Supporting Competent Acting in the new Workplace Lars Svensson1, Bo-Göran Bernheim1,2, Johan Lundin1,3, Ulrika Lundh-Snis1, Lena Pareto1 1 University West, 2Volvo Aero Corporation, 3IT-University Göteborg Sweden
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[email protected] Abstract: Competence and competent acting are central concerns for most knowledge-intensive firms of today. These firms are dependent on information systems for organizing competence. However, the IT-systems available to support competence management, generally take a problematic approach to competence. They presuppose competence as generic and stable, rather than dynamic and situated. As a result of an action-oriented research project, conducted in collaboration with a network of SME’s, we claim that competence must be approached as a relational and situated concept. Information systems adapted to such a perspective should focus on IT-support that includes experiences, tools, and social networks.
Introduction The working life of today is by many scholars described as being on the verge of a new era. On the societal level this transformation have been described as entering a network society and information age (e.g. Castells, 1996), focus on innovation and creativity (e.g. Florida, 2002), communication driving new forms of business (Malone, 2004). However, these discussions are in general conducted from a global, national or organizational perspective. Consequently, little attention is paid to how these changes might affect knowledge production and the competencies needed in the new working life. The changing conditions for how knowledge is produced and maintained in contemporary working life demand empirical studies of the new emerging practices that cross traditional boundaries (Engeström, 2004). We need a better understanding of how competencies are developed in the interactions between the individuals and the environment – a context of rules and values, but also of tools, colleagues and ways of working (Svensson & Ellström, 2004). These new borderlands, made out of organizations, work cultures and different professional functions, consequently bring about new conditions and possibilities for acting competent as well as becoming competent. In this paper we draw on results from an action-oriented research project. The project group consisted of a group of information systems (IS) researchers closely in close collaboration with staff from six organizations. The six organizations were all chosen from a geographically and branch defined network organization. Generally research on learning and IT has favored educational empirical settings. However, we have no reason to believe that learning environments outside the institutions where teaching is carried out lack qualities, thus making them less suitable for learning, or any less interesting to study, when focusing competence. The workplace is a relevant environment to study when aiming to further understand how knowledge and competencies develop that can neither be learned, nor understood, as in isolation from the context or work (Billet, Barker, & Hernon-Tinning, 2004). Any practice in which people might engage themselves affords a number of the qualities that assist learning, such as interactions with partners, tools and signs (Billet, 2000). From the theoretical perspective applied in this paper each and every practice demands as well as allow learning. As practices change, their perspective on what is considered competence, and competent acting are continually redefined. In order to attune to these changes, all practitioners must constantly review and refine their own abilities (Säljö, 2000). The overall objective of the project is twofold: first it was to develop an understanding of the conditions for inter-organizational competence management, i.e. competence management activities that involves networks, or collaborations between and among various organizations. Secondly we aim to design IS-tools that support such management activities. The main finding is that competence needs to be treated as a relational concept, and that the dynamic and uncertain context, in which competencies needs to be managed, calls for an individual rather than an organizational approach in regards to the to IS design process. As an illustration of these insights an application for competence management is presented.
The next section briefly outlines previous research on competence management systems. This is followed by a section that presents the research setting and methods for data collection and analysis. After this we present the results from the study, as well as provide implications for design based on these results. In the following section we outline the Impress-application, an application designed based on the implications found. Finally we expand the discussion concerning how competence can be framed within dynamic and changing contexts.
Competence management Currently there are several differentiated notions and views on the concept of competence. Boucher et al (2006) divide competence into three different levels: i) individual competence – to deal with the competence of a person; ii) collective competence – to deal with the competence emerging from a group of persons; and iii) global competence – to describe the organizational ability of an enterprise. Generally research on competence emphasise the organizational perspective and focus on issues related to strategic planning on an organizational level. For instance, describing competencies from an organizational view is motivated by the concept of core competences introduced by Prahalad and Hamel (1990). The organizational view of competence management seems to be inherently future oriented. The question to be considered concerning competency is “what does an organization need for future success?” The need to measure and control organizational competencies is forced be the fact that organizations have to value their business in terms of both new products and markets, as well as newly acquired competencies. Furthermore, the concentration on core competencies as internal resources is important for gaining a competitive edge, and such competencies are hard to imitate, difficult to replace and unique (Schmiedinger et al, 2005). Within this paradigm of thinking there are several scholars that tries to frame the interplay between individual competence and organizational core competencies. Schmiedinger et al, (2005) stresses that human competence is defined as a network of complex, self-organized professional, methodical, social and personal competencies, created through a life-long development. Berio & Harzallah (2006) develop a perspective on competence management built around four different organizational processes: i) competence identification; ii) competence assessment; iii) competence acquisition; and iv) competence knowledge usage. According to Lindgren et al (2004) the usage of competence management facilitates the specification of an organization’s needs, the identification of competence gaps (between needed and actual competence), competence sourcing, competence development through training and coaching, and the staffing of projects. Competence management systems Systems supporting competence management facilitates competence mappings and clustering as a basis for competence portfolios, which can initiate new business fields or reveal competence gaps, and how to fill these gaps (Lindgren et al, 2004). For such activities, a skill-based (competence described in terms of person descriptions, based on skills and capabilities) is appropriate and most often used. However, for the individual competence management, a job-based (competence described in terms of position and job description in organization, based on task descriptions) is often used (Lindgren et al, 2004). There is a tension between these two competence views, skillbased competencies (well aligned with the notion of core competence) has a focus on present and future organization, whereas job-based competencies focus on the past (Lindgren et al, 2004). Nevertheless, organizational needs and individual competence interests cannot be treated independently in a CMS, and organizational core competence needs to be aligned with individual level job competence. One general problem is the dynamics of competencies, i.e. that there could be increases or losses of competencies over time, which should have measurable impacts on a CMS. Also, in CMS it has been a challenge to have the competencies comparable. To compare profiles of individual persons, the profile of a person must be compared with a goal profile or with a certain job description. Thus, one must either use the same competence definitions or a translation mechanism between different competencies. To decide that the same definition is used a reference to the definition is given. The backbone of such structures in CMS relies on certain typologies, taxonomies or ontologies (see for example Fotis et al (2003); Lindgren et al (2004); Bennour & Crestani (2006)).
One other problem in CMS is that of trust and evidence. It is easy to claim a certain competence, but we need mechanisms to check such evidence. We need independent and transparent verifications for evaluating competencies. This puts forward that competencies have to be negotiated amongst the involved stakeholders. Reviewing some of the current market-leading software packages for competence management provides more functional specific descriptions. Several software packages aim for maximizing workforce skills and competencies in order to monitor organizations’ business performance (see for example Krämer et al (2005) and Oracle Peoplesoft Enterprise (2006)). Such systems accounts heavily for the managerial needs of decision information. The systems are well-integrated with other enterprise IS and they seem to be very data-rich, which in turn requires an effort in having the system up to date. More often, it is a system dedicated only for the managers, but as an “all-purpose” tool for them (Wöls et al, 2003). Such a tool encompasses applications that ensure employee competencies to be in line with the future needs of the organization. They start with looking at future developments of the market and the needs of their customers and from these goes on to define the core competencies of the unit. This analysis in turn helps to determine the objectives for the management of the employees’ competencies and gives good account of how to connect definitions of individual skills with a companies objectives and core competencies.
The research Setting In this paper we report from a collaboration research project CoMaNwO (Competence Management in Network Organizations), in which a network of organizations is the main unit of analysis. The aim of the project was to investigate and further explore each organizations motivation for developing a learning and competence management infrastructure for their network activities. We had a particular focus on the role of IT as a mediating tool for the establishment of such an infrastructure. The problem domain for the CoMaNwO project fits well with the research group’s overall research agenda in Work-Integrated Learning (WIL). This research primarily deals with contexts where the “learner” is employed by an organization and where learning is an integrated part of everyday work. Previous studies of the role of IT with respect to learning and competence management identifies three, partly interrelated, analytical approaches that will guide the research of the CoMaNWO project: (i) IT as an infrastructure for data, information and knowledge, (ii) IT as a medium for communication and collaboration, and (iii) IT as a tool for competence management processes and organizational change. Each of these analytical approaches highlights and emphasises different aspects of workintegrated learning, and by combining them into a holistic approach the problem domain of this project can be thoroughly explored. The empirical context – Networking Companies, NWC Launched in 1996, Networking Companies is the oldest and most established network of business organizations within the four-city region comprised of Trollhättan, Vänersborg, Uddevalla and Lysekil. The network is made up of 40 corporations active in this four-city region, the majority of which are suppliers to the automotive and technology industry. A total of 13,000 employees currently work in our member companies. The member organizations range from SME:s with under 50 employees to the leading industries of the region (Volvo Aero and Saab GM) Started for the purpose of enhancing the competitive strengths of the members by means of both business and competence development, Networking Companies has evolved into being a discussion partner, sounding board and logical meeting place for both established and start-up technology companies in West Sweden. The group is involved in collaborative projects with regional business development entities and with University West. Over the years, they have created relationships and close contacts between their corporate members and their supportive partner organizations. The goals of the network are to reach larger and more comprehensive marketing solutions, offer cutting edge competence within traditional as well as newly evolving business sectors, in addition to greater collaboration among corporate members. NWC hold regular meetings to which they invite opinion and corporate leaders of interest to their members for the purpose of creating deeper business relationships and contacts. • •
The goals of NWC (quoted from network’s homepage, www.networkingcompanies.se) are: Act as a discussion partner for the technology and automotive industry in the four-city region Broaden business contacts and create new business development opportunities
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Showcase the cutting edge competence of our corporate members Create the preconditions leading to comprehensive, system based industry solutions
Project organization and data collection methods The CoMaNwO-project is a collaboration projects between the board of directors of NWC and Laboratorium for Interaction Technology (research group in Informatics at University West, UW). The network organization together with six corporate partners selected for this project constitute a representative selection of both SME:s and large corporations in the region. Each company is oriented towards frontline technological development and consequently identifies competence management as the primary challenge for the future. CoMaNwO is organized as a collaborative research project where six researchers from UW together with six members from the industrial firms constitute the project team.
Figure 1. The Project workflow as an iterative collaborative circle. The overall organization of the project has been outlined as an iterative and collaborative circle with four stages in each rotation (fig 1). The project model is partly inspired by canonical action research method (See for example Lindgren et al. 2004) In the first stage diagnosing is conducted through in-company meetings with observations, interviews, surveys and seminars at each participating organization. In the second stage tentative action planning is conducted by the research group, this is subsequently discussed and evaluated in a 2-day project group workshop with practitioners, researchers and sometimes external experts. The deliverables from such workshops are jointly agreed upon action plans which is then put into action at the network level. The data collected for this paper is the result of two repetitions of the collaborative circle. More specifically the data consist of: • • • •
Six group interviews with representatives (3-5) from each firm, lasting approximately 1,5 hour each. Two joint workshops (2 days each) with round-table discussions on themes such as: What is competence? How can it be articulated and supported? What are the design implications for network-CMS Web survey that explores respondents’ view on competence and competence processes on: (i) individual-, (ii) group-, (iii) company/management-, and (iv) network-level Literature studies on designing for competence and workplace learning
Results and Design Implications
Throughout the project there were several activities that were aimed at uncovering and understanding how the participants framed the notion of competence, and furthermore, how they perceived the situations and contexts in which the competence of individuals, teams and organizations needed to be managed and put into focus. The initial overview that came from the first round of in-company inquiries showed that the maturity with respect to competence management systems varied between the various partner organizations. Still, all participating SMEs expressed a need to further develop the processes in which competence information was perceived as central, and furthermore, to further develop the support for inter-organizational collaboration with respect to competence management. Later in the project two workshops were arranged with the specific goal to arrive at a shared understanding of competence. The workshops, together with discussions in project group meetings resulted in the following “working definition” of competence: The competence of an individual or a collective is its ability to perform a specific task There are two major implications that can be derived from this take on competence. Firstly, it underlines competence as being situated and relational (to a specific task in a specific situation) rather than generic and decontextualized. To some extent this shifts the focus away from competence as a temporal property of an individual or a group, towards a focus on the competent actions that are likely to be performed in a certain situation. Secondly, the focus on performance and action also opens for including resources such as the tools and the social network that can be instrumental for someone to act competent. As expressed by one of the participants (HR-manager) “If being competent in a situation means getting the job done, it is of course very important for a person who he or she knows that can be of help in solving the problem” Competence information Another central theme in the project was to track how information relating to the competence of a person or a group could be captured and recorded, and in what situations and processes this information could be processed and utilized. Again, the results indicated that traditional CMS, where competence was treated as a hierarchy of several levels of sub-competencies defined by the organization was a highly problematic approach. Firstly, this relates to the paradox that competence information becomes less interesting and important in periods of organizational inertia and stability, and at the same time it is only in periods of relative stability where such competence hierarchies can be negotiated and defined in an organization. In times of change and uncertainty competence information becomes much more central to the strategic actions of an organization. Secondly, top-down deconstruction of competencies becomes even more difficult when becoming an issue for inter-organizational collaboration. Finally, in situations of personal change (e.g. when changing firms or jobs) much work is needed to adapt to new top-down views on how competence should be described and assessed. Having to adopt to how the organization want to see my competence is restricting, and maybe even conservative in the sense that skills that will be valuable tomorrow could be missed (Consultant) As a result of these perceived problems the project group decided to explore the potential of developing support for individual competence documentation, where the individual employee was highly empowered with respect to how she choose to document her experiences and interests. As a pilot, it was decided to design an experience portfolio application that could help knowledge workers in describing experiences in a system capable of presenting flexible views on a persons competence adapted for specific situation (e.g a CV for a job application or a CV for offering services as a consultant). The resulting prototype (Impress – short for impression management) is briefly outlined in the following section.
The Impress Application The ambition for the Impress application was to design a portfolio system that could document all experiences of an individual, and at the same time provide support for extracting flexible sub-sets of the information tailored for specific situations and needs. The three leading design concepts that guided design work were: (i) competence as a relational concept, (ii) experiences as competence narratives, and (iii) competence aggregates as tools for flexibility. Competence as a relational concept As was described in the previous section competence should be viewed as a situated concept that relates to a number of interrelated concepts. In figure 2 a simplified image of the systems object model for competent acting is depicted. The traditional view on competence as being deconstructed and defined in an hierarchical competence tree is supplemented with the notion of personal experience which in turn relates to a) the tools and resources a person or a group has access to in conjunction to the experience, b) the personal characteristics of a person that was affected by, and/or were central to the experience. Furthermore, an experience is related to the social resources that were used. I total each experience is recorded as a portfolio object with links to all other aspects to which it relates.
Tools
Personal character Experience
Person
(social relations)
Competence (as defined)
Competence structure/tree
Figure 2. Object model for competence in the Impress application Experiences as Competence Narratives As hinted above the pivotal element of the portfolio application are the experiences of an individual. By connecting experiences to related resources and tasks the experiences become a contextualized and rich narrative of a persons competence, and a predictor of further competent acting. Central to the narrative strength of an experience is the way in which it is possible to trace a person’s social network and connections to other skilled people. It is also important to stress that an experience should be interpreted as an inclusive notion that involves issues such as: • A formal (or informal) educational experience • An assignment or a project (ongoing or finished) • A synthesis of thoughts and ideas concerning a specific issue • An experience of acting in a professional role
•
Produced artefact such as publication, white paper, showcase or product
Competence Aggregations as tools for Flexibility As a means of providing flexibility in terms of being able to filter and tailor ones portfolio the concept of Competence Aggregations (CA:s). was introduced. A CA could be viewed as a “perspective on Competence” that makes sense to the user. Examples of CA:s could be Sector (different industry-sectors with possible values such as automotive, education, healthcare, construction, transport), Role (values: project leader, consultant, designer, manager, etc.), Organizational function (Purchase, Production, Engineering, Marketing) etc. By this, each experience is “tagged” with respect to the different CA:s, and when producing a report (i.e a CV for a specific situation) the CA:s are used as a way of filter out for instance all experiences where a person acted as a project leader in engineering project in the automotive sector (fig. 3). The Impress prototype is currently being supplemented with functionality that improves the graphical layout of CVs and résumés through possibilities to export to InDesign. There are also possibilities to export the CV via XML in line with a standardized DTD.
Stakeholder 1
CV on CV on requested requested template template
Communication thru standardized DTD
My MyCV CV
Stakeholder 2
CV on CV on requested requested template template
Figure 3. Impress supports flexible tailoring of CVs and resumés
Conclusion In a collaborative research project together with SMEs we found that traditional views of framing competence, and supporting competence management with IT systems were problematic in the sense that competence was treated as a generic and de-contextualized concept, and that top-down approaches to deconstructing competence hinders initiatives to inter-organizational cooperation on competence management. In the paper we present an application that was designed based to support individual competence management as an approach to overcome some of these major challenges. The application rests on three central principles: (i) Competence as a relational concept (ii) Experiences as competence narratives (iii) Competence aggregates as tools for flexibility.
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