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This paper examines competence development as a facet of a firm’s dynamics. Proceeding from a “model of competence building” developed in an earlier study, a theory of competence development is outlined, which recommends that competence development should cyclically alternate between competence upgrading and competence renewal. This cycle is subject to various influences, including the firm-specific resource base, the way in which managers perceive competence to create customer value, the level of undesired knowledge diffusion, and changes in the environmental dynamics specific to the firm. Inevitably, the theory of competence development involves some simplifications; yet it’s relevance is underlined by the fact that it stands up to empirical analysis.

The purpose of this paper is to increase understanding of the relationships among the workplace as a learning environment, strategies for competence development used by SMEs and learning outcomes. Specifically, there is a focus on a distinction between formal and integrated strategies for competence development, the conditions under which these strategies are likely to be used, and their effects in terms of individual learning outcomes.

The study was based mainly on questionnaire data collected through a survey of 14 SMEs that had received support from the European Social Fund's Objective 3 programme. In addition, data collected through interviews and analyses of documents were used.

The results indicate interactions between the strategy of competence development used by the firms (formal vs integrated) and the type of learning environment in the workplace (constraining vs enabling). The use of an integrated strategy in an enabling learning environment was the most successful combination in terms of learning outcomes, while the use of an integrated strategy in a constraining learning environment was the least successful combination.

There is a need to elaborate the theoretical and empirical basis of the distinction between formal and integrated strategies for competence development, and to study the effects of the two types of strategy, not only for individual learning outcomes, but also for effects at an organisational level.

HRD practitioners need to question a traditional reliance on formal training, as the presented results indicate the importance of using competence development strategies that are based on an integration of formal and informal learning.

The study indicates that the effects of competence development efforts are likely to be a function not only, nor primarily, of the training methods and strategies that are used, but also of the characteristics of the learning environment of the workplace.

The review aims to demonstrate a broader perspective of human capital and employee well-being concept. Moreover, the study attempts to analyse theoretical notions underlying human capital and well-being relationship and thus to guide the integration of two distinct concepts.

This review followed the systematic literature search protocols from the Academic Journal Guide 2018 generated by the Chartered Association of Business Schools. Sixty-nine quantitative research papers were selected for the review.

Human capital is not only about individual competence but includes acquisition, utilization and development of competence in a broader sense. Employee well-being has been discussed from subjective and objective viewpoints and categorized into happiness, health and financial aspects. The review results suggest that various organizational theories, workplace learning and learning organization perspectives underlie human capital and well-being relationship. The review guides that the high involvement working model encapsulates well-being as part of human capital development.

This review discusses practical implications for human resource management practitioners.

This review is a unique attempt to assess the human capital and well-being literature systematically.

This paper is concerned with the formulation of a framework for understanding the development and change of the competences of firms. Today, there is near universal agreement that the competitiveness of firms rests on the (core) competences that firms possess. However, little attention has been devoted to the notion of competence development. In the paper, it will be argued that there is, indeed, a need for research and management practice of competence development. It will also be argued that organisational learning theory is a key to understanding competence development. Based on this, a model for competence development is proposed. This is the main contribution of the paper. The paper then concludes with a number of questions yet to be answered by research on competence‐based strategy.

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether original equipment manufacturing (OEM) suppliers can affect the development of buyer competence by manipulating two environmental factors: the development of competence in OEM supplier's external business relationships and the competitive pressure of the OEM supplier environment.

The sample population consisted of 1,000 OEM suppliers in the Taiwanese information technology (IT) industry. Partial least squares analysis was used to examine the causal relationships among the variables.

The empirical results revealed that the pressure of the external environment pushes OEM suppliers to develop competence through external business relationships. This competence in turn affects the development of buyer competence. Furthermore, OEM supplier impact on buyer competence development is positively associated with the importance of OEM supplier in outsourcing relationship.

The paper empirically examines whether the impacts of the OEM supplier derived from different sourced environments play distinct roles in the development of the OEM supplier's power.

The paper aims to deal with the education for sustainable development (ESD) competences of university educators. The purpose of this paper is to provide a comparative analysis of opportunities for the development of ESD competences in higher education (HE) institutions in Serbia, Croatia and Macedonia. In addition, the paper explores the drivers and barriers experienced in this area using a process-oriented approach.

For the purpose of collecting data, internet and desktop research was carried out, which was then followed by interviews with key respondents and experts in HE. The interviews were carried out face-to-face or via telephone. In addition, information collected from the interviews was compared with both data found in the literature and official documents.

The comparative analysis indicated how specific institutional and cultural contexts affect the development of ESD competences in HE in the region. There were differences but also common opportunities for developing the ESD competences of university educators in the countries analysed. For each country, the drivers and barriers, as well as their relevance, were manifested differently and specific key constructs were identified to explain the implementation process for developing ESD competences of university educators.

This paper tried to respond to this diversity of perspectives, contexts and initiatives and attempted to extract the benefits of different approaches to the ESD professional development of university educators in Serbia, Croatia and Macedonia. It is hoped that this paper will provide valuable insights into the development of ESD in HE and support the development of ESD competences in the region.

This is one of the first papers that provide a comparative analysis of the ESD professional development of university educators in Balkan countries. The value of the paper lies in its potential to help us to understand the role that different drivers and barriers play in different patterns of implementation for developing the ESD competences of university educators.

Original equipment manufacturing (OEM) suppliers must identify and communicate competences to ensure that they are successfully translated into competitive advantages. This study aims to explore the competence-based marketing capabilities of suppliers based on competence-based marketing view. It integrates resource-based theory and resource dependence theory to conduct a detailed evaluation of the impact of competence-based marketing capabilities on collaboration development, which is classified as either exploitative or explorative collaboration between buyers and suppliers.

The partial least squares method was used to analyse and find direct support for the authors’ hypotheses based on cross-sectional data from a sample of 116 Taiwanese OEM suppliers.

The results find no support as recent arguments that the marketing of competence would directly affect collaborative relationships in a buyer–supplier relationship. The two mediating roles of relative attention from buyers and relationship learning with buyers were confirmed. The empirical findings indicated that relative attention from buyers partially mediates the relationship between competence-based marketing capabilities and exploitative collaboration development, while relationship learning completely mediates the relationship between competence-based marketing capabilities and two-pronged collaboration development.

This study provides a thorough examination of competence-based marketing capabilities, which have attracted substantial attention from business scholars but empirical research investigating and discussing how suppliers develop new collaborations with buyers is lacking.

The purpose of this paper is to increase our understanding of why firms, specifically small to medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs), participate in a programme for competence development and why firms use different strategies for competence development.

A study of 17 SMEs that all received support from the European Social Fund, Objective 3 programme. The collection of data is based on semi‐structured interviews with management/owners, internal project leaders, employees and union representatives, feedback seminars with representatives from the studied enterprises, and on analysis of documents.

The findings demonstrate that all SMEs reported driving forces for competence development relating to both external organizational conditions and internal organizational conditions, to at least a certain degree. Furthermore, there appears to be a strong relationship between observed patterns of driving forces and the strategy for competence development used by the firm.

The SMEs that experience a relatively stronger driving force for competence development initiate problem‐solving efforts to design and implement more elaborated strategies for competence development. The SMEs that experience a lesser degree of driving force for competence development implement less elaborated strategies for competence development.

The paper finds that both external and internal organizational conditions are important in understanding why SMEs undergo competence development programme. Furthermore, the importance of external and internal organizational conditions is not only limited to why the companies participate in a programme for competence development, but also for how they participate, i.e. the strategies used for competence development.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the current and potential value of the European Virtual Seminar on Sustainable Development (EVS) as an opportunity for professional development in Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) for teaching staff at university level.

The paper presents and reflects on the specific case of EVS, including its competence-based approach and educational staff roles. Particular attention is paid to the development of ESD competences of tutors through participation in EVS, based on the UNECE (2011) competence framework and supported by the results from a small-scale questionnaire. Three major aspects of EVS as a professional opportunity in ESD are elaborated: EVS as an on-the-job training opportunity, EVS as an international staff mobility opportunity and EVS as an active learning and innovation community.

EVS is an effective opportunity for developing a range of ESD competences, especially for junior university staff. The contribution of EVS to professional development in ESD currently extends to a partnership of ten universities from across Europe, but given its features, the EVS approach has the potential to be adopted at a much larger scale. Possible limitations in scaling up are rigid rules for integration of new courses in curricula and the need to form new EVS-like partnerships.

This case study of EVS shows that Web-based, internationally networked courses with a pedagogical approach and design focused on ESD have a large potential in providing effective opportunities for the development of teachers’ ESD competences, but to realize this potential, active uptake of the approach by the existing networks for ESD in higher education is needed.

The paper presents a promising option to address the observed lack of opportunities within university curricula to acquire and practice ESD competences for teaching staff.

The purpose of this paper is to deal with tacit signals and organization performance development. Tacit signals are personal guiding beliefs that arise from tacit knowledge. The paper describes theoretical hypotheses how tacit signal method is utilized in competence measurement and organization performance improvement. Theories are evaluated by empirically grounded study.

The tacit signal approach is linked to human pressure‐performance theory of inverted U‐curve, known as Yerkes‐Dodson law. Moreover, a new mental model of five interrelated competences is used in order to understand the pluralistic nature of organization development. These five competences are management, leadership, culture, skills, and processes. The paper describes how competences can be studied by tacit signals, offering positive elements for both management and performance. The case study is done in Finnish commercial business enterprise of approximately 1,000 employees.

Empirically grounded case study supports the theoretical approach, showing that tacit signals are in correlation to organization performance. Tacit signals help working groups identifying their collective dissonance in a way that will help them to increase emotional intelligence and performance. In the case, company significant improvement in profitability is found.

The paper connects researcher innovation of tacit signals to organization competence measurement. This paper supports hypotheses that persons have tacit knowledge of personal situation at pressure‐performance curve. This situation can be measured for each competence by tacit signal inquiry which guides to optimal improvement which strengthens the group emotional intelligence and increases performance. The described tacit signal method and system intelligence model gives additional value to further scientific studies.