Re. Core Comptetence LO4125

Orbis (74363.3637@compuserve.com)
07 Dec 95 13:15:08 EST

Replying to LO4079 --

Pasu Decharin asked
>I've been reading articles about core competence and the problem I have is
>that most concepts stated that core competence is an integration of either
>skills and knowledge or resources and capabilities by using the learning
>mechanism. But how what is the integration process? and how does the
>learning mechanism involve are still unclear to me.

I have not seen any definitions that specifically reference the learning
mechanism, but obviously learning is a key part of maintaining, enhancing
and/or developing capabilities. I would go further and say that this
should be the primary focus of learning activities within the
organization. ( I also prefer the term organizational capabilities as
there is often confusion about "core competencies," given the history of
competence typically being a role-based term.)

With regard to the integration aspect, I like the definition of a
capability being a bundle of skills and technologies, rather than a single
discreet skill or technology. A simple illustration is the combination of
a customer service rep. who is skilled in customer phone interaction,
being supported by a customer database that provides full details of the
customer, thus allowing the interaction to be more customer-specific and
personalized.

Prahalad and Hamel state that the management team needs to have a good
understanding of the hierarchy of capabilities/competencies: - from meta
capabilities (such as logistics in Fedex) - to supporting capabilities
(package tracking) - to constituent skills and technologies (bar coding
and network management)

So if the goal is to maintain, enhance and/or develop given capabilities,
there needs to be a clear articulation of what those capabilities are, or
should be. Then the team works down the hierarchy in order to establish
the constituent skills and technologies, in order to decide which of these
need to be developed or acquired. Learning is then obviously a key part of
the development strategy. (If acquisition is chosen, I am assuming that
the skills and technologies are "bought," such as through the hiring of
people or even the purchase of a company.)

--
Peter A. Smith
Orbis Learning Corporation
74363,3637@compuserve.com

"Individual learning is a necessary but insufficient force for organizational learning." Argyris, C. & Schon, D.A.