Competency-based Perspective Research Articles

Enriching math teaching guides from a competency-based perspective

This study introduces a novel framework designed to enrich mathematics teaching guides from a competency-based perspective. First, we narrow down the concept of a teaching guide in mathematics education, grounded in the documentational approach to didactics. This definition offers an updated perspective on the structure and function of math teaching guides in educational settings. Second, we provide a comprehensive definition of ‘richness’ in math activities, encompassing content, processes, cognitive demand, and classroom management. Lastly, we introduce an analytical tool developed for assessing and enhancing the richness of math teaching guides. This tool, formed through theoretical analysis and empirical testing, assists educators and curriculum developers in creating more balanced and integrative teaching guides. The results suggest that the tool holds potential for broader applications in curriculum design and teacher education. The findings contribute to the broader understanding of how teaching guides can effectively capture and communicate the richness of activities, thereby serving as a valuable tool for improving mathematical education resources.

A dynamic gender-barriers framework to women’s entrepreneurship: A competency-based perspective

ABSTRACT This paper presents a new dynamic gender-barriers framework that aims to provide an updated, layered, and contextualized view of barriers and seeks to further a holistic understanding of women’s entrepreneurship and its evolution. Barriers can be created, developed, or removed, in different areas and at different levels, changing over time. Gender barriers can overlap and cross different levels of analysis, and the removal or strengthening of a barrier can have a domino effect on other elements, generating unintended negative consequences, or creating synergies. This work focuses attention on individual barriers, related to a lack of specific competencies, and offers recommendations to practitioners, policy makers, and ecosystem supporters on how to effectively contribute to the competency development of women entrepreneurs. Strategies and policies to develop the competencies, through experiential entrepreneurship programs and executive coaching initiatives, can produce a ripple effect across different layers of society, contributing to reduce the gender gap.

Knowledge Formation in Systemic Counselling Trainees from Germany: A Pilot Study from a Competence-Based Perspective

This pilot study has two areas of focus. It examines how the knowledge and competences of twelve Master’s-level systemic counselling trainees are connected, and how well their own assessment of their competence corresponds to external assessment. Methodologically, three instruments were used: first, an instrument to measure their explicit knowledge; second, videos of consultations with simulated clients to measure their competence in practice; third, a self-assessment measure to explore how externally assessed competence corresponds to self-assessment. The results show no indication that knowledge is related to externally assessed competence. Furthermore, their self-assessment did not show any systematic connection to the external assessment. The study concludes that the development of systemic counselling skills is a long-term process of theory acquisition, practise, and reflection. Important reflection processes can be stimulated by self-assessment. However, such assessments are not sufficient to capture the quality and scope of competence.

Building bridges between Europe and China to strengthen social work field education: preliminary findings from Guangdong Province

ABSTRACT Social work education has extended globally and has developed in China at an unprecedented speed. Serious attention must be paid to how the global spread of social work education interacts with developments in China. This study describes and assesses an international collaboration in field education between six European and Chinese universities using multiple data sources in Guangdong Province. Trust, disciplinary unity and local participation in the collaboration generated good practices in developing Chinese field education, including linking and preparing universities and agencies from developed and less developed areas, implementing a well-defined learning process with a competence-based perspective and training supervisors through training the trainers. Moreover, positive outcomes of this project were identified, including high satisfaction by both students and supervisors and increasing levels of supervisors’ self-efficacy and students’ competencies. In future, international collaboration should focus more on the issue of indigenisation.

캐나다 온타리오주 지리교육과정의 특징과 시사점: 역량기반 관점에서의 접근

캐나다 온타리오주 지리교육과정의 특징과 시사점: 역량기반 관점에서의 접근

Theorising social and emotional wellbeing in schools: a framework for analysing educational policy

ABSTRACT Young people are increasingly lamented as unable to cope with ‘everyday realities of life’ with educational institutions and parenting styles accelerating what some refer to as the ‘snowflake generation’. This paper addresses confusion that exists in the framing of social and emotional wellbeing, delineating three competing perspectives: (1) ‘skills and competencies’, (2) ‘morals and ethics’ and (3) ‘capital and identity’. Embedded within each perspective are distinct notions of the ‘self’ and processes of socialisation and identity formation. The competency-based perspective shifts attention towards the individual and is reliant upon universal skills. This contrasts with a morals and ethics-based perspective on social and emotional wellbeing which is seen to be contingent upon the values that guide our moral and ethical frameworks, and informs how we relate with others. A capital and identity perspective does not speak of ‘wellbeing’ per se, but rather places emphasis on the different sets of resources available to children. These perspectives offer fundamentally distinct framings of the ‘crisis of youth’ and we draw out the implications for current and future policy development they imply.

Methodology for the Development of a Competence Framework for STE(A)M Educators

The STE(A)MonEdu Project aims to increase the adoption and impact of STE(A)M education by investing in the community of stakeholders and the professional development of educators. Focusing on the professional development of educators, it aims firstly to compile a competence framework for STE(A)M educators and then design appropriate training offers. In this paper, we first discuss the competency-based perspective, alongside with the related work regarding competence frameworks for STE(A)M education. Subsequently, the proposed methodology for the development of a STE(A)M educator competence framework and profile are described, based on a modified Delphi technique and taking advantage of the European Framework for the Digital Competence of Educators (DigCompEdu).

Norms, New Words, and Empirical Reality

Abstract The central question of this paper is how the inclusion of new words in dictionaries can be related to the empirical reality and norms of language. Because dictionaries are generally dictionaries of a language, the starting point is how this notion of named language is framed. The traditional view of a language as a system is contrasted with the corpus-based view of a language as realized in use and with the Chomskyan view based on language as a speaker’s competence. Then, the nature of words in each perspective is discussed, leading to different characterizations and different standards for the evaluation of new words. The function of new words is generally to name new concepts. In naming, word formation, sense extension, and borrowing can be used. Whereas lexicographers see their task as mainly descriptive, users often expect dictionaries to be gatekeepers. The competence-based perspective can serve as a ground where these views can be reconciled.

Warm workplace relationships

This article addresses the significance of workplace social connections for hospitality workers. When examining high turnover in hospitality, the focus is generally negative, such as shift work and low pay [1]. Surprisingly, for a sector that employs one in 11 people [2], little attention focuses on the positive aspects. In New Zealand, hospitality work is considered inferior, to be endured while waiting for more exciting opportunities [3]. Yet a recent New Zealand study shows that hospitality employees at all levels are fulfilled by being recognised as professionals and from the variety, challenge and growth possibilities of their work. The study drew from boundaryless career theory about the social competencies that enable career success for individuals [4]:
 
 knowing ‘why’ they are engaged in this career (individual motivation and identity);
 knowing ‘how’ they are supposed to perform (skills and expertise); and
 knowing ‘who’ – significant networks (relationships and reputation).
 
 In the qualitative study, data were firstly collected through focus groups with hospitality professionals who had left the industry after working there for at least 10 years. Then, interviews took place with current hospitality employees in a variety of roles, from general manager to kitchen porter with an average of 25 years’ experience. Thematic analysis was carried out separately on each study before results were combined.
 Findings
 Positive relationships linked to career social competencies [4] forged hospitality workers’ professional identities, building long careers:
 
 Good relationships supported workers’ professional identity 
 
 The findings showed that participants knew clearly ‘why’ they stayed; for example, they loved meeting different people. However, career motivations changed with their life and career stage – sometimes caregiving commitments took priority; at other times, gaining promotion was most important. One housekeeping supervisor explained how she refused a pay rise to move to another hotel because the money was not as important as established relationships. Being viewed as an excellent kitchen porter or manager ensured that employers tailored jobs to employees’ circumstances.
 
 Being professionally excellent was deeply satisfying
 
 Knowing ‘how’ referred to the expertise that experienced employees demonstrated to managers and co-workers. They were dedicated, knowledgeable and passionate. Affirmation by guests was rewarding; one restaurant manager described her intense satisfaction when professional associations rebooked their Christmas functions because “I will look after them”.
 
 Relationships and reputation
 
 Employees gained their reputation by showing ‘the right people’ that they were professionals. Their experience and networks were their ‘pedigree’. Endorsement from peers and managers increased job autonomy and better opportunities at all levels. Mentoring relationships formed organically, and older employees spoke of the enjoyment they experienced from ‘giving back’ in their turn and mentoring others.
 Practical implications
 This study reveals that strong social connections are founded on respectful relationships between hospitality employers and employees, where workers know they are valued. Employers should ask whether career aspirations are the driving force for individuals, and if so, let employees know there is a plan for their next position. If unable to provide further development over time, managers should facilitate moves among their networks. In turn, they will receive new recruits. To keep professionals who are content to remain at their current level, employers should ask, and provide, what is important to them – certain shifts, a sustainable lifestyle (i.e. a living wage) or an aspect they enjoy. Upskilling remains an important motivator.
 Employees do not stay with employers (and co-workers) who show no respect by refusing to put rosters online; giving less than one weeks’ notice of shifts; providing insufficient hours; or not accommodating workers’ study or care-giving commitments. Training plans for new team members accelerate good relationships, and studies show that retention of new employees is increased by induction processes; however, these are frequently missing. In sum, good social relations in the workplace are not a ‘luxury’ option in hospitality environments, they are essential.
 Corresponding author
 Shelagh Mooney can be contacted at: shelagh.mooney@aut.ac.nz
 References
 (1) Baum, T.; Cheung, C.; Kong, H.; Kralj, A.; Mooney, S.; Nguyễn Thị Thanh, H.; Ramachandran, S.; Dropulić Ružić, M.; Siow, M. Sustainability and the Tourism and Hospitality Workforce: A Thematic Analysis. Sustainability 2016, 8 (8), 809–831. https://doi.org/10.3390/su8080809
 (2) World Travel and Tourism Council. Evaluation of Job Creation in G20 Countries; White Paper; World Travel and Tourism Council: London, 2018; pp 1–10.
 (3) Williamson, D. Too Close to Servility? Why Is Hospitality in New Zealand Still a ‘Cinderella’ Industry? Hospitality & Society 2017, 7 (2), 203–209. https://doi.org/10.1386/hosp.7.2.203_7
 (4) Defillippi, R.; Arthur, M. The Boundaryless Career: A Competency-Based Perspective. Journal of Organisational Behaviour 1994, 15 (4), 307–324. https://doi.org/10.1002/job.4030150403

К вопросу об изменении содержания и качества высшего образования в условиях цифровой экономики с позиции компетентностного подхода

К вопросу об изменении содержания и качества высшего образования в условиях цифровой экономики с позиции компетентностного подхода

Management’s Perception of Key Performance Indicators for Vietnam Small and Medium Enterprises

Key Performance Indicators in performance management system was attracted by researchers and practitioners. In order to effective implemented KPIs in SMEs, managers must deeply understand about the KPIs, role of KPIs, implemented KPIs. Based on the quantitative method by doing survey with 162 SEMs, author indicated the current situation of the perception of SMEs manager about the fundamental of KPI, roles of KPIs and difficulty implemented KPIs in performance management system. Based on the consistent theory about KPIs , author proposed some solution for manager to enhance their knowledge of KPIs.
 Keywords
 SMEs, KPIs , Performance appraisal
 References
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Entrepreneurial Team Formation Dynamics: Mind the Sector

The purpose of this paper is to extend existing research on entrepreneurial team formation under a competence-based perspective by empirically testing the influence of the sectoral context on that dynamics. We use inductive, theory-building design to understand how different sectoral characteristics moderate the influence of entrepreneurial opportunity recognition on subsequent entrepreneurial team formation. A sample of 195 founders who teamed up in the nascent phase of Interned-based and Cleantech sectors is analysed. The results suggest a twofold moderating effect of the sectoral context. First, a technologically more challenging sector (i.e. Cleantech) demands technically more skilled entrepreneurs, but at the same time, it requires still fairly commercially experienced and economically competent individuals. Furthermore, the business context also appears to exert an important influence on team formation dynamics: data reveals that individuals are more prone to team up with co-founders possessing complementary know-how when they are starting a new business venture in Cleantech rather than in the Internet-based sector. Overall, these results stress how the business context cannot be ignored when analysing entrepreneurial team formation dynamics by offering interesting insights on the matter to prospective entrepreneurs and interested policymakers.

Tourism-Oriented Educational Leadership in the Dominican Republic: The Key to Change

Educational leadership as a driving force in developing countries entails transforming the tourism students of today into the leaders of tomorrow by providing them with a system of values from a constructivist, competence-based perspective. The transfer of knowledge from educational settings to the tourism industry can foster innovation and enable different managerial approaches in the tertiary sector. Moreover, the impacts on third-world societies at the economic, sociocultural, and environmental levels can facilitate sustainable development. In the case of the Dominican Republic, the need to rethink the bachelor's degree in tourism has been the key to change.

The broken product chain: rapid paths of service internationalization in terms of the service-dominant logic

How does an increased importance of services influence the time pattern of launching industrial services and integrated solutions in foreign markets? When examining this question, we explain the change by making reference to the concept of service-dominant logic that suggests a move from goods-centred to service-centred value creation. The change that has occurred in the last few decades requires new value architectures, new competences and, in the case of internationalization, new organizational trajectories. The new constellation often implies an instant internationalization right from the outset, which is considered in a newly developed model. By this new line of reasoning, we employ an evolutionary approach that is based on a competence-based perspective and research on path dependence.

On the Need of SME Organizational Adaption to the International Business Environment: A Competence-Based Perspective

In our paper we challenge the common notion that small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) have to adapt to the international business environment to be successful when acting in an international context. Although we believe in a need for certain adaption, we claim that the possibility that SME are to a certain extent able to proactively shape outer conditions is not adequately considered in literature. Therefore we ask how far SMEs in international business need to adapt to the environment to ensure a state of international competitiveness. We understand SMEs as open systems (Sanchez and Heene, 1996) and employ the Competence-based Theory of the Firm (CbTF) (Foss and Ishikawa, 2007; Freiling et al., 2008) as theoretical frame of refer-ence for our conceptual paper. Thanks to its moderate voluntaristic nature, this theory allows considering both social embeddedness and managerial discretion of firms. Besides, this perspective takes into account internal developments as well as developments in the business environment. This is particularly useful to understand interaction processes with the environment that aim at accessing so-called ‘firm-addressable assets’. Firm-addressable assets explain the resource dependence of international SMEs on third-parties. However, backed by ‘absorptive capacity’ (Cohen and Levinthal, 1990), firm-addressable assets fuel internal processes of learning as well as resource and competence building. Moreover, CbTF allows for considering the role of certain categories of resources. Following service-dominant logic (SDL) (Vargo and Lusch, 2004), the distinction between ‘operand resources’ and ‘operant resources’ becomes a center-piece of our argument: SMEs need to adapt to the environment due to resource constraints by operand resources and shape the environment primarily driven by operant resources. Our paper advances research in three ways: (1) we reinforce the concept of moderate voluntarism in this stream of research and challenge the predominantly deterministic view on SME environmental adaption; (2) we introduce a rather new theory (CbTF) and develop an understanding that features the managerial discretion of SME’s in international competition; (3) we depart from the quite unspecific notion that in-tangibles matter in case of proactive SME management and specify the resource categories in this realm with more explanatory power in this regard.

Problem-solving and coordination-governance: advances in a competence-based perspective on the theory of the firm

O artigo baseia-se nas conclusões de um projeto (Dynacom), apoiado pela União Européia, sobre a natureza e a dinâmica das competências e capacitações organizacionais. Tal análise busca identificar as relações entre estas competências e capacitações e as várias formas de conhecimento incorporado nas organizações. Em segundo lugar, o artigo compara a visão da firma centrada sobre as capacitações (visão baseada em recursos) com outras abordagens – que incluem a abordagem tradicional da teoria do agente principal e a economia dos custos de transação. Finalmente, são apresentadas algumas implicações de política.

Six-Sigma implementation through Competency Based Perspective (CBP)

The popularity of six-sigma has given rise to the question: can any company adopt this rigid data driven approach to achieve higher levels of quality? This research suggests that a company must develop a unique combination of resources and competencies to realize the benefits of six-sigma. According to the competency based perspective (CBP), a company first needs to have the assets, skills, and resources to launch the six-sigma program, and second, it needs to have the expertise to integrate these assets to orchestrate a cohesive implementation of this program. The paper makes the case that most successful six-sigma adopters had initially implemented Total Quality Management (TQM), Baldridge, or some other quality initiative, preparing them to launch this data driven, process oriented approach. For companies that have emphasized quality function deployment (QFD), innovation and problem solving, statistical process control, process capability studies, etc. a transition to six-sigma would be a natural course of action. For others where these practices are at an incipient stage, six-sigma progress can be extremely slow and frustrating. The paper validates these comments with the help of a case study. It was easy for the study company to make the transition to six-sigma because it had captured enough process performance data, customer requirements, infrastructure and leadership development through its long history of quality initiatives.

A Competence-based View to Conflict Management

This study presents a review of conflict management from the competence-based perspective. It highlights the conflict management typologies as well as previous studies conducted using the competence model of conflict. There are scant studies using the competence model to conflict management. Previous studies using this model have used students as their respondents and have a Western biasness.

The challenges associated with the capitalization of managerial skills and competencies

Drawing on the theoretical framework of the institutional competency-based perspective, this paper develops a model to explain the process of capitalizing managerial competencies and skills into intangible capital stocks of an organization. It is argued that the effective and cumulative utilization of human, social, political, and cross-cultural capitals can help an organization sustain its competitive advantage, ultimately exerting a positive influence on organizational performance.

A Model for Evaluating Organizational Competencies: An Application in the Context of a Quality Management Initiative*

ABSTRACTDespite the important contributions made by the Competency‐Based Perspective (CBP) to strategic thought, certain issues on the operational definition of the theoretical concepts that characterize this approach remain unresolved, thus limiting its empirical application. In addressing this issue, the present study puts forward a procedure for measuring the competencies that can be developed in association with a Quality Management (QM) initiative and analyzes the reliability and validity of the resulting scale. This procedure could be transferred to studies that aim to carry out an empirical analysis based on the theoretical position of the CBP.