Perspectives on organisational knowledge and competencies

This paper is aimed at contributing to the analysis of the nonformal and often hidden aspects of competencies and, at the same time, of the conditions allowing their emergence in organisations. The guiding research questions are: What is the real meaning of competence when the analysis focus is not on performances or work tasks as such but on knowledge dynamics underlying work activities? When considering the crucial role of tacit knowledge, which are, in the very end, the relationships between organisational knowledge and competencies? What kind of joint trajectories could be fostered both for individual competencies and for knowledge creation and development in organisational systems? Traditional views of competencies are in many ways linked to static images of work and tend to remove their essence, that is, the inextricable connection with the contexts that generate them and make them productive. In other terms traditional views cannot interpret the interrelations between the personal knowledge of organisations' members and organisational knowledge. The how and why competencies are 'contextual', that is, acquired in a specific context and contributing to the development of the context itself remain unexplained. The paper tried to assemble some theoretical considerations at this regard in order to contribute to the overcoming of such deficiency, and to reduce the distance between theories of organisation (by definition interested in contexts) and theories of work.

This paper is aimed at contributing to the analysis of the nonformal and often hidden aspects of competencies and, at the same time, of the conditions allowing their emergence in organisations. The guiding research questions are: What is the real meaning of competence when the analysis focus is not on performances or work tasks as such but on knowledge dynamics underlying work activities? When considering the crucial role of tacit knowledge, which are, in the very end, the relationships between organisational knowledge and competencies? What kind of joint trajectories could be fostered ...  [+] Show more