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SPENCER, LYLE M. JR. and SPENCER, SIGNE M. Competence at Work: Models for Superior Performance. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1993. Pp. xii + 372. $49.95
This book is about, not exactly competence as the title indicates, but rather "competencies," as defined by David McClelland, who wrote the first chapter to set the stage for this latest elaboration of his ideas.
McClelland is perhaps best known for his work on the achievement motive (nAch) and the related affiliation and power motives. This work has influenced theory and practice in management and psychology, but it has been fraught with controversy. One of the bones of contention has been the question of how to measure nAch and the other motives. McClelland has argued for the use of projective, story-telling procedures as exemplified by the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT). Others have claimed that self-report inventories are just as effective, and a lot more convenient and reliable. The evidence suggests that the two types of measuring devices produce two different versions of nAch, each of which is useful. Unfortunately, there has been little effort to reconcile the two approaches.
McClelland has engaged in another controversy of a more general sort, with the psychometric community. He argues that conventional tests do "not predict job performance or success in life," and are "often biased against minorities, women, and persons from lower socioeconomic strata." He invented "competencies" to overcome these alleged defects; in his view, they make possible the development of valid predictors, unbiased, and trainable as well. His critics claim that he and his followers, including the authors of this book, have failed to produce convincing evidence that competencies do what they are claimed to do and have, in addition, ignored recent evidence that conventional tests--particularly those in the cognitive realm--are valid for many purposes and not improperly biased.
The Spencers set out in this book to describe the current status of the competency approach and, more generally, of the human resource management system which has been developed by McClelland and his colleagues in a consulting organization called McBer, of which Lyle Spencer was president when the book was written.
The foundation of the system is job analysis, preferably initiated for each job by interviewing 12 or...