International Perspectives on Competence in the Workplace Implicatio
As the world’s economy develops into a more dynamic, fast-moving, and unpredictable entity, it is crucial that the workers who create wealth have the ability to assess and respond to new and unforeseen challenges. In other words, the future will require a
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Christine R.Velde Editor
International Perspectives on Competence in the Workplace Implications for Research, Policy and Practice
Editor Christine R. Velde Faculty of Professions University of Adelaide Adelaide South Australia
ISBN 978-1-4020-8753-0 e-ISBN 978-1-4020-8754-7 DOI 10.1007/978-1-4020-8754-7 Springer Dordrecht Heidelberg London New York Library of Congress Control Number: 2009926292 © Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009 No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher, with the exception of any material supplied specifically for the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work. Printed on acid-free paper Springer is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com)
Foreword
On Being Good at Something This book is about competence. Competence is about being good at something. The key to the future wealth of nations is widely assumed to be found in people becoming good at certain things, that is, in the competence of the workforce. Competence is seen as the most important productive factor, more essential than other productive factors, such as capital, land, and raw materials. Competence is supposed to be of decisive importance in the competition between individuals, enterprises, and nations. So how can we nurture competence; how can we bring it about? A rather appealing idea is that we must be able to say what we want. We must be able to describe and to specify what we are looking for. Only if we know what we want, can informed choices about people and about ways of trying to bring about competence be made. We have to know the aims in order to go systematically about achieving them. If you do not know what you want, it is very unlikely that you will achieve it. One way of addressing questions concerning competence and the nurturing of competence is to try to define, as precisely as possible, what people are expected to be able to do. This is, however, not the approach adopted by the authors of this book. The focus on competence and questions related to competence can be seen in the light of changing modes of production. The industrial mode of production which replaced the agricultural mode of production is being replaced with something else, which, at least in part, might be called a knowledge-based mode of production. In the industrial age, very much of what people had to do could be defined, specified, and standardised. You could tell people more or less exactly what they had to do. The general perception of the future is that a much more qualified, or competent, work force will be needed. People will have to deal with more widely varying situations and people. They will have to be able to handle novel situations in powerful ways. Novel situations are so because they have not been encountered earlier. Our ability to predict them is hi
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