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Keywords Management, Competences, Performance appraisal
Abstract Uses survey research to investigate two general questions concerning managerial competencies and performance appraisal. whether a set of managerial competencies currently being used by organizations to describe successful managers can be identified; and whether organizations are appraising these same competencies as part of their managerial performance appraisal processes. The six competencies most often identified as critical to managerial success appear to be proper choices, given the discussion of the attributes needed for a competency to be effective. The results also show, however, that many of these same organizations are not appraising these competencies in their managerial-performance appraisal processes. Concludes that failure to appraise the competencies reduces the effectiveness of the competencies and the managerial performance appraisal programs.
Introduction
For a number of years, the term "competency" has been a catch phrase in organizational literature (Antonacopoulou and FitzGerald, 1996). Some, including Prahalad and Hamel (1990), treat competencies of the corporation as an entity, while others, including Boyatzis (1982), Burgoyne (1989) and Collin (1989) treat competencies of employees. Employees' core competencies are also referred to as personal competencies (Reagan, 1994; Burack et al., 1997; Greengard, 1999). When the competencies possessed by successful managers are discussed, the term "managerial competencies" is frequently used (Burgoyne, 1989; Collin, 1989; Raelin and Cooledge, 1995). It should be noted that organizational and personal (managerial) competencies are very much connected in the sense that personal core competencies are said to derive from the values and core competencies of the organization (Reagan, 1994). Organizations that use core competency-based systems for their employees are often referred to as visionary or highperformance organizations (Collins and Porras, 1996).
It is interesting to note that there is disagreement over the definition of a personal competency. As stated by Antonacopoulou and FitzGerald (1996, p. 29):
The divergent meanings attached to the word "competency" create great confusion, not least in terms of all those soft characteristics, which might lead to an individual being awarded the title "competent".
Boyatzis (1982, pp. 20-21), citing Klemp (1980), describes a "job competency" as "an underlying characteristic of a person which results in effective and/or superior performance in a job". Bratton (1998, p. 17) states that: "A core [personal] competency is defined as any knowledge, skill, trait,...