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Predispositions and context in the development of managerial skills

Steve McKenna (School of Administrative Studies, Atkinson Faculty of Liberal and Professional Studies, York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada)

Journal of Management Development

ISSN: 0262-1711

Article publication date: 1 August 2004

3509

Abstract

This paper investigates the usefulness of textbook and company approaches to developing managerial skills and competencies. It suggests that textbooks, based on an “experiential” approach to skill building, are contradictory in that they ultimately privilege predispositions over training in the practice of behaviours. The development of managerial skills therefore, is restricted by the individual's predispositions towards behaving in a certain way. In addition, the paper argues that the managerial competency approach used by many organizations, and also reflected in textbooks, fails to appreciate the predominance of the situation or context in determining how managers behave. Ultimately, the education of business students and managers, on courses at university and in‐company, dealing with managerial skills are deficient because “skills” cannot be abstracted from either the person or the context. The idea of managerial competence as a fact of being is illusory, managers are always and constantly being competent or incompetent.

Keywords

Citation

McKenna, S. (2004), "Predispositions and context in the development of managerial skills", Journal of Management Development, Vol. 23 No. 7, pp. 664-677. https://doi.org/10.1108/02621710410546669

Publisher

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Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2004, Emerald Group Publishing Limited

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