Search results

This paper is based on research undertaken during a management training project in a company within the Australian petrochemical industry. The company selected a competency based model, the Diploma in Frontline Management, as a way of improving their first line leaders. This paper argues that competencies, by themselves, are a fool's learning paradise that do not have any real impact in the workplace. To be effective, competencies need to be appropriated and moulded to suit both the needs of individual workers, their managers and the broader organisation. This appropriation and moulding process can be highly contested but through this process new organisational knowledge is created. There is also a need for learning partnerships to be formed in the workplace, which, in companies that are subjected to intense competition, can be difficult to achieve. Finally, the paper concludes that workplace learning can assume strategic characteristics when new workplace knowledge is created in the context of a learning partnership.