Clerical‐Administrative Workers’ Conceptions of Competence in their Jobs

Abstract

The growing number of government-sourced reports on improving economic performance of the nation through a carefully-orchestrated National Training Reform Agenda have used the concept of competence as a central plank in their philosophy. All of these reports draw on a rationalistic perspective of competence that is built around designated behavioural outcomes. These outcomes are established in a dualistic way. An alternative approach is to use a humanistic approach to competence in which the concept of competence is explained in terms of workers' experiences of competence within their workplaces. A study is reported here of working with 52 people in the clerical-administrative industry in order to establish their conceptions of competence in clerical-administrative workers. A phemenographic analysis was conducted on the written statements that were prepared by these participants. This non-dualistic investigation revealed five qualitatively different conceptions of competence in clerical-administrative workers. These are: competence as the development of basic skills; competence as the possession of essential knowledge about the job; competence as the possession of personal attributes; competence exhibited as an efficient worker; and competence displayed as a flexible, holistic thinker.

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).…”

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

“…Such a perspective of competence does not appear well researched in the literature arising from the implications of the National Training Reform Agenda (for example , Finn, 1991;Masters, 1992;Mayer, 1992;Thomson, 1993). Gerber & Velde (1996) adopted the intentional approach to exploring competence with the same population as in this study. The findings demonstrated that competence for clerical-administrative workers was a multifaceted and holistic concept.…”

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.…”