Developing Competency Model for Middle Managers

in Medium-sized Manufacturing Sector

WANG Li WANG Hongmei
School of Economics and Management Beijing Jiaotong University, P.R.China, 100044

Abstract. Middle managers play a very important role in organizations. Competency-based employee
development process was verified to be an effective way to facilitate performance improvement .The
article is to introduce authors’ exploration in developing competency model for middle manager in
medium-sized manufacturing sector.
Key words Competency Model, Manufacturing sector, Human Resource Management, BEI

1 Introduction

China has already been to be the fourth biggest manufacturing industry country following
American, German & Japan, but China is not the strongest ones. More and more Chinese manufacturing
industries have become to realize that employees whether entry-level employees, supervisors, middle
managers or corporate executives are the main resources of the organization in acquiring competitive
advantage in such a fest competitive enviorment. The demand for effective people has continuously
increased among these organizations. Human resource management (HRM) has become a very
prominent activity within them. All these organizations explore many ways to recruit, select, train &
develop their staff to facilitate performance improvement. Competency-based employee development
process was verified to be an effective one.
The Competency-based approach is a technique that has become integral to human resource
management during the last thirty years. Competence encompasses knowledge, skills, abilities, traits,
and behavior that allow an individual to perform a task within a specific function or job. Middle
managers play a very important role in organizations. Nowadays, widespread interest in competencies
model of performers occur in both the academic & practice field in China but little empirical study had
been done, not to mention developing competency model for middle managers through research-based
approach. This paper explores the competency modeling for middle managers in medium-sized
manufacturing sector.

2 Competency and Competency Model

2.1 Origin & Development of Competency

The term competency is not new. According to Webster’s Dictionary, its roots go back to 1596.
However, in the past decades the influence of the concept of competency has been increased
substantially due to two distinguished competency movements, one in business field and the other in
education. Since this article is concerning the using of competency in HRM, we will only discuss the
former one. At the same time, the word “competency” is often alternatively used as “competence” in
both literatures and applications, some authors argued that there are differences between these two
words while most authors agree that these two words has the same meaning. We prefer to the later ones.
Thus the word “competency” and “competence” will be used interchangeably in this paper.
The first appearance of competency in business field can be tracked back to Taylor, the father of
modern management when he employed time-and-motion studies to estimate productivity.
In 1973, David McClelland, a Harvard University psychologist published ”Testing for Competence
Rather Than for Intelligence” in American Psychologist to pioneer the competency testing alternative to
the intelligence testing in predicting job performance. According to his own study with U.S. State
Department Foreign Service Information Officers and other researches, he argued that the best predictor

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of what persons can and will do in present and future situations is what they have actually done in
similar past situations, not the intelligence or degree of knowledge and skill. He presented five major
themes: (a) Grades in school did not predict occupational success, (b) intelligence tests and aptitude tests
did not predict occupational success or other important life outcomes, (c) tests and academic
performance only predicted job performance because of an underlying relationship with social status, (d)
such tests were unfair to minorities, and (e) “competencies” would be better able to predict important
behaviors than would more traditional tests. This article profoundly affected both the field of
psychology and popular opinion and was regarded as a key point of development of the competency
movement.
In 1982, Richard E.Boyatzis, David McClelland’s partner at Hay-McBer company published “The
Competent Manager: A Model for Effective Performance” making the competency profiling a popular
HRD tool in American, Briton, Canada and Japan, etc.
In 1993, an other influential work “Competence At Work: Models for Superior Performance” by
Lyle.M.Spencer & Signe M.Spencer summarized 20 years of research using the McClelland
methodology. The book included 286 studies of entrepreneurial, technical and professional, sales,
human service, and managerial jobs from industry, government, military, health care, education and
religious organizations.
Due to the increasing popularity of the term competency, it is necessary to develop a widely
accepted definition. Defining competency fully is not a simple work. Although there have been some
attempts, McClelland’s classic opinion is a reference point that can be used in evaluating competence
approaches. According to him, a competency is an underlying characteristic of an individual that is
causally related to criterion-reference effective and/or superior performance in a job or situation.
Underlying characteristic means the competency is a fairly deep and enduring part of a person’s
personality and can predict behavior in a wide variety of situations and job tasks. Causally related means
that a competency causes or predicts behavior and performance. Criterion-reference means that the
competency actually predicts who does something well or poorly, as measured on a specific criterion or
standard. Examples of criteria are the dollar volume of sales for salespeople or the number of clients
who stay “day” for alcohol-abuse counselors.
Spencer and Spencer (1993) identified five types of competency characteristics consisting of
motives, traits, self-concept, knowledge, and skill. Motives are the things a person consistently thinks
about or wants that stimulate action. Motives drive, direct, and select behavior toward certain actions or
goals and away from others. Traits are physical characteristics and consistent responses to situations or
information. Self-concept is a person’s attitudes, values, or self-image. Knowledge is information a
person has in specific content areas and skill is the ability to perform a certain physical or mental task.
Knowledge and skill competencies tended to be visible and relatively surface characteristics of people
whereas self-concept, trait, and motive competencies were more hidden, deeper, and central to
personality. Figure 1 illustrates central and surface competencies stated by Spencer & Spencer (1993).

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 The Iceberg Model

Skill

Self-Concept

Trait,
Visible Skill Motive
Knowledge

Attitudes,
Values
Hidden Self-Concept
Trait Knowledge
Motive
Surface: Core Personality:
Most easily Most difficult to
developed develop

Figure 1: The Iceberg Model and Central and Surface Competencies

Source: Spencer and Spencer (1993: 11)
As stated in this figure, surface knowledge and skill competencies were relatively easy to develop;
and training was the most cost-effective way to secure those employee abilities. Core motive and trait
competencies at the base of the personality iceberg are more difficult to assess and develop; it is most
cost-effective to select for these characteristics. Self-concept competencies lie somewhere in between.
Attitudes and values such as self-confidence can be changed by training, psychotherapy, and/or positive
developmental experiences, albeit with more time and difficulty.

2.2 Data Collection Methods Used in Competency Modeling

A competency profile is generally composed of five to ten competencies but can include as many or
as few as are required to accurately reflect performance variations in the position.
Competency profile development can be handled in a number of ways, the three major approaches
organizations used to collect data for competency profiles are a research-based approach, a
strategy-based approach and a value-based approach. Since this study is based on McClelland’s theory,
We will address only the research-based approach in details in the following section.

2.3 The BEI in Developing Competency Model

Competency Modeling is the heart of competency-based employee development. It consists of a
systematic process for identifying key competencies for various positions, and differentiating high level
performance from average and low levels of performance. As we stated before, there are many
techniques to develop competency model and among them the Behavior Event Interview (BEI) is one of
the most effective one.
In this classic and perhaps most methodologically rigorous approach to competency development,
popularized by McClelland and his Hay/McBer consulting practices, executives are nominated who are
perceived to be top performers. Then, they will be asked to describe some critical events in their past
one and a half year’s management activities. This interview method is called Behavior Event Interview

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(BEI), which combines Flanagan’s Critical Incident Method (Flanagan, 1954; elaborated by Dailey,
1971, and Boyatzis, 1982) with the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) (e.g., McClelland, 1989).
The BEI is used to discover differences between persons who have been nominated by knowledgeable
judges as outstanding and those who have been nominated as typical (i.e., average). The underlying
assumption is that people have less difficulty with deciding who is competent than what makes them
competent (McClelland, 1998). According to Boyatzis (1982), using the BEI to develop competency
model consists of five steps. The first step involves determining the appropriate measure of job
performance and how it is to be assessed. We can call it the identification of criterion measure. The
second step involves job element analysis, which was developed from concepts of job analysis. The
third step involves the form of behavioral event interviews. The fourth step involves identification and
administration of tests and measures that are chosen to assess various competencies and the fifth step
involves integration of the results of steps two through four. The result of this activity is a model of job
competency based on various characteristics assessed through various methods of measurement.

3 Developing Competency Model for Middle Managers in Medium-sized

Manufacturing Sector

This study applied the process of competency study as stated by Boyatzis (1982), Spencer and
Spencer (1993) and SHI Kan (2004) as a guideline. The study was conducted in medium-sized
manufacturing sector and all the participants were middle manager according to the following
processes :
Step 1: Identify the criterion measure.
Step 2: Conduct Behavioral Event Interviews with the performers.
Step 3: Data analysis including code BEI descriptions and develop a preliminary competency
model.
Step 4: Validate the preliminary competency model and develop a final competency model.
There are three types of performance or criterion measures in competency studies: (1) Supervisory
nominations or rating; (2) peer nominations or rating; and (3) work-out measures. Since supervisory and
peer nominations or ratings were reported tend to be highly correlated (Lewin and Zwany, 1976), we
used either of them together with last two years’ work-our measures as the criterion. For the superior
performers we used peer nominations and the work-our measures, for the average performers we used
supervisory nominations and the work-our measures to make it a one-blind study.
In step 2, After interviewing five superior performers, the Competency Coding Dictionary
composed by Spencer and Spencer (1993) was adapted and a Competency Checklist was developed
according to the events descript by the interviewees. Then twelve pairs of superior and average
performers were interviewed. After the interview, they were asked to fill the Competency Checklist.
In the interviews, the STAR technique was applied. The STAR technique is a way to frame the
answers to each question in an organized manner that will give the interviewer the most information
about the interviewees’ past experience. The interviewees thus were asked to organize their response by
answering each of the following components of the STAR technique:
“What was the Situation in which you were involved?”
“What was the Task you needed to accomplish?”
“What Action(s) did you take?”
“What Results did you achieve?”
In step 3, The BEI narratives were analyzed and coded to identify competencies that distinguish
superior performers from average performers. Data were processed through SPSS and two main indexes
of the narratives were analyzed: the length of the interview (words and time) and the frequencies of the
competencies. Then GENOVA was employed to develop the preliminary competency model which was
organized by competencies and behavioral indicators. Then, this preliminary list of competencies was
validated by a so-called competency model survey using a questionnaire developed from the list. The

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validation was done by asking respondents who were middle managers in the manufacturing sector to
rate the importance of each competency to effective performance on the job. Statistical analyses were
performed on the scores given to the competencies. The purpose of these analyses was to see if the
competencies had reached an acceptable level of reliability, and if they really represented effective
characteristics as required by the job. Consequently, results from the questionnaire data analysis were
used in preparation of the final competency model for the job.
In step 4, the preliminary competency model was validate by using the revised questionnaire and a
job performance questionnaire.

4 Conclusion

The competency model and implications from the findings of this study should be valuable for
medium-sized manufacturing sector in recuriting, selecting, training & developing middle managers.
This trial of BEI techinique in developing competency model can guide future empirical studies in
HRM.

References

[1] McClelland, D. C., Testing for competence rather than for intelligence. American Psychologist, 28, 1973:1–4.
[2] McClelland, D. C., & Dailey,C., Improving officer selection for the foreign service, Boston: McBer,1972
[3] Boyatzis, Richard E.. The competent manager, a model for effective performance. McBer and Company, John
Wiley and Sons, Inc.,1982
[4] Boyatzis, Richard E.. Beyond competence: The choice to be a leader. Human Resources Management Review, 3
(1), 1993:1–14.
[5] Boyatzis, Richard E. Rendering unto competence the things that are competent, American Psychologist, 49,
1994:64–66.
[6] Boyatzis, Richard E. The competent manager, a model for effective performance. McBer and Company, John
Wiley and Sons, Inc. 1982
[7] Spencer, Lyle M. Jr., Spencer M. Signe. Competence at work: Models for superior performance, John Wiley &
Sons, Inc.1993
[8] Lewin,A.Y.,& Zwany,A. Peer nominations: A model, literature critique , and a paradigm for research.
Springfield,VA: National Technical Information Service, 1976
[9] Rassametummachot, S. (2005). Competency-Based Learning. Se-Education Public Company Limited. Bangkok.
[10] Saenthong, N. (2004). Competency. HR Center Company Limited. Bangkok.
[11] SHI Kan, Organizational Behavior Research in Transition Time of China, Journal of Electronic Science and
Technology of China, Vol.2 No.3, Sep. 2004

The author can be contacted from e-mail: lilywang@bjtu.edu.cn

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