Development of Personal and Organizational Competencies in a Technology Company

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1 , Vol. 19 (6) (2009) C 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Published online in Wiley InterScience ( Development of Personal and Organizational Competencies in a Technology Company Petri Paajanen and Pasi Porkka Tampere University of Technology, Pori, Finland Henri Paukku MacGREGOR (FIN) Oy, Kaarina, Finland Hannu Vanharanta Tampere University of Technology, Pori, Finland ABSTRACT This article aims to illustrate how the Co-Evolute methodology can be applied to capture the proactive vision of the personnel of a technology company in terms of personal development and organizational development, from the viewpoint of learning and knowledge creation. The Co-Evolute methodology was developed at Tampere University of Technology in Pori, Finland. The methodology uses ontology engineering to support the use of several specific fuzzy applications on the Internet. Four different applications are tested here: one to evaluate a person s physical competencies; one to evaluate the project manager s generic and specific competencies; one to evaluate the organizational environment from the viewpoint of new knowledge creation; and one to evaluate the organizational environment from the viewpoint of learning. The results of an empirical study carried out in the subsidiary of a multinational technology company in Finland are also presented in this article. C 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. 1. INTRODUCTION The ability to adapt and develop has become an important factor for companies in today s business environment, which is characterized by continuous change. According to de Geus (1997), the essence of learning is an organization s ability to manage change by changing itself. Changes can be implemented in various organizations by specifically paying attention to learning and knowledge creation and competence development. Organizations must also ensure that individuals improve their know-how and skills in a way that supports the overall goals of the organization. Employees each have a unique interest in developing themselves. This interest is called creative tension (see Senge, 1991). Creative tension describes the gap that exists between a person s vision and the current reality. This gap works as the source of energy that motivates the person to act to release the tension. If there is no gap between a person s vision and the current reality, development is not possible, as neither the need nor motivation to develop will exist. People are driven by motivation and either act to satisfy a need or Correspondence to: Petri Paajanen, Tampere University of Technology, Pori, P.O. Box 300, FI Pori, Finland. petri.paajanen@vatajankoski.fi 568

2 PERSONAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL COMPETENCIES IN A TECHNOLOGY COMPANY 569 to turn an uncomfortable feeling or situation into a more comfortable one (Weiss, 1990). Although increasing employee effectiveness has been an important factor for a long time, generally organizations are still not using contingent motivators to manage their workers day-to-day task-related behavior and to improve productivity (Stajkovic & Luthans, 2001). The experts in evaluating personal development needs and an organization s internal working environment are the employees that work within the organization. It is important that management is aware of the collective view of these experts on the most important personal and organizational development areas. The organization s members also better commit themselves to the personal and organizational development processes if they have a chance to bring out their own views. According to Butler and Glover (2007), employee involvement is a part of soft human resource management, where the focus is on capturing the ideas of employees and securing their commitment. Therefore, it is important to develop new kinds of systems to identify the collective view of personal and organizational development and to support management s decision making. Today s dynamic environment necessitates that organizations are able to quickly adapt to changes. Thus these new systems should be easy to use, and the results should be readily available. Personal and organizational development should form part of the organization s management systems for different development targets to be set and the development toward these targets followed. This development work can be seen as a process that comprises three important stages: 1. evaluation of the present situation, 2. identification of future development needs, and 3. regular follow-up of progress. To support personal and organizational development and management s decision making, Tampere University of Technology in Pori has created the Co-Evolute methodology. This methodology uses ontology engineering to support the use of several specific fuzzy applications on the Internet. These applications can be used for the self-evaluation of competencies and the evaluation of an organization s internal working environment. The Co-Evolute methodology measures the difference between current and desired states (i.e., the proactive vision of the organization or individual). This article aims to illustrate how the Co-Evolute methodology can be applied to capture the proactive vision of the personnel of a technology company in terms of personal and organizational development, from the viewpoint of learning and knowledge creation. Four different applications are tested: the Cardioid application, used to evaluate a person s physical competencies; the Cycloid application, to evaluate the project manager s generic and specific competencies; the Folium application, to evaluate the organizational environment from the viewpoint of new knowledge creation; and the Talbot application, to evaluate the organizational environment from the viewpoint of learning. To better understand the background of these applications, first we discuss motivation and the difference between internal and external motivation. Second, the notion of competence thinking is explored. Third, the main functional elements of an organization s responsive environment are examined. The main results of an empirical study carried out in the subsidiary of a multinational technology company in Finland are also presented here. Detailed analysis of the results is, however, beyond the scope of this article.

3 570 PAAJANEN ET AL. 2. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK 2.1. Motivation Motivation describes the decisions and behavior of a person that cannot be explained by individual abilities alone (Timpe, 1989). According to Ford (1992), motivation is anchored in a comprehensive conceptualization of the whole person. All actions have a certain purpose, and working motivation comes from the purpose of work and not from the work assignment (Thomas, 2001). Motivation is a combination of goals, emotions, and personal agency beliefs. Therefore, it can be determined by psychological, future-oriented, and evaluative phenomena. Symbolically, it can be represented as a formula (Ford, 1992): Motivation = Goals Emotions Personal Agency Beliefs In this formula, personal goals describe the goals a person aims for, emotions describe the confidence in reaching the goals, and personal agency beliefs refer to individual skills and capabilities. According to Ford (1992), all motivational characters must be monitored and facilitated to motivate someone successfully, because all components strongly depend on each other; without one the motivation process is not possible. The complexity of motivation has been described as follows (Peltonen & Ruohotie, 1991): 1. Motivation is hypothetical. Individuals motivation cannot be directly observed nor can it be measured, as one action can include several motives. Motivation does not necessarily show in one s actions. 2. Motivation is combined from several processes. It is a combination of internal stability, external stimuli, observation of the situation, and personal interpretation of available information. 3. Motives have dynamic characteristics. Each individual has a number of needs, desires, and expectations. These motives change constantly and can even be in conflict with each other. 4. There are huge differences between the motives of various individuals. People prioritize their motives differently and pursue them with different intensity. 5. Achieving a goal influences motives and behavior. Sometimes the motivation reduces once the goal is achieved and is replaced with other motives. Sometimes achieving a goal can intensify the motivation. 6. Individual values and personal aims are an important part of motivation. The relationship between motivation, motive, and goal is often fuzzy in common language. However, when an actor states the relationship, it is more or less a justification of why a certain action was taken to achieve a certain goal (Von Wright, 1980). As a more common name for all the factors that can explain an action or actions, Von Wright (1980) uses the technical term determinants of action, which can include causes, grounds, reasons, and sometimes motives for doing something. Motivation, in turn, is a multidimensional phenomenon described as goal-directed human behavior. Motivation is a triumvirate consisting of goals, emotions, and personal agency beliefs (Ford, 1992). Motivation can also be divided into internal and external motivation. Internal motivation is related to work content and how the work is viewed. External

4 PERSONAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL COMPETENCIES IN A TECHNOLOGY COMPANY 571 motivation depends on surroundings and rewards like salary, bonuses, and encouragement, which are provided by someone else (Ruohotie, 1998). According to Ryan and Deci (2000), the difference between an internally motivated person and an externally motivated person can be very wide because a wide range of factors motivate people to act, leading to highly varied experiences and consequences. Internal motivation can last a long time, but external motivation normally lasts for only a short period (Ruohotie, 1998). Most human behavior is internally motivated Competence Thinking Competence is a basic characteristic of human beings and can be considered as a permanent part of an individual s personality. Specific competencies enable an individual to excel and secure efficient performance at work. Competence can be defined as achieving a set of goals in a specific environment using accepted and applicable methods, and at the same time producing positive results. An essential part of competence is intention. Without intention, there is no competence. Personal competencies therefore forecast certain behavior. Competencies enable us to understand why some people perform better at work than others. It becomes clear that developing the competencies of employees considerably affects the success of a company (c.f. Boyatzis, 1982; Spencer & Spencer, 1993; Von Wright, 1972). Competencies can be classified by occupational role or by their importance in relation to work roles. Classification enables the focusing of development and education on certain important competencies. Some of these competencies are generic, whereas others are differentiating (Boyatzis, 1982; Spencer & Spencer, 1993). Threshold competencies are the minimum requirements for skills, knowledge, or abilities that are absolutely necessary for completing a specific task. Language skills, computer literacy, or certain basic technical skills also can be threshold competencies. Differentiating competencies are, according to Boyatzis (1982), the actual competencies that have a direct cause effect relationship with superior performance and are the difference between average and excellent performers. In this research, we use competence to mean the active use of capabilities in specific task achievement. As competence is the ability to achieve good results in the work role, competencies are therefore the specific abilities needed to perform a certain job well Responsive Environment According to Ford (1992), there are four major prerequisites for effective functioning in any behavioral episode. First, the person must have the motivation needed to initiate and maintain activity until the goal directing the episode is attained. Second, the person must have the skill needed to construct and execute a pattern of activity that will produce the desired consequence. Third, the person s biological structure and functioning must be able to support the operation of the motivation and skill components. Finally, the person must have the cooperation of a responsive environment that will facilitate, or at least not excessively impede, progress toward the goal. The four functional elements that are needed for an optimally responsive environment are as follows (Ford, 1992): 1. The environment must be congruent with the individual s agenda of personal goals. 2. The environment must be congruent with the person s biological, transactional, and cognitive capabilities.

5 572 PAAJANEN ET AL. 3. The environment must have the material and information resources needed to facilitate goal attainment. 4. The environment must provide an emotional climate that supports and facilitates effective functioning. The organization s environment has a strong influence on the process of motivation. In this way, the environment can be either restrictive or responsive from the vantage point of learning and knowledge creation. According to Tannenbaum (1997), a positive learning environment can be characterized by the following eight conditions: 1. Individuals are aware of the big picture (see also Senge, 1991). 2. Individuals are assigned to tasks to which they can apply what they have learned and in which they are stretched and challenged (see also Dubin, 1990). 3. Mistakes are tolerated during learning and early application, when individuals are trying new ideas and skills (see also Gundry et al., 1994; Sitkin, 1991). 4. Individuals are accountable for learning, and performance expectations are high enough to necessitate continued personal growth (see also Rosow & Zager, 1988). 5. Situational constraints on learning and performance are identified and minimized. 6. New ideas are valued and encouraged (see also McGill et al., 1992). 7. Supervisors and coworkers provide support allowing individuals to learn and attempt to implement new ideas (see also Dubin, 1990; Tracey et al., 1995). 8. Policies and practices support the effective use of training. These eight conditions reflect the culture of the learning organization. These values and the way people conduct their work create the basis of organizational culture (Otala, 2000). Creating a responsive environment can be a time-consuming process because it demands a change in the organizational culture. These changes are slow, gradual processes that can be difficult to detect and follow (c.f. Senge, 1991). Knowledge is often considered to be the most important resource that a company possesses. According to Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995), knowledge is created in a spiral process where tacit and explicit knowledge interact. Tacit knowledge is personal and context bound by nature; therefore, it is difficult to formalize and communicate (Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995). However, tacit knowledge can be shared through analogies, metaphors, models, or stories (Choo, 1998). Explicit or codified knowledge means knowledge that can be communicated through formal and systematic language. Tacit knowledge concerns how things work, and explicit knowledge has the potential to explain why things work (Koskinen, 2004). The knowledge-creating process is based on four different modes of knowledge conversion: socialization, externalization, combination, and internalization. Socialization (from tacit knowledge to tacit knowledge) is a process of sharing experiences; externalization (from tacit knowledge to explicit knowledge) is a process in which tacit knowledge is articulated to explicit concepts; combination (from explicit knowledge to explicit knowledge) is a process in which concepts are systemized into a knowledge system; and internalization is a process in which explicit knowledge is embodied into tacit knowledge and is closely related to learning-by-doing. To continuously create new knowledge in a spiral process, it is vital that the organization s environment also supports and enables these modes of knowledge conversion. The organization must offer a responsive environment to motivate creative individuals to

6 PERSONAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL COMPETENCIES IN A TECHNOLOGY COMPANY 573 increase organizational knowledge assets. Because learning and knowledge creation are closely related, it is important to develop the environment on the basis of these two. 3. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY Evolute is the name of a generic Web-based technology that supports fuzzy logic applications on the Internet (Kantola, 2005). This means that Evolute enables an unlimited number of special purpose fuzzy logic applications to be developed and run globally. Each application is based on a specified ontology of the target domain. Therefore, each application inside Evolute has a unique content and structure specified by the experts of the target domain. Fuzzy sets and fuzzy logic are a suitable approach for capturing the imprecise, complex, and abstract nature of target domains using linguistic evaluation (Klir & Yuan, 1995; Zadeh, 1965). Applications can be added and fine-tuned online without additional programming. Evolute represents the co-evolutionary methodology by supporting applications that are intended to help development of the individual, the group, and the whole organization. The applications improve self-knowledge and self-management and generate a bottom-up view of an organization s current reality and vision of the future, which will in turn support managers in the decision-making process Research Context In this study, the evaluation was performed by 24 employees who are responsible for assigned tasks without direct supervision, such as contract managers and design project leaders. The sample group was asked to evaluate the statements on Cardioid (physical competence emulation), Cycloid (project managers competencies), Folium (knowledgecreation activities), and Talbot (learning environment) according to their current perception and future vision Used Applications Cardioid is a self-evaluation application tool that enables analysis of a human s physical competencies in the following categories: physical ability, psychomotor ability, cardiovascular/respiratory ability, management of physical abilities, nutrition, and the perceptual system (Kantola et al., 2004). The Cardioid competence model was developed by Prof. W. Karwowski at the Center for Industrial Ergonomics of the University of Louisville. The application includes 94 linguistic statements that are used to evaluate 21 physical competencies. The competence model for the Cardioid application is presented in Table 1. Cycloid is a self-evaluation application that enables analysis of project managers generic and specific competencies. The application consists of 30 different competencies, which are determined based on a wide literature survey. It should be understood that the chosen competencies are not valid for all organizations and organizational cultures. The application can be modified to fit specific organizations and specific tasks by determining the important competencies in the target organization (Liikamaa, 2006). The Cycloid competence model was developed by the Department of Industrial Management of Tampere University of Technology in Pori, Finland, under the supervision of Prof. H. Vanharanta. The application includes 120 linguistic statements used for evaluating the

7 574 PAAJANEN ET AL. TABLE 1. The Competence Model of the Cardioid Application Physical Competencies Competence Group Competence Main Groups Strength, flexibility, endurance, Physical ability dexterity Coordination, motor control Psychomotor ability ability, speed accuracy trade-off, task performance under stress Aerobic capacity Cardiovascular/Respiratory ability Motor competencies Motivation to use physical Management of physical abilities resources, feeling of well-being, physical ability, self-awareness of one s physical abilities, exercise habits (sports) Knowing what to eat, eating Nutrition Nutrition competencies well, controlling body weight Visual, auditory, vertical balance, thermal regulation Perceptual system Environmental awareness competencies Note. From Kantola et al. (2005). 30 different competencies. The competence model for the Cycloid application is presented in Table 2. Folium is an application that measures knowledge creation in a specific context. The application uses 53 linguistic statements to evaluate 10 organizational features. The members TABLE 2. The Competence Model of the Cycloid Application Competencies Competence Group Competence Main Groups Emotional awareness, self-confidence, self-assessment Trustworthiness, maintaining order, flexibility, innovation, responsibility, seeking information, production efficiency, decision quality, stress tolerance Analytical thinking, conceptual thinking, language proficiency Achievement orientation, commitment, initiative, optimism Understanding others, developing others, leveraging diversity, organizational savvy Communications, conflict management, management, leadership, relationship building, collaboration, group capabilities Self-knowledge Self-control Cognitive capability Motivating oneself Empathy Social skills Personal competencies Social competencies Note. From Liikamaa (2006).

8 PERSONAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL COMPETENCIES IN A TECHNOLOGY COMPANY 575 TABLE 3. Features Features and Classes of the Folium Application Classes Sharing of experiences, observation of others work, spending time and doing things together Articulation of tacit knowledge, translation of tacit knowledge into understandable format Adoption of new knowledge and combination to the existing knowledge, spreading of new knowledge to the organization, evaluation of new knowledge Knowledge becoming visible in operation and practice, exploitation of training and simulation Socialization Externalization Combination Internalization Organizational knowledge creation activities Note. From Paajanen (2006). of the organization are asked to evaluate the statements according to their current perception and future vision (Kantola et al. 2006; Paajanen, 2006). The features and classes of the Folium application are presented in Table 3. The Talbot application measures organizational learning in a specific context. The application uses 69 linguistic statements to evaluate 13 organizational features. The members of the organization are asked to evaluate the statements according to their current perception and future vision (Kantola et al. 2006; Paajanen, 2006). The features and classes of the Talbot application are presented in Table 4. These four applications were used in the study to gain a systematic view of the development needs of the technology company. In the next section, the results of the study are presented. 4. RESEARCH RESULTS Overall, 24 respondents answered all the linguistic statements of all four applications. The Evolute program transformed the answers into a numerical value between 0 and 1. TABLE 4. Features and Classes of the Talbot Application Features Opportunity for learning, tolerating mistakes as part of learning, striving to avoid mistakes Policies and practice support training, managers support to training Openness to new ideas and changes, support from coworkers to new ideas, demand made by the situation Awareness of big picture, expectations of and commitment to a high standard, own abilities, satisfaction with development, training is presented as something positive Classes Learning and tolerating of errors Support of training Requirements for new ideas and learning Individual s awareness and development Learning environment Note. From Paajanen (2006).

9 576 PAAJANEN ET AL. TABLE 5. Folium Application s Current State Rankings Shown in Signs (n = 25, minimum difference = 33.6) Sum of Ranks Feature Signed Articulating tacit knowledge Sharing of experiences Following other peoples work Merging new knowledge with old knowledge Spending time and doing things together Abstract new knowledge in practice Spreading new knowledge in the organization Conceptualizing tacit knowledge 88 Evaluation of new knowledge 71 The use of simulation and training Sum = From these numerical values, one single value for each corresponding feature and for each respondent is deducted with the use of fuzzy logic. Every respondent will have one value for each single feature. From a statistical point of view, the data are of a nominal scale (i.e., the numbers [values] are used merely as a means of separating the answers into different classes or categories; Conover, 1999). The different answers of a single respondent are comparable, but answers of different respondents are not. When analyzing the group results, the traditional statistic functions (sums, means, etc.) are therefore not applicable. Group results were calculated with the Friedman test (Conover, 1999). The Friedman test ranks all values of features of one participant. The values of features are replaced with the corresponding ranking, with the smallest value replaced by ranking 1 and the highest value given the ranking of the total amount of features. For example, as there are 10 features in the Folium application, the highest ranking is always 10. If the values are of an equal amount, the rankings are divided equally so that every respondent has the same sum for all his/her rankings. In the Folium application, every respondent has rankings from 1 to 10, and the total sum of one respondent s rankings is always 55. The rankings of competencies of all respondents then can be combined to get the group results (see Table 5). As Table 5 shows, the sum of all rankings is the sum of all respondents rankings (25 55 = 1375). The Friedman test also calculates the minimum difference value. The minimum difference is a statistical calculation based on the perceived rankings. It states what must be the minimum difference between two summed rankings to be considered statistically unequal. Even if the sums of rankings are (slightly) different, statistically they can be considered equal. We have used the minimum difference to distinguish the most important features (the ones within the minimum difference from the highest value). In the same way the lowest valued features are also grouped together. To ease the comparison of current state, future state, and proactive vision, we have turned the rankings into signs. The background color of the cell remains, but the significance within the group is marked with plus signs in the highest class and minus signs in the lowest class. The higher in the highest class, the more pluses are marked, and the lower in the lowest class, the more minus signs are given. The middle class is always zero and shown with a white background.

10 PERSONAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL COMPETENCIES IN A TECHNOLOGY COMPANY 577 TABLE 6. Main Findings of Physical Competencies and Project Managers Competencies Cardioid Physical Competencies Group Competence Current State Target State Proactive Vision 1 Feeling of well-being Vertical balance Exercise habits (sports) Strength Motivation to use physical resources Auditory Physical ability 0 4 Self-awareness of ones physical ability 0 Cycloid Project Managers Competencies 1 Language proficiency Self-assessment Leveraging diversity Responsibility Commitment Stress tolerance Group capabilities Innovation - ++ Management - 0 Analytical thinking - 0 Conceptual thinking Physical Competencies and Project Managers Competencies The main findings from the test results of the Cardioid and Cycloid applications are presented in Table 6. It is possible to divide the results into four different groups based on current state and target state values. The first group would contain those competencies that have high values for both the current state and target state. The second group would contain those competencies where the current state has a high value and the target state has a neutral value. Those competencies where the current state has a neutral value and the target state has a high or low value would be in the third group. In the fourth group, the current state and target state of the competencies would both have low values. As can be seen from Table 6, feeling of well-being, language proficiency, and selfassessment are competencies with high current state and target state values. These competencies also share the largest proactive visions for development. The competencies vertical balance and exercise habits (sports) have high current state and target state values, but as the gap between these two values is not so large, the proactive visions have rather neutral values. In the second group, the competence strength shows the biggest proactive vision; therefore, the respondents see the development of this as important in the future. According to the results, the competencies motivation to use physical resources, auditory, and leveraging diversity have rather neutral proactive visions. In addition, the competencies responsibility and commitment have low proactive visions. This finding tells us that the respondents do

11 578 PAAJANEN ET AL. not see a great need to develop these competencies in the future although the current values of these competencies are high. In the third group, the competence physical ability shows a rather low proactive vision for development. On the contrary, the competencies stress tolerance and group capabilities have neutral current state values and high target state values; therefore, they also have high proactive visions for their development. The development of these two competencies will be important in the future because the current state values are in the neutral area. In the fourth group, innovation is the competence with the biggest proactive vision for development. However, this competence has low current state and target state values. The competencies self-awareness of one s physical ability, management, and analytical thinking show neutral proactive visions. In addition, the competence conceptual thinking has a low proactive vision. According to these results, the respondents do not see a pressing need to develop the competencies in the fourth group Knowledge Creation Activities and the Learning Environment The main findings of the test results of the Folium and Talbot applications are presented in Table 7. As can be seen from Table 7, articulating tacit knowledge and sharing of experiences are features with neutral proactive visions concerning knowledge creation activities, and they both have high current state and development need values but a small gap between these two values. The feature sharing of experiences refers to the socialization mode of knowledge conversion, and the feature articulating tacit knowledge to the externalization mode of knowledge conversion (c.f. Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995). These two modes of knowledge conversion are important in the articulation of tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge. TABLE 7. Main Findings of Knowledge Creation Activities and the Learning Environment Folium Knowledge Creation Activities Current Development Proactive Group Feature State Need Vision 1 Articulating tacit knowledge Sharing of experiences Merging new knowledge with old knowledge Spending time and doing things together 0-4 Evaluation of new knowledge The use of simulation and training - ++ Conceptualizing tacit knowledge 0 Talbot Learning Environment 1 Own abilities Satisfaction with development Awareness of big picture Policies and practices support training Managers support of training 0 ++ Striving to avoid errors -

12 PERSONAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL COMPETENCIES IN A TECHNOLOGY COMPANY 579 The features of the learning environment, own abilities, satisfaction with development, and awareness of big picture, also belong to the first group. The results show that these features also have high current state and development need values, but a neutral proactive vision for development. In the third group, the biggest proactive vision for development is within the feature merging new knowledge with old knowledge, which refers to the combination mode of knowledge conversion (c.f. Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995). This feature appears to be important for respondents because it has a neutral current state value and a high development need value. The feature spending time and doing things together shows a rather low proactive vision; therefore, the respondents do not see any great need to develop this area in the future. In the fourth group, evaluation of new knowledge, the use of simulation and training, policies and practices support training, and managers support of training are the features with the biggest proactive visions for development. The feature conceptualizing tacit knowledge has a neutral proactive vision, and striving to avoid errors has a low proactive vision. This finding tells us that respondents do not feel it necessary to develop the features in the fourth group in the future. 5. CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE RESEARCH The goal of this article was to illustrate how the Co-Evolute methodology can be applied to capture the proactive vision of the personnel of a technology company in terms of personal and organizational development. Overall, it can be concluded that identifying those areas where the largest proactive vision for the future exists is possible with the use of the developed Co-Evolute methodology. One thing that can be questioned is whether the results have been interpreted correctly. This study concentrated on collective results, whereas the results regarding competence especially should be analyzed on an individual level. The results of the study nevertheless could help management in planning specific training courses based on the collective view of employees. It is suggested that all the results are analyzed in workshops. This would be an efficient way of giving individual employees the opportunity to explain their visions and to discuss what they and others consider as the most important areas for development. It would also be of great value to repeat this study at a future date, for example after a year, to see how the views of employees have changed. By continuing this action analysis cycle, a company could steadily improve employee satisfaction and make the business processes more effective. Regular measurement of competence and development is also recommended. Attention should be paid to differentiating competencies on an individual level and to improving employees key strengths and overall performance. Through individual competence development a company can increase human performance. REFERENCES Boyatzis, R. E. (1982). The competent manager: A model for effective performance. New York: John Wiley & Sons. Butler, P., & Glover, L. (2007). Employee participation and involvement. In J. Beardwell & T. Claydon (Eds.), Human resource management A contemporary approach (5th ed., pp ). Upper Saddle River, NJ: FT Prentice Hall. Choo, C. W. (1998). The knowing organization: How organizations use information to construct meaning, create knowledge and make decisions. New York: Oxford University Press. Conover, W. J. (1999). Practical nonparametric statistics. New York: John Wiley & Sons.

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