Exploring the Concept of Competency: From an Organization’s Sustained Competitive Advantage Perspective

• Main Authors: Wen-Yen Chang, 張文彥
• Other Authors: Hai-Ming Chen
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2012
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/80130789418466016058

博士 === 淡江大學 === 管理科學學系博士班 === 100 === In the last decade, the concept of competency has been a “buzz word” in management field. The evolution of competency has caused three questions. First, how can we distinguish competency, competence and core competency? These similar terms have generated a complex phenomenon and needed to be clarified. Second, under the argument that employee competency and organizational core competency collectively create sustained competitive advantage, Strategic Human Resource Management scholars proposed that the attribute of competency should transfer from context-independence to context-dependence, and the essence of competency should change from pursuing job performance to organization’s sustained competitive advantage. However, few studies addressed how employee competency to be created, relate to core competency, and create sustained competitive advantage. Third, regarding the typological framwork of competency, past researches focused more on individual-level conceptualizations in relation to job performance than on the linkage between individual- and organization-level competencies in relation to organizational peformance. These unresolved areas have inhibited the theoretical development of competency concept. In this regard, this thesis proposes three conceptual frameworks to answer the aforementioned three questions. The conceptual framework of the relations among competency, competence, and core competence helps clarifiy and re-recognize the concepts of competency, competence, and core competency. The framework of competency formation shows that the attribute of employee competency is context-dependence and its essence is to pursue an organization’s sustained competitive advantage. Shared values, mutual trust, and mutual investment are the cornerstones relating employee competency to organizational core competency, collectively creating organizations’ sustained competitive advanatage. Based on the dimensions of individual-organization and value-uniqueness derived from the framework of competency formation, a typological framwork of competency is proposed, including job-based competency, person-based competency, strategy-based competency and value-based competency. Comparing the conceptual framework of competency formation and the typological framework of competency with a practical case derives the contributions and implications to the conceptualization of competency.