2005 apr jun_47_56

Managerial Competence:Do Technical Capabilities Matter?

Ujvala Rajadhyaksha

Globalization and rapid technological change is a reality for companies today. It has changed the

manner in which business has been routinely conducted and has brought into focus delivery of

results in real time. Newer forms of organizational structures have emerged that are flatter with

fewer hierarchical levels. Career paths are no longer linear and unbroken but are spiralling and

lateral in nature. The traditional employment contract between employees and organization has

altered. While earlier it was normal to assume a life time of security in exchange for doing a good

job, now employees are increasingly looking for opportunities for professional development that

will enhance their future employability.

All these changes have had implications for HR departments and performance appraisal in the

new business context. Instead of evaluating primarily on the basis of quantitative results and on

what is achieved, the focus is shifting to how it is achieved as an indication of an employee’s ability

to keep performing well in the future. It has made ‘competencies’ the new mantra for the HR

departments aiming to effect change within organizations.

Based on a sample data of over 250 executives in one of India’s largest vehicle manufacturing

companies, this paper reviews the concept of competency, how it is assessed, and brings out the

need for assessing technical competency. The final model that emerges from the study goes beyond

managerial competencies — a model of techno-managerial competency that may be better suited

to emerging jobs in a more technology-driven future.

This model consists of four factors:

technical skills comprising of knowledge fundamentals, engineering drawing appreciation,

manufacturability appreciation, materials choice appreciation, knowledge of emerging

trends, etc.

group problem-solving skills comprising of problem analysis, creativity and originality,

technical leadership ability, communication ability, people management skills, etc.

managerial skills comprising of perseverance, quest for learning, business understanding,

visualization, attention to detail, etc.

aptitude comprising of analytical ability, creativity, risk-taking orientation, etc.

KEY WORDS

Privatization

Indian Banking

Efficiency

Performance

ExecutiveSummary

R E S E A R C H

includes research articles thatfocus on the analysis and

resolution of managerial andacademic issues based on

analytical and empirical orcase research

KEY WORDS

Techno-managerialCompetencies

Assessment

Automobile Sector

VIKALPA • VOLUME 30 • NO 2 • APRIL - JUNE 2005 47

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In the literature, competence has been defined largelyin terms of the desire to see specific work-relatedbehaviour very clearly:

• The ability to perform effectively the functionsassociated with management in a work situation(Hornby and Thomas, 1989).

• A knowledge, skill, ability or characteristic associ-ated with high performance on a job (Mirable, 1997).

• Observable or habitual behaviours that enable aperson to succeed in her activity or function (Car-dona and Chinchilla, 1999).

• A combination of motives, traits, self-concepts,attitudes or values, skills, and abilities that differ-entiate superior performers from average perform-ers (Lee and Beard, 1994).

• The capacity to transfer skills and abilities from onearea to another (Hogg, 1989 as cited in Lee andBeard, 1994).The above definitions of competence clearly suggest

that, though implicitly, yet, competence is underlyingand does project itself as skilled behaviour. It includesself-knowledge and motivation. In other words, a com-petent manager is one who has both the desire and thewillingness to demonstrate effective behaviour. The self-knowledge component of competence suggests that acompetent person is able to transfer skills and abilitiesfrom one area to another. Finally, competency refers toeffective performance.

Early research on competencies can be attributed toMcClelland (1973) who showed that a person’s successin a job could not be predicted solely on the basis ofintelligence tests. Around the same time, McBer, a UScompany, was commissioned by the American Manage-ment Association (AMA) to identify those personalcharacteristics of managers that result in effective and/or superior performance within a job. McBer’s researchwhich was documented by Boyatzis (1982) identified sixclusters of competencies that were related to managerialeffectiveness. These included goal and action manage-ment cluster, leadership cluster, human resource man-agement cluster, directing subordinate cluster, focus onothers cluster, and specialized knowledge.

Since then, the human resource consultants andexperts have developed several competency models.Most of these models capture a set of competenciessimilar to the ones identified in McBer’s research includ-ing administrative, communication, interpersonal, lead-ership, motivation, organizational strategy, entrepre-

neurial, self-management, and thinking skills.

HOW ARE COMPETENCIES IDENTIFIEDAND MEASURED?

A comprehensive method to identify and measure com-petencies is the one adopted by McBer which involvesfive stages (Boyatzis, 1982):• Identification of criterion measure: Choosing an

appropriate measure of job performance to identifytop performers and collecting data on managers.

• Job analysis: Generating a list of characteristicsperceived as leading to effective and/or superiorperformance and obtaining ratings from the man-agers to compute a weighted list of characteristicswhich are then analysed in clusters.

• Behaviour event interviews (BEI): Conducting BEIsto obtain a detailed description of the manager’sperformance, coding interview data, and relating itto job performance data.

• Tests and measures: Choosing tests and measuresto assess competencies, administering and scoringthem, and relating them to job performance data.

• Establishing the competency model: Integratingresults from the previous three steps and statisti-cally and theoretically determining and document-ing causal relationships among the competenciesand between the competencies and job perform-ance.While job competence assessment is an extremely

rigorous approach for developing a competency model,it is time-consuming and expensive. Sometimes, com-panies rely on a panel method for identifying compe-tencies. In this approach, a group of experts get togetherand identify a list of characteristics that they think isrelevant for superior performance. Even though thecompetencies resulting from the panel method are notempirically tested against performance data, very often,they come close to explaining performance. In fact,constructing competencies through the natural languageinteraction of organization members has been suggestedas being particularly suitable for organizations operat-ing in a turbulent environment where competenciesfrequently change (Michellone and Zollo, 2000).

CURRENT DEBATE ON COMPETENCIES

While considerable development of the concept of com-petencies has taken place since the 1970s, debate still

48 MANAGERIAL COMPETENCE: DO TECHNICAL CAPABILITIES MATTER ?

48

Figure 1: Iceberg Model

Know-howHigh

Transferable skills

Values

Motives, self-image

Ease of observation

Low

Source: Spencer and Spencer (1993).

continues on the use of the term. Most of this debatecentres around the following themes:• level of competence (individual vs. organizational)• depth of competence (observable skills vs. under-

lying characteristics)• degree of competence (effective vs. superior per-

formance)• specificity of competence (generic/managerial vs.

specific/technical)

Level of Competence

Although the term ‘competence’ originally meant “basicpersonal characteristics that are determining factors foracting successfully in a job or a situation” (McClelland,1993), in recent times, another close-sounding term called‘core competence’ has been popularized by Hamel andPrahalad (1990). The two terms are distinct from eachother, yet, attempts have been made to relate them.While competence refers to the individual level of ana-lysis, core competence refers to the organizational levelof analysis. Core competencies are a company’s charac-teristic areas of expertise and consist of the synergy ofintellectual assets such as motivation, employee effort,technological and professional expertise, and methodsof collaboration and management processes that aredifficult for competitors to duplicate.

Godbout (2001) has integrated the two concepts ofindividual and core competence to develop the idea ofcompetency-based organization. According to him, corecompetencies are created through the logical and prac-tical linkages between the organization’s goals, struc-ture, and culture which transform into a series of man-agement concepts and business rules reflecting theexpertise of its employees and the degree to which theemployees’ know-how is appreciated by the manage-ment. This entails that skills and motivation of employ-ees are important factors in achieving a company’sobjectives. In short, according to Godbout, individualcompetence is a necessary condition to develop corecompetency.

Depth of Competence

Competency approaches fall loosely into two categories— those that essentially value the definition and mea-surement of competence as displayed in observablebehaviours (Cardona and Chinchilla, 1999), and thosethat essentially value the underlying characteristics thatlead to behavioural demonstration of a competence

(Boyatzis, 1982). The advantage of the first approach isthat it tends to make the assessment of competenciesrelatively easy and objective. However, the advantageof the second approach is that it allows us to delvebeyond conscious behaviours to unconscious levels ofcompetence at work such as motives (e.g., desire toachieve goals) and self-image (e.g., I am a forwardplanner).

Spencer and Spencer (1993) have proposed an ar-chitecture of individual competence that encompassesboth the approaches and define them as a series of layers,like an iceberg, where only the top layers are visible andobservable through behaviour (Figure 1).

The first layer of the iceberg competence structureis concerned with observable knowledge and skills thatrelate to tasks and work and that can be learned inprofessional and technical training courses. The secondlayer refers to non-job-specific skills that can be trans-ferred from one situation to another such as communi-cation and problem-solving skills. The third layer of theiceberg competence structure refers to values, stand-ards, and morals of the person and how they relate tothe social and political expectations of the organizationor the professional association. Finally, the fourth layercomprises of personal characteristics that are difficultto assess directly through behaviour such as pragma-tism, commitment to results, etc. Clearly, the ease ofassessing competencies through observable behavioursand criteria increases as one progresses to the upperlayers.

Degree of Competence

Boyatzis (1982) distinguished between threshold com-petency and differentiating competencies. Threshold


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competency refers to that minimum quality that a personneeds in order to do a job such as the ability to speakthe native language. Differentiating competencies referto those factors that distinguish superior from averageperformers. Most threshold competencies are consid-ered to be generic in nature in that they tend to applyto most managerial jobs whereas differentiating compe-tencies may be more organization-specific. For instance,time and again, the list of basic management competen-cies has included analysis, communication, creativity,decision-making, etc. However, a competency such asawareness of international ways of approaching busi-ness deals may be a critical factor determining job successand high performance in a particular global company(Lee and Beard, 1994).

Specificity of Competence

This debate concerns whether competencies are uniqueto a particular job or organization or whether they aregeneric. Most threshold competencies for managementare often treated as being generic rather than specific.In fact, competency models developed by HR consult-ants usually give us a plethora of generalized behaviour-al and attitudinal information about employees such astheir communication ability, leadership ability, andproblem-solving ability, to name a few. This is due tothe fact that managerial behaviours in all sectors ororganizations tend to be based on a triumvirate of in-terpersonal roles, informational roles, and decision-making roles (e.g., Mintzberg, 1973). However, morerecently, there have been suggestions (e.g., Turner andCrawford, 1994) that examining general managerialcompetencies may not be enough to differentiate be-tween average and high performance and that an exten-sion into assessing specific technical and functionalcompetencies may be required even for senior manage-ment levels in a technology-driven future.

A look at the recent developments in the automobilesector in a developing country like India demonstratesthis point. In order to survive, the Indian vehicle manu-facturers have had to upgrade products by replacingmanually operated product features with electronicallycontrolled ones. This change in product features hasresulted in a change in job specifications. An auto com-pany today requires maintenance and service engineerswho, in addition to being mechanical engineers, shouldalso have an understanding of certain aspects of elec-tronics and electrical engineering. At such times, an

audit of technical competencies possessed by the com-pany executives helps the HR department to re-deployand retrain employees according to business needs.

Further, if we take an instance of a product devel-opment executive whose job is to modify vehicle enginefeatures in keeping with more stringent pollution con-trol norms, no doubt, he would be required to be a goodleader, a communicator, and a manager. However, thesequalities, though necessary, are not sufficient by them-selves. This employee must also be a trained engineerwith, say, the skill to read engineering drawings andunderstand the petrol cycle as well as have knowledgespecific to the function — for example, understand termslike EURO II and EURO III. Such details are unfortu-nately not assessed in the standard available managerialcompetency models.

Therefore, organizations need to move beyondassessment of generic managerial competencies to morespecific technical competencies and adopt a holisticapproach to competency assessment as it applies to realjobs in the work place. Some organizations have alreadystarted doing this (for instance, see the technical com-petencies for software engineers in Philips DigitalNetworks – Product Services (DPS) within Royal PhilipsElectronics by Begeer and Banerjee, 2002). However,there is ample scope for research-based contributions inthis area. It is in this context that this paper attemptsto validate a model of techno-managerial competencies.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Company Profile and Sample

To validate our model of techno-managerial competen-cies, we gathered data from an assessment exerciseconducted on executives (N = 271) in one of India’slargest vehicle manufacturing companies. The companyis a leading player in the medium and heavy commercialvehicle segment in India with a market share of about33 per cent in 2000 and is a dominant market player inthe south of India. Executives who participated in theassessment exercise belonged to product development,corporate quality engineering, and manufacturing func-tions. Their grades ranged from 22 (just over entry level)to 27 (just below top management cadre), covering arange of total work experience from 3-25 years. Most ofthe participants had been inducted into the company astrainee engineers and had risen through the ranks tosenior levels.


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Box 1: An Item in the Analytical Section of the Test

In the question below is a given statement followed by two conclusionsnumbered I and II. You have to assume everything in the statementto be true and then decide which of the two given conclusionslogically follows beyond a reasonable doubt from the informationgiven in the statement.Give answer (1) if only conclusion I follows; give answer (2) if onlyconclusion II follows; give answer (3) if either I or II follows; giveanswer (4) if neither I nor II follows; and give answer (5) if bothI and II follow.Statement: Some four-wheelers are blue. Mahindra Bolero is

a four-wheeler.Conclusions: I. Mahindra Bolero is blue.

II. Mahindra Bolero is not blue.Answer: (1) (2) (3) (4) (5)Each correct answer carried one mark. There was no penalty forwrong answers.

1 Although it was difficult to calculate traditional measures of alpha reliabilityof some of these measures given the ‘live’ nature of the assignment, successiveuse of the same written test provided consistent results.

Method

Assessment exercises were conducted between the years2000 and 2002 as a part of the company’s larger effortsto gear itself up to the threat of increased competitionfrom other players as well as to cope with changesresulting from the enforcement of stringent pollutioncontrol norms in the country. The assessment was con-ducted by a team of experts in human resource manage-ment and automobile engineering drawn from academiaalong with senior company executives. Since the com-pany in question was treating the assessment as adevelopmental tool rather than an appraisal tool, thefollowing four elements generally considered to be crucialfor an effective development centre (Lee and Beard,1994) were made an integral part of the entire exercise:• setting up of an appropriate criteria (competencies)

against which to measure participants• selection of instruments (interviews, exercises, and

tests) that accurately measure the appropriate cri-teria

• identification of skilled assessors who can recognizeeffective performance as defined by the appropriatecriteria

• provision of feedback of the assessment data inorder to improve individual and organizational per-formance.Accordingly, the team began by conducting focus

group discussions and interviews with senior manage-ment to identify competencies that were relevant forsuperior performance particularly given the futurebusiness goals of the company. This resulted in a set of24 items that were broadly clubbed into managerial (11items) and technical (13 items) competencies (Exhibit 1).

Once the competencies had been identified, topmanagers were asked to assign suitable weights to themusing a paired ranking technique to indicate the relativeimportance of the particular criterion to successfulperformance.

Measures

The next stage in the assessment involved the selectionof instruments and measures for the identified criteria.A combination of techniques including written tests,leaderless group discussions around a case analysis, andin-depth interviews was used for the final assessment.The measures that were used for each of the listedcompetencies are discussed below in brief.

Analytical ability, creativity, and risk-taking were

assessed using a written test that was specially designedfor the purpose. Items for assessing analytical abilitywere adapted from standard books and tests on IQ (Alder,2002; Barrett, 2000) in the context of an automobileengineering company. Numerical reasoning, verbalreasoning, visual-spatial reasoning, and logical reason-ing were tested (Box 1 gives an example).

Items to test creativity were adapted from booksand websites on creativity and visual puzzles (DiSpezio,1998) keeping in mind the context of the company andthe automobile sector. Both divergent and convergentforms of creativity were examined based on techniquessuch as lateral thinking, assumption smashing and askingquestions, attribute listing, and analogy. Since someitems on the creativity tests had open-ended answers,initially, two raters, one from the company and the otherfrom the external expert team, assessed these itemsseparately and compared responses. Only when a suf-ficiently high degree of consistency in evaluation by theassessors was established was the rest of the evaluationof the creativity test completed. Each response in thetest carried one mark. A high score indicated a highercreative potential (Box 2 gives an example).

Risk-taking was assessed using an adapted andabridged version of Kogan and Wallach’s (1964) mea-sure of risk-taking behaviour cited in Robbins (2001).1

Situations were placed before the participants who wereasked to indicate the minimum odds of success theywould demand before recommending one alternativeover another by placing themselves in the position ofadvisor to the central person in each of the situations.


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Box 2: An Item from the Creativity Test

(A) (B) (C)

(D) (E) (F)

Find three things that you can do by combining objects (A) and(F) above. Look for applications which use the properties of bothobjects and which could not be done (or would be very difficult)if you had only one of the objects.

Box 3: An Item from the Risk-taking Measure

Mr. L, a 30-year old research physicist has been given a five-yearappointment by a major university laboratory. As he contemplatesthe next five years, he sees himself working on a difficult, long-term problem. If a solution could be found, it would resolve basicscientific issues in the field and bring high scientific honours. Ifno solution was found, however, Mr. L would have little to showfor the five years in the laboratory and it would be hard for himto get a good job afterwards. On the contrary, as most of hisprofessional associates are doing, he could work on a series ofshort-term problems for which solutions would be easier to findbut they are of lesser scientific importance.

Imagine that you are advising Mr. L. Listed below are severalprobabilities or odds that a solution will be found to the difficultlong-term problem that Mr. L has in mind. Check the lowest probabilitythat you would consider acceptable to make it worthwhile for Mr.L to work on the more difficult long-term problem._____ The chances are 1 in 10 that Mr. L will solve the long-

term problem_____ The chances are 3 in 10 that Mr. L. will solve the long-

term problem_____ The chances are 5 in 10 that. Mr. L. will solve the long-



term problem_____ Place a check here if you think that Mr. L should not choose

the long-term difficult problem no matter what the proba-bilities are.

Each alternative scored a few points with more riskyalternatives scoring fewer points than less risky alter-natives. Overall, the lower the score, the greater the risk-taking orientation of the participant (Box 3 gives anexample).

Other than the written tests, participants wereassessed through a group problem-solving exercisearound a case analysis. Some of the cases were devel-oped based on actual problems faced by the company.

The participant groups were given 20 minutes to readthe case and 45 minutes for the discussion. They werefree to decide among themselves the best modalities forarriving at a solution — whether they should appointa leader or split up the task into smaller sub-tasks, etc.A panel of technical and behavioural experts observedthem without intervening. Through this exercise, tech-nical competencies such as problem definition, problemanalysis and choice definition, choice evaluation andsolution, creativity and originality, technical leadershipability, and behavioural competencies such as commu-nication ability, team working ability, and people man-agement ability were assessed. Scoring was done on ascale of 1 to 10 with 1 indicating a poor score and 10indicating a good score.

The final stage in the assessment exercise was anin-depth interview lasting between 30 and 45 minuteswith the panel of behavioural and technical experts.During the interview, questions were asked to assess theremaining competencies. Answers were rated on a scaleof 1 to 10 with 1 indicating a poor score and 10 indicatinga good score. Exhibit 2 indicates a sample of questionsthat were asked to assess each of the remaining com-petencies.

ANALYSIS

As the panel of assessors did not remain constant overthe two-year period during which the exercise wasconducted panel-bias free, normalized scores of candi-dates were computed and used for analysis. Completedata were available for 271 executives who formed thefinal data set for analysis. Descriptive statistics of thecompetencies is given in Exhibit 3.

Based on discussions with senior executives, it wasexpected that the competency model for the companywould comprise of two broad set of competencies —technical and behavioural/managerial competencies. Anexploratory factor analysis (EFA) was conducted to testthis notion and explore the clusters of competencies thatemerged from the data. EFA gave five factors in placeof a neat two-factor model of competencies. The resultsof EFA are given in Exhibit 4. The factors includedtechnical skills, group problem-solving skills, manage-rial skills, aptitude, and risk-taking ability. These factorstogether explained about 80 per cent of the total variancewith the first three factors alone explaining 70 per centof the variance.

Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) using AMOS 4.0was further conducted to test for a two-factor model of


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techno-managerial competencies as had been expectedas well as a five-factor model of competencies as hademerged in the EFA. After several attempts at model-fitting, the best-fit model that emerged was a four-factormodel of competencies comprising of technical skills,group problem-solving skills, managerial skills, andaptitude. In this model, risk-taking as a factor wasincluded in the factor labelled aptitude since it contrib-uted only 4 per cent to the total variance in the EFA.Following the recommendation of Bollen (1989), multi-ple indexes of fit were examined to interpret the resultsof CFA. These included chi-square, root mean squareerror (RMSEA), normed fit index (NFI), and comparativefit index (CFI). The CFA showed a good fit for the four-factor model, χ 2 (246, N = 324) = 1514.12, p < 0.001,RMSEA = 0.13, NFI = 0.93, CFI = 0.93. Factor loadingsof all items were satisfactory and above 0.50, except forrisk-taking, which was –0.03, suggesting that it wouldperhaps be more suitable to consider dropping this itemfrom the model altogether in future studies.

The final model of competencies that emerged fromthe study, therefore, consisted of the following fourfactors:Technical skills — comprising of knowledge fundamen-tals, application and judgement, engineering drawingappreciation, regulatory test requirements, manufactur-ability appreciation, test and validation requirements,materials choice appreciation, and knowledge of emerg-ing trends.Group problem-solving skills — comprising of problemdefinition ability, problem analysis and choice determi-nation ability, choice evaluation and solution generationability, creativity and originality, technical leadershipability, communication ability, team working ability,and people management skills.Managerial skills — comprising of perseverance, questfor learning, visualization, business understanding, andattention to detail.Aptitude — comprising of analytical ability, creativity,and risk-taking orientation.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

This paper tested a model of techno-managerial compe-tencies based on data gathered from over 250 executives

in one of India’s largest vehicle manufacturing compa-nies during a consulting assessment exercise conductedwithin the company. A total of 24 competency itemswere identified based on discussions with senior man-agers in the company, 13 of which were technical innature and 11 were managerial. A panel of experts usinga combination of written test, group discussion, and in-depth interview conducted the assessment of executiveson the listed competencies.

Exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factoranalysis were conducted on the 24 competency items.It was expected that the items would load on two di-mensions — technical and managerial. However, EFAand CFA confirmed instead a four-factor model of com-petencies comprising of technical skills, group problem-solving skills, managerial skills, and aptitude.

The results of the study, therefore, supported thebasic premise of a model of competencies that extendedbeyond managerial competencies to include technicalcompetencies. However, two additional dimensions ofgroup problem-solving skills and aptitude came up inthe model. In a sense, these additional dimensions arenot surprising. Much of the work in an automobilemanufacturing company, especially the work associatedwith new product development and quality, is done inteams. Similarly, the importance of aptitude comprisingof analytical ability and creativity to effective perform-ance of a manager has been supported time and againthrough various other competency models. The prob-lematic item was risk-taking that did not load well onthe factor of aptitude. Perhaps, this item was not relevantfor this particular company as it had a largely conserva-tive culture or perhaps a better measure of risk-takingis required. Future research should attempt to rectifythis problem.

Further, since the company was using assessmentas a developmental rather than an appraisal tool, it hadconsciously sought to de-link assessment from the pastjob performance. As a result, it was not possible tocorrelate the dimensions from the four-factor model thatemerged in the study to job performance. Perhaps, futureresearchers could use this model for automobile sectorcompanies and relate it to job performance to test itsconcurrent and predictive validity.


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Exhibit 1: List of Managerial and Technical Competencies

Managerial Competencies Technical Competencies

Analytical ability (AN) Knowledge of fundamentals (of automobile engineering) (KF)

Creativity (CR) Application and judgement (of automobile engineering principles) (AJ)

Risk-taking orientation (RT) Engineering drawing appreciation (EDA)

Perseverance (PERS) Regulatory test requirements (RTR)

Quest for learning (QFL) Materials choice appreciation (MCA)

Attention to detail (ATTN) Test and validation requirements (TVR)

Visualization (VIZ) Manufacturability appreciation (MA)

Business understanding (BU) Knowledge of emerging trends (in automobile engineering) (ET)

Communication ability (COM) Problem definition (PD)

People management skills (PM) Problem analysis and choice determination (PACD)

Team work skills (TW) Choice evaluation and solution (CES)

Creativity and originality (CO)

Technical leadership ability (TLA)

Exhibit 2: Sample Questions for Assessing Managerial and Technical Competencies

Managerial Competencies Sample Questions

Perseverance Can you talk about some technical problem / design that you have solved or are currently involvedin solving at work?

What are the barriers and obstacles (both technical and non-technical) that you faced whileattempting to solve the problem?

How long did you commit yourself to solving the problem?

Quest for learning What technical magazines/journals do you read?

Have you made any further additions to your qualifications in the last few years? What new skillshave you picked up in the last year?

Attention to detail What is the total number of vehicle models that your company manufactures?

(This competency was also assessed based on the detail to which responses were given to technicalquestions)

Visualization If a vehicle were to be made more accessible for a handicapped person, what broad changesin design features would you expect to make?

Business understanding What do you think will be the implications of the government announced ‘Golden Quadrilateral’project for your company’s sales?

Technical Competencies Sample Questions

Knowledge of fundamentals What are the different kinds of gears? What are the different kinds of welds?

Application and judgement Why do you put a vehicle in the first gear while climbing up a slope?

Engineering drawing appreciation (Actual engineering drawings from the company were used to ask questions to the candidates)

What is the difference between first angle and third angle drawing?

Regulatory test requirements What is the meaning of EURO III? What are some of the safety regulations pertaining to vehicletyres?

Materials choice appreciation What is the exact composition of the metal used for the body of a truck? Can the radiator bemade of brass? Why or why not?

Manufacturability appreciation What are the advantages and disadvantages of using fibreglass for the body of a vehicle? Whatimplication does this material have for welding?

Emerging trends What are some of the emerging trends in the choice of materials for vehicle bodies?


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Exhibit 3: Descriptive Statistics of the Competencies

KF AJ EDA RTR MCA TVR MA ET PD PACD CES CO TLA AN CR RT PERSQFL ATTN VIZ BU TW PM COMM

KF 1AJ .84a 1EDA .78a .76a 1RTR .79a .84a .74a 1MCA .77a .78a .71a .81a 1TVR .77a .81a .67a .84a .84a 1MA .74a .72a .73a .77a .80a .78a 1ET .79a .72a .70a .76a .72a .76a .78a 1PD .56a .53a .60a .57a .58a .55a .62a .60a 1PACD .54a .53a .55a .56a .53a .54a .54a .60a .88a 1CES .49a .44a .46a .48a .45a .46a .44a .56a .72a .86a 1CO .60a .52a .63a .56a .58a .53a .60a .61a .88a .84a .70a 1TLA .60a .57a .60a .60a .56a .55a .60a .60a .88a .87a .76a .86a 1AN .22a .22a .12b .17a .19a .15a .19a .18a .13b .10 .16a .11 .13b 1CR .28a .29a .27a .29a .32a .28a .28a .28a .23a .18a .16a .20a .22a .43a 1RT -.15b -.04 -.12 -.06 -.09 -.09 -.08 -.21a -.19a -.24a -.29a -.25a -.21a .05 -.03 1PERS .39a .34a .29a .32a .32a .36a .29a .37a .22a .30a .31a .24a .28a .14b .16a -.15b 1QFL .43a .32a .32a .31a .33a .37a .30a .43a .24a .29a .28a .28a .30a .18a .16a -.14b .74a 1ATTN .53a .46a .43a .40a .44a .45a .39a .52a .31a .32a .31a .36a .36a .17a .20a -.22a .70a .74a 1VIZ .44a .38a .37a .34a .38a .39a .39a .46a .31a .35a .31a .36a .37a .18a .18a -.15b .75a .73a .78a 1BU .44a .38a .39a .32a .38a .37a .35a .46a .30a .30a .29a .32a .33a .25a .31a -.08 .56a .56a .63a .70a 1TW .50a .43a .43a .45a .41a .41a .44a .52a .59a .64a .66a .56a .63a .15b .16a -.19a .47a .44a .51a .54a .49a 1PM .48a .41a .45a .45a .39a .39a .45a .50a .60a .66a .67a .60a .66a .19a .17a -.14b .45a .42a .46a .50a .48a .93a 1COMM .51a .48a .45a .47a .46a .46a .47a .52a .57a .62a .61a .56a .60a .22a .23a -.11 .49a .47a .53a .56a .53a .91a .88a 1

MEAN 47.9 53.5 46.6 52.1 47.2 52.3 47.3 43.5 38.2 43.4 46.4 33.3 34.0 37.7 35.3 41.6 41.0 36.0 40.4 39.3 35.4 41.5 35.2 47.6S.D. 18.8 18.6 19.2 17.7 18.5 17.8 18.4 21.4 21.0 20.6 21.1 20.6 22.8 12.9 19.0 20.8 17.3 18.7 20.1 18.7 16.9 17.0 17.8 15.6

a = Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).b = Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed).List-wise valid N = 271.

Exhibit 4: Results of Exploratory Factor Analysis on the List of Competencies

Rotated Component Matrix a

1 2 3 4 5

RTR 0.863TVR 0.857MCA 0.851AJ 0.851MA 0.815KF 0.807EDA 0.777ET 0.747PACD 0.828CES 0.803PM 0.796TLA 0.779TW 0.770PD 0.770CO 0.737COMM 0.710VIZ 0.855PERS 0.842QFL 0.835ATTN 0.823BU 0.703AN 0.832CR 0.804RT 0.874

Extraction method: Principal component analysis.Rotaton method: Varimax with Kaiser normalization.a Rotation converged in eight iterations.


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to Competence Management through Metrics in anInnovative Organization,” available at http://fetew.rug.ac.be/ManEco/AHeene/ALGEMEEN_BEHEER/p r e s e n t a t i e s / C o m p e t e n c e m g m t _ m e t r i c s _ I E E Epaper_final.pdf, viewed on 4/10/03.

Godbout, A (2001). “Managing Core Competencies: TheImpact of Knowledge Management on Human Resour-ces Practices in Leading Edge Organizations,” availableat http://www.scoap.com/ki/articles/godbout/godbout05.htm, viewed on 2/4/01.

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Ujvala Rajadhyaksha is currently a Fellow at the Centre forWomen’s Intercultural Leadership (CWIL) and Visiting Professorin the Faculty of Business Administration and Economics atSt. Mary’s College, Notre Dame, Indiana, USA. She also servesas Associate Professor at Shailesh J. Mehta School ofManagement, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (on

leave) where she teaches courses in organizational behaviour,organization theory, communication skills, and human resourcemanagement. She has published in national and internationaljournals such as Human Relations, Sex Roles, Vikalpa, andEconomic and Political Weekly.e-mail: [email protected]

I learned ... that inspiration does not come like a bolt,nor is it kinetic, energetic striving, but it comes into usslowly and quietly and all the time, though we mustregularly and every day give it a little chance to startflowing, prime it with a little solitude and idleness.

Brenda Ueland


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