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The purpose of this paper is to clarify which knowledge, skills and behaviors are used to describe excellent performance in professional communication. As the demand for talented communication professionals increases, organizations and educators need an empirically defined set of performance criteria to guide the development of (potentially) excellent communication professionals (ECPs). This research aimed to render a competence profile which could assist in the development of recruitment, training and development to develop relevant programs for high-potential communication practitioners.

This mixed-method research was approached in two phases: first, a series of focus groups (n=16) were held to explore work field perspectives resulting in a concept profile, and second, a series of expert panels (n=30) following the Delphi method were conducted to determine the extent of agreement with the findings.

Participants clarified that excellent performance is characterized by competences which transcend normative technical skills or practical communication knowledge. The five domains, 16 item “SEEDS” competence profile describes that ECPs are distinguished by their compounded ability to be strategic, empathic, expressive, and decisive and to see patterns and interrelationships.

Although a broad range of relevant professionals were involved in both phases, the study could be considered limited in size and scope. Research was conducted in one national setting therefore further research would be necessary to confirm generalizability of the results to other cultural contexts.

Although many competence frameworks exist which describe normative performance in this profession, specific criteria which illustrate excellent performance have not yet been identified. This competence profile clarifies characteristics which typify excellent performance in professional communication and can be helpful to educators and employers who wish to identify and create suitable training programs for ECPs.

Higher education institutions (HEIs) have a great responsibility to put education for sustainable development at the centre of their work. Curricula should therefore start to incorporate the sustainable development goals (SDGs) and key competencies in sustainability, and research should be carried out to determine effective learning methods for this. This study aims to explore the usefulness of problem-based learning (PBL) approaches to train biomedical students in sustainability and to provide some recommendations for the design and implementation of new PBL-SDG scenarios.

Two PBL-SDG scenarios were designed, implemented and evaluated for 110 students of human biology degree. Learning outcomes and student perceptions of this approach were analysed through questionnaires, student productions, non-participant observation and focus groups.

The results show that the PBL-SDG scenarios effectively addressed several SDGs and sustainability competencies in a transversal, collaborative and innovative manner. According to student perceptions, the elements that contributed most to the development of these competencies were emotional involvement with the scenario, reflection on their own actions, freedom to approach the problem and tutors who empowered them with their proposals.

The PBL-SDG approach presented in this study is an example of a pedagogical strategy that can help HEIs educate their learners as key change agents. The findings of this study provide evidence for this important aspect and give guidelines and strategies to successfully designing and implementing such methodologies in biomedical education.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on three fundamental human-related behaviour factors associated with Lean Six Sigma (LSS) projects in German manufacturing small-and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) on the readiness of people (managers and their staff) to commence LSS projects. These are core personal competence, strategic vision of the people and the organisational culture of the specific organisation.

Based on a thorough review of the academic literature a set of hypotheses were constructed to examine the level of association between people’s competence, vision and culture with LSS readiness within SMEs. This was done using correlation and regression analysis. Data collection were carried out in seven different German manufacturing SMEs involved in aerospace supply and agro-food manufacturing using a survey instrument.

It was found that there is a strong positive association between the core competence of people and organisational culture with readiness for commencing LSS in the manufacturing SMEs studied. The core values of people, education level and the vision of making continuous quality improvement were identified as key variables in promoting LSS readiness in these manufacturing SMEs. This study indicates that these “softer” variables can be essential to successful LSS implementation and need to be explored further before undertaking the process.

From the perspective of the implementers of LSS the results of this research could be of interest to different manufacturing SMEs intending to embark upon an LSS journey as it highlights the significance of human-related behavioural factors in the process. SME organisations may consider carrying out development or training with their managers and employees around personal and organisational values, addressing core competence and strengthening organisational culture in order to facilitate LSS readiness and enhance the prospect of its success.

It would appear that this LSS research has not been carried out within the German manufacturing SME context before and although discrete in nature has surfaced the “softer” variables of core competence of staff and organisational culture as important readiness issues to address when undertaking LSS. This integrated approach of human behavioural factors, organisational culture, LSS and manufacturing SMEs demonstrates the originality of the research.

Humanity is facing an unprecedented challenge of climate crises. Rapid changes to the physical environment and living conditions will be accompanied by challenges to mental health and well-being. Consequently, education for sustainable development should also include coping strategies for stress and anxiety. Adding intra-personal skills to the curriculum, such as self-reflection and mindfulness training, could aid in this education. This case study aims to explore the barriers to and drivers for fostering inner transitions through intra-personal skills training and mindfulness.

This case study from Lund University, Sweden, constitutes a critical case for investigating inner transitions in education. Data collection was designed around semi-structured qualitative interviews, to investigate the barriers to and drivers for intra-personal skills and mindfulness in education for sustainable development at all institutional levels of the university.

The results indicate that education for sustainable development already includes elements of introspection, albeit informally. However, there is a lack in a fundamental understanding of intra-personal skills and how they relate to other key competences for sustainable development. To make intra-personal skills training a formal component of the education, it must receive the full support from all levels of the university.

The study outlines general recommendations for universities to challenge existing policies while also finding ways to work around them. In the meantime, universities should make intra-personal skills training an informal learning activity. Recognizing that the students’ prior knowledge in this area is a potential asset, universities should collaborate with their students to support student-led intra-personal skills training.

The purpose of this qualitative study is to examine the effects of expatriation on the development of career capital among the partners of expatriates.

The study draws on in-depth interviews with 30 Finnish partners of expatriates.

The results reflect the various learning experiences reported by partners of expatriates that developed their career capital during expatriation. The learning experiences related to the experience of living abroad itself and to the specific activities undertaken when abroad. The extent to which partners developed knowing-why, knowing-how and knowing-whom career capital was found to partly reflect their situation abroad as stay-at-home partners or as employees in less-demanding or more-demanding jobs. Though the experiences were developmental for all partners as have been reported among expatriates, the authors also identified several aspects in which partners' experiences differed from the typical developmental experiences of expatriates.

The results also highlight the influence of initiative, an active role and career self-management skills in partners' career capital development.

This paper advances the understanding of how expatriation affects expatriate partners' career capital, a topic that has not previously been studied in-depth.

Climate change, poverty and pandemics are some of the complex real-world problems that are increasingly challenging higher education institutions (HEIs) to equip future graduates with meta-competences that have hitherto not been demanded. These graduates need to be able to capture and operate within complex systems and relationships. By focusing on complex real-world problems, this study aims to systematically review competences and frame meta-competences supporting curricula development in HEIs.

This study applies a systematic literature review according to the review protocol of Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses. The review process resulted in the selection of 39 articles, which were subjected to qualitative synthesis to identify competences for tackling complex real-world problems. These competences were grouped into meta-competences and aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Scientific disciplines commonly describe four competences for tackling complex real-world problems including domain-specific competence, inter-relation competence, intrapersonal competence and normative competence.

This study found that inter-relation competence is in line with all the SDGs, which is considered important for tackling complex real-world problems across disciplines.

A study in a survey design across disciplines and a weighting of these competences in respect to complex real-world problems aligned with the SDGs could contribute to a more consolidated and common understanding of the meta-competences identified.

In spite of the potential of peer feedback, research related to the international classroom and the development of intercultural competences remains limited. This paper aims to further explore this combination and associated gaps by presenting students’ perceptions of peer feedback on individual behaviour in group work.

Several studies have shown that peer feedback can be a powerful instrument in higher education. For this reason, this instrument is increasingly being deployed in the international classroom of a Dutch Business School (DBS), which has a student population of about 60 different nationalities. The present paper adopts an embedded case-study design in studying peer feedback within the international classroom.

The primary results of this study are twofold. First, they show that before joining DBS, the vast majority of international students have never been exposed to group work peer feedback. And second, they reveal that cultural background (bias) is a critical factor in how students provide and perceive peer feedback. Students from high-context cultures struggle with direct feedback provided by students from low-context cultures. Furthermore, the results show that domestic cultural values “lack consideration” when dealing with the contrasts in cultural values of non-domestic (international) students.

This study indicates that several aspects of the students’ cultural background have a direct impact on how they provide and perceive individual peer feedback on their behaviour in group work. Furthermore, it argues that peer feedback, when used as an instrument, requires specific training and guidance of students with regard to cultural differences, values and perceptions.

Healthcare providers are under pressure due to increasing and more complex demands for services. Increased pressure on budgets and human resources adds to an ever-growing problem set. Competent leaders are in demand to ensure effective and well-performing healthcare organisations that deliver balanced results and high-quality services. Researchers have made significant efforts to identify and define determining competencies for healthcare leadership. Broad terms such as competence are, however, inherently at risk of becoming too generic to add analytical value. The purpose of this study is to suggest a holistic framework for understanding healthcare leadership competence, that can be crucial for operationalising important healthcare leadership competencies for researchers, decision-makers as well as practitioners.

In the present study, a critical interpretive synthesis (CIS) was conducted to analyse competency descriptions for healthcare leaders. The descriptions were retrieved from peer reviewed empirical studies published between 2010 and 2022 that aimed to identify healthcare services leadership competencies. Grounded theory was utilised to code the data and inductively develop new categories of healthcare leadership competencies. The categorisation was then analysed to suggest a holistic framework for healthcare leadership competence.

Forty-one papers were included in the review. Coding and analysing the competence descriptions resulted in 12 healthcare leadership competence categories: (1) character, (2) interpersonal relations, (3) leadership, (4) professionalism, (5) soft HRM, (6) management, (7) organisational knowledge, (8) technology, (9) knowledge of the healthcare environment, (10) change and innovation, (11) knowledge transformation and (12) boundary spanning. Based on this result, a holistic framework for understanding and analysing healthcare services leadership competencies was suggested. This framework suggests that the 12 categories of healthcare leadership competencies include a range of knowledge, skills and abilities that can be understood across the dimension personal – and technical, and organisational internal and – external competencies.

This literature review was conducted with the results of searching only two electronic databases. Because of this, there is a chance that there exist empirical studies that could have added to the development of the competence categories or could have contradicted some of the descriptions used in this analysis that were assessed as quite harmonised. A CIS also opens for a broader search, including the grey literature, books, policy documents and so on, but this study was limited to peer-reviewed empirical studies. This limitation could also have affected the result, as complex phenomenon such as competence might have been disclosed in greater details in, for example, books.

The holistic framework for healthcare leadership competences offers a common understanding of a “fuzzy” concept such as competence and can be used to identify specific competency needs in healthcare organisations, to develop strategic competency plans and educational programmes for healthcare leaders.

This study reveals a lack of consensus regarding the use and understanding of the concept of competence, and that key competencies addressed in the included papers are described vastly different in terms of what knowledge, skills and abilities they entail. This challenges the operationalisation of healthcare services leadership competencies. The proposed framework for healthcare services leadership competencies offers a common understanding of work-related competencies and a possibility to analyse key leadership competencies based on a holistic framework.

As higher education institutions (HEIs) have increasingly turned to consider sustainability over the last decade, education for sustainable development (ESD) has emerged as a way of imbuing students with the skills, values, knowledge, and attributes to live, work, and create change in societies facing complex and cross-cutting sustainability challenges. However, the question of how HEIs can actively embed ESD more broadly in and across curricula is one that continues to challenge institutions and the HE sector as a whole. While traditional teaching practices and methods associated with subject-based learning may be suitable for educating students about sustainable development, a re-orientation towards more transformational, experiential and action-oriented methods is required to educate for sustainable development. The need for educators to share their practices and learn lessons from each other is essential in this transformation.

This paper presents a selection of practical examples of how to embed a range of interactive, exploratory, action-oriented, problem-based, experiential and transformative ESD offerings into HE teaching practice and curricula. Presented by a group of academics and professional services staff at the University of Strathclyde who lead key modules and programmes in the institution’s ESD provision, this paper reflects on five approaches taken across the four faculties at Strathclyde (Humanities and Social Sciences, Science, Engineering and the Strathclyde Business School) and examines the challenges, practicalities and opportunities involved in establishing a collaborative programme of ESD.

Analytics technologies are profoundly changing the way in which organizations generate economic and social value from data. Consequently, the professional roles of data scientists and data analysts are in high demand in the labor market. Although the technical competencies expected for these roles are well known, their behavioral competencies have not been thoroughly investigated. Drawing on the competency-based theoretical framework, this study aims to address this gap, providing evidence of the emotional, social and cognitive competencies that data scientists and data analysts most frequently demonstrate when they effectively perform their jobs, and identifying those competencies that distinguish them.

This study is exploratory in nature and adopts the competency-based methodology through the analysis of in-depth behavioral event interviews collected from a sample of 24 Italian data scientists and data analysts.

The findings empirically enrich the extant literature on the intangible dimensions of human capital that are relevant in analytics roles. Specifically, the results show that, in comparison to data analysts, data scientists more frequently use certain competencies related to self-awareness, teamwork, networking, flexibility, system thinking and lateral thinking.

The study was conducted in a small sample and in a specific geographical area, and this may reduce the analytic generalizability of the findings.

The skills shortages that characterize these roles need to be addressed in a way that also considers the intangible dimensions of human capital. Educational institutions can design better curricula for entry-level data scientists and analysts who encompass the development of behavioral competencies. Organizations can effectively orient the recruitment and the training processes toward the most relevant competencies for those analytics roles.

This exploratory study advances our understanding of the competencies required by professionals who mostly contribute to the performance of data science teams. This article proposes a competency framework that can be adopted to assess a broader portfolio of the behaviors of big data professionals.