American and British Approaches to Competencies
Identify and assess the differences between the American and British approaches to competencies.
Compare these approaches to those in your own country or in a culture with which you are familiar.
The following conditions must meet in the paper
1) I want a typical and a quality answer which should have about 1400 words.
2) The answer must raise appropriate critical questions.
3) The answer must include examples from experience or the web with references from relevant
examples from real companies.
4) Do include all your references, as per the Harvard Referencing System,
AMERICAN AND BRITISH APPROACHES TO COMPETENCIES 2
American and British Approaches to Competencies
Competences are characteristics of individuals that are the basic building blocks of
behavior or performance at work. Values, Work Style, Knowledge abilities, attitudes and
personality are the job performances. Competencies are valuable and significant to succession
planning, staffing, career counseling, training, development and team building. Competencies
are problematic to implement and utilize in the work place. The idea that the components of
effective performance can be individually identified and isolated is one that has many cynics.
Acceptance of this idea would also mean accepting that employees must exhibit a set of
particular competencies (Burgoyne, 1989: Collin, 1989; Jubb & Robotham, 1997).
A majority of frameworks from which competency is bases are not dynamic. They are
mechanistic, static and seek to prescribe a specific list of desirable competencies. By missing the
opportunity to incorporate flexibility and openness to change, the frameworks do not give the
due value of non-task specific competencies. To try and mitigate this, one must adopt an even
wider point of view while understanding the competencies in three levels:
General working competencies, which she defines as competencies required for
different working situations and at different periods (Kuijpers, 2001).
AMERICAN AND BRITISH APPROACHES TO COMPETENCIES 3
Learning competencies, which consists of a bundle of competencies which
facilitate the development of working competencies (Kuijpers, 2001).
Career related competencies, which are defined to manage working and learning
competencies within a personal career path (Kuijpers, 2001).
Despite these challenges, competencies do not discriminate between management and
lower level employees. They are able to meet the needs of employees irrespective of their status
differences. When competencies are harnessed, they are able to assist organization increase
productivity, conduct trainings that augment the organizations objectives, employees attain the
knowledge of expectations, advance work performance and assist build the trust between
managers and employees.
It is important to point out that the different approached between the American and
British approach to competencies is not because of philosophical divergence but rather due to
cultural societal differences – each takes a unique approach. The initial difference is in the
behavioral approach. Whereas the one focuses on the input that enhances the successful
performance achievement, the other focuses on the outcome of competencies. The United
Kingdom and some socialist countries aggressively seek out people with handicapped people and
offer them empowerment. This is considered as the standard approach (Orstenk, 1997; Oliveara-
Rees, 1994).
The contrary is where individuals are encouraged to prove their competencies. For the
organization, it focuses on the outcome with the employee contributing the most being highly
appreciated. Most multinational organizations will hire a work force with all manner of
AMERICAN AND BRITISH APPROACHES TO COMPETENCIES 4
competencies and cultures. With this work force, the organization wills endeavor to develop
them through training and incentives for outcomes.
Differences in Definition of Competencies: British versus the America Approach
Basis for Difference American Approach British Approach
Purpose Development of competencies
to enhance performance
Certification and Assessment
of Employees
Focus Focus on individual behavior
and attributes
Focus on Job/individual
characteristics and skill
accumulation
Procedure to Develop Produce descriptions of
excellent behavior and
attributes to define standards
Produce performance
standards for job function and
professions
Role of Organizational
Context
Contest defines the behavior
and traits required
Context is not as significant as
professional area and specific
job functions
Conceptualization of
Work/Individual
Greater emphasis on the
individual rather that specific
tasks
The characteristics of the
work are the point of
departure.
Methodological Approach Rationalistic and positivistic More multi-method and
quantitative
AMERICAN AND BRITISH APPROACHES TO COMPETENCIES 5
Scope Competencies are specific to
organizations
Competencies are specific to
professions and job functions
Measurement Quantitative measurement and
identification of a correlation
between possession of
attributes and work
performance
Documentation of evidence of
work activities and experience
denotes evidence of
competency
Role of Assessor Assessment of performance by
job supervisors and job
incumbent
Formally assessed by external
assessor to determine level
Perspective of Learning
Advocated
Cognitive perspective of
learning
Constructive perspective of
learning
Generally, Americans view competencies as individual. The focus is on the skill set and
knowledge to best undertake a particular role or job. On their part, the British take a broader
focus. It views competencies as encompassing the attributes of employees in addition to the
whole plethora of personal effectiveness issues and guidelines necessary to get a job done. The
Americans view and define competences in line with the worker. The worker oriented
definitions view competencies as those generated by worker behavior, and clearly specify the
qualities and skill the requisite person for the job must have. These competencies will more
often than not be generic, making every effort to illustrate as concisely as possible the behaviors
AMERICAN AND BRITISH APPROACHES TO COMPETENCIES 6
that high performers could possible display, even if in different proportions and according to
level, function or context.
The British view competencies as standards for job functions and professions, while
Americans seek out their excellent performers and from this develop tests to examine the
relevant competencies. Despite the difference, both the American and the British view
competencies as being individual not group or community. The Europeans have borrowed
heavily from the British. In mainland Europe, competencies are visualized mentally in terms of
individual capacity to perform within a profession or function. With this, the spotlight will thus
be on the certification or qualification they receive. Qualifications are viewed as representing an
official certification of knowledge, skill and attitude.
The British and by extension the Europeans view competencies from a predominantly
input-based, worker-oriented approach, with the focus on person-related variables that each
individual brings to an assignment. To them, competencies in addition to being output-based or
work-oriented take into account the outputs connected with effective performance. Though the
British and the Europeans view competencies from a similar view, the British focus is more on
organizations and the performance requirements of the specific job position as opposed to the
individual holding the job. The Europeans on their part advocate a work-oriented approach with
organizations uncompromisingly pursuing indicators that will show conformance. The
indicators the organization will be glad to experience since they indicate achievement are
enterprise, adaptability and flexibility.
The British – by extension the European view on competence is assumed that to have the
all the underlying characteristics. Research has shown that the American and British approaches
AMERICAN AND BRITISH APPROACHES TO COMPETENCIES 7
diverge at the point of their pedagogical perspective and on the assumptions about the learning
process. For the Americans, the emphasis is squarely on a cognitive perspective of learning.
The British and by extension the Europeans place the greatest emphasis on constructivist view of
learning. Both approaches offer alternative explanations of the context of competencies, their
interaction with work and their measurement. Cognitive approaches place a lot of emphasis on
objective measurement whereas constructivist approaches give emphasis to the subjective and
motivational dimensions of competency.
Despite the vagueness that surrounds the definition of competencies, the discourse on this
topic has been tremendous. Whereas one would expect the indistinctness to hinder discourse, it
has been posited that the strength of the concepts could be in their underlying complexity,
working towards incorporating labor and educational organizations, external and internal
organization gurus and employees, and management interests concurrently.
Research has shown that assessment and identification of competencies is a controversial
issues. Different methods of assessment focus on specific approaches. Work-oriented approach
advocates methods such as job element method. Worker-oriented approach advocates personal
profiling. On their part, multidimensional approaches do not advocate any particular method but
instead suggest the use of multiple methods. The critical incident method asks employees of
high and average performance to describe critical situations that have occurred at work and how
they reacted to these situations (New, 1996; Thomson & Mabey, 1994). The job function
method is used to identify the task functions which are used to infer the knowledge and skills for
job performance (Spencer & Signe, 1993; McClelland, 1973).
AMERICAN AND BRITISH APPROACHES TO COMPETENCIES 8
In conclusion, it is evident that competence models do not consider the development of
competence in terms of any set programme of learning. The focus is not on the training of the
employee but on the capability to do what is required by the function, role, profession, or job.
Given the lack of a clear and coherent definition, the US approach identifies itself with an input,
worker-oriented model. The UK model focuses more on an output, worker-oriented model. A
third school exists that calls for a multidimensional approach.
AMERICAN AND BRITISH APPROACHES TO COMPETENCIES 9
References
Burgoyne, J. (1989): “Creating the Management Portfolio: Building on Competency Approaches
to Management Development”, Management Education & Development, Vol. 20, No. 1,
p. 56 – 61.
Collin, A. (1989): “Managers’ Competence: Rhetoric, Reality & Research”, Personnel Review,
Vol. 28, No. 6, p. 20 – 25.
Jubb, R. & Robotham D. (1997): “Competences in Management Development: Challenging the
Myths”, Journal of European Industrial Training, Vol. 2 1, No. 4-5, p. 171 – 177.
Kuijpers, M. (2000): “Career Development Competencies”, Proceedings of the Second
Conference of HRD Research & Practice Across Europe, 309 – 314. University of
Twente.
McClelland, D.C. (1973): “ Testing for Competence, rather than Intelligence”, American
Psychologist, Vol. 28, p. 1 – 14.
Oliveara-Rees, F. (1994): “Qualification versus Competence: A Discussion on the Meaning of
Words: A Change in Concepts of a Political Issue”, Beroepsopleiding, Vol. 1, p. 74 – 79.
Orstenk, J. (1997): Learning to Learn at Work, Delft: Eburon. New, G.E. (1996): “Reflections: A
three-tier model of organisational competencies”, Journal of Managerial Psychology,
Vol. 11, No. 8, p. 44 – 52.
Spencer, L.M. & Spencer, S. (1993): Competence at Work: Models for Superior Performance,
New York: Wiley.
Thomson, R. & Mabey, C. (1994): Developing Human Resources, Oxford: Butterworth –
Heinemann
