competências profissionais e gerenciais das organizações, considerando as implicações nos aspectos práticos de treinamento para formação destas competências. Os trabalhos de Sandberg e Dall'Alba (1996), Velde e Gerber (1996Gerber ( , 1997 De forma consistente com essa vertente, seguiram-se os estudos de Partington (2002Partington ( , 2004Partington ( , 2006Partington ( , 2008Partington ( , 2009 Sandberg (2000). Foram identificadas 3 diferentes concepções básicas de trabalho de gestão de projetos, com diferentes atributos de experiência e realização do trabalho, refletindo-se em um arranjo hierarquizado de distintas formas de competências.…”

Perceptions of Professional Competence in the Context of an Office-Based Workplace

“…Finally, I identified effective methodologies used to explore people's perceptions of competence. Gerber and Velde's (1997) clerical-administrative model successfully negotiated the high richness of responses inherent in a qualitative study of such an abstract topic to produce an applicable model of competence. I therefore considered it a valuable source of methodological inspiration.…”