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Competence development in the workplace: concepts, strategies and effects

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Abstract

In spite of the expectations that exist regarding efforts to develop competence and in spite of the large amounts of resources devoted to it, there is a marked lack of empirically-based research on competence development in companies and other organizations. The purpose of this article is to present a review of research on strategies for competence development in organizations, their prerequisites and effects. More specifically, the following three questions will be addressed: (i) Why do organizations invest in competence development? (ii) What effects can realistically be achieved through competence development? (iii) What characterizes successful strategies for competence development in organizations? Before these questions are dealt with, different views of the meaning of the concepts of competence and competence development are presented and discussed.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. HELIX VINN Excellence Centre, Linköping University, SE-581 83, Linköping, Sweden

    Per-Erik Eilström

  2. HELIX Graduate School, Linköping University, SE-581 83, Linköping, Sweden

    Henrik Kock

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  1. Per-Erik Eilström
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  2. Henrik Kock
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Correspondence to Per-Erik Eilström.

Additional information

This study was supported by grants from the Swedish Governmental Agency for Innovation Systems.

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Eilström, PE., Kock, H. Competence development in the workplace: concepts, strategies and effects. Asia Pacific Educ. Rev. 9, 5–20 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03025821

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03025821

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