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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the competence, performance, and trainability of older workers of higher educational institutions in Malaysia.

Survey methods were used in this study. The survey measures were adopted from Rothwell (2002) and Sarmiento et al. (2007) for performance and competence, respectively, while trainability measurements were adopted from Maurer et al. (2008). The sample of 325 respondents consisted older workers in the higher education sector aged between 55 and 60 years old.

Based on the assessments made by the older workers themselves and their superiors, it is found that the older workers are competent, performing well, and are trainable. The administrative older staff, however, were rated lower by the superior as compared to the academic older staff. This may be due to the fact that most of the assessors are academicians. Regardless of the category of the staff, performance of older workers is positively related to their competence and trainability.

Competence and trainability are important factors as they are found related to performance. This study focuses on education sector. It would be interesting to include older workers from other sectors because the education sector is perceived to be less physically demanding.

This study provides valuable insights into considering of revising the retirement age of academician in higher education sector even higher. Age seems to be an advantage to this group of employees.

This study is unique and significant because it focuses on important sector, i.e. higher education. It would reduce the knowledge gap in performance management of older workers especially in higher education sector.

A critical response to the present stage in the development of management education is presented. The concept of competence is evaluated and its utility assessed. In particular, the use of the term by the Management Charter Initiative (MCI) is thrown into critical focus and found to be pragmatically and conceptually flawed. Emphasizes the importance of addressing the approach actually adopted by the MCI and other agencies in the “reform” of vocational qualifications and argues that the MCI has been incorrectly criticized for attempting to impose a simplistic model of management. Considers the implications and argues that management educators and developers are faced with a dominant concept of “competence” which they find difficult to realize in their educational practice. Subjects the concept of competence to conceptual analysis in order to bring into focus the key analytical elements implicit in the term, assesses the MCI approach and offers alternative approaches which place the emphasis on those issues which are critical for achieving consensually desired enhancements in management education and development.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the mediating role of competitive advantage in the relationship between managerial competence and financial performance of commercial banks in Uganda.

A cross-sectional survey was employed using 22 fully licensed and operational commercial banks in Uganda. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, zero order correlation and hierarchical regression analyses. Further, the bootstrap method was used to test the mediation effect of competitive advantage. All the analyses were performed using SPSS v21.

The findings reinforce the important position of managerial competence on financial performance of commercial banks. First, managerial competence enhances firms’ competitive advantage. Second, managerial competence has an indirect effect on financial performance through competitive advantage. Overall, managerial competence and competitive advantage are strong predictors of financial performance of commercial banks.

The study employed only a single research methodological approach, therefore future research could be undertaken using a mixed approach and triangulate to compare findings. Furthermore, the findings from the present study are cross-sectional, considering the limitations there in, a longitudinal approach should be explored.

Emphasis should be put on improving the knowledge and skills of managers so as to attain a competitive edge in the market and thus register increased profits. This will help practitioners make legitimate decisions and conclusions that can foster business growth.

A mediation effect of competitive advantage in the relationship between managerial competence and financial performance was tested; previous studies have tended to test the direct effects.

The purpose of this paper is to link management competence to small enterprise performance and assess the role of entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and willingness to change on this relationship.

The authors use structural equation modeling to test a theoretical model based on a data set from two survey instruments: one instrument was administered to the owners of 125 small enterprises within the United Arab Emirates and the second was administered to managers within the same enterprises.

Results show that within the small enterprise setting, managerial competence indirectly influences performance by influencing EO and willingness to change plays a partial mediating role through which EO benefits performance.

The case for linking managerial competence to performance is supported by the dynamic capability logic, which maintains that an enterprise’s advantage lies in its ability to reconfigure its resources, capabilities and routines appropriately in the pursuit of new opportunities and performance benefits. The study suggests that EO plays a pre-eminent role in developing dynamic capability.

Understanding the link between managerial competence and small enterprise performance has important implications for enterprise owners, investors, educators, researchers and policy makers.

The model is a valuable contributor to understanding the dynamic capability perspective within a small enterprise and adds to the growing body of research examining the ability of small enterprises to continuously recognize and exploit new opportunities for sustainable competitive advantage.

Extant literature on strategic environment analysis confirm broad evidence of studies on competences in the context of private sector organizations. Nevertheless, there is a growing interest and evidence of strategic competence in public sector organizations seeking to deliver improved performance. This paper attempts to determine the strategic competences of a National Health Service (NHS) unit for better organizational performance.

Based on the qualitative analysis of empirical evidence collected in a UK based NHS case study organization, we arrive at a strategic competence performance framework for the health unit using research carried out through interviews with employees and partner organization members.

By examining a UK-based qualitative case study, the proposed framework puts forward four strategic competence pillars vital for delivering organizational performance and effectively managing the environment of NHS unit's operations. The four strategic competences that are identified to foster NHS unit's performance are strategic leadership, staff engagement, knowledge transfer and partnership working.

The study examines the environment in which a UK based NHS health unit operates and identify the different strategic competences to deliver organizational performance.

Unlike previous studies which emphasize market oriented performance from the perspective of firms or customers, but mainly internally, the paper proposes that firms should prioritize customer‐focused performance defined totally externally from the perspective of targeted customers, which are the fundamental drivers of purchasing or repurchasing behaviors of customers and consequently the key to successful competition in the customer‐centered era. Then, the role of customer‐focused performance in the overall business performance system is examined. After the components and dynamics of customer‐focused performance are analyzed, much attention is given to its key determinants in perspective of a resource‐based view, which aims mainly at bridging the current gaps between strategic management and service management. In addition, important propositions are presented and future implications are discussed.

Presents a framework of manufacturing competence, and tests its theoretical validity using empirical data from a large‐scale survey. Interesting findings include: the regression analysis shows that manufacturing competence is better represented when low‐priority capabilities are not explicitly considered; the manufacturing competence index appears to have more significant statistical relationships with some performance measures (such as the return on assets and return on sales) than with others – manufacturing matters, but not equally to all the financial and market performance; the concept of manufacturing competence is found to be more influential in determining the business performance in the electronics sector than in the machinery industry. Does manufacturing competence matter equally in all industries, or does it matter more in a specific industry? If so, what makes manufacturing competence so important? Advocates further study to answer these questions and to complete the theory of manufacturing competence.

In today's turbulent environment, customers are playing a more important role in competition, which can be reflected by customers as co‐producer, value co‐producer, or co‐developer of knowledge and competencies, etc. Accordingly, business priority should be given to what customers really value. Unlike previous studies, which emphasize market performance mainly from the internal or firm's perspective, this paper proposes that firms should prioritize customer‐focused performance, defined totally from an external perspective of targeted customers. The paper examines the important role of customer‐focused performance and its interactive relationships with other dimensions of the overall performance system, and goes further to analyze the components and dynamics of customer‐focused performance. Finally, attention is given to the dynamic competence building and leveraging process and its key elements, which determines the customer‐focused performance in perspective of resource‐based views. Important propositions are presented and future implications discussed.

This paper aims to investigate the influence of supply and demand competence on supply chain (SC) resilience and its impact on a firm’s operational and relational performance. While the former competence refers to production and supply management-related activities, the latter refers to distribution and demand management-related activities. Within this framework, process compliance, i.e. how well SC management processes are internally executed by the firm’s employees, is observed as an enabler (moderator) on the relationship between SC competence and SC resilience. Further the model also explores the moderating influence of environmental uncertainty (EU) on the linkage between SC resilience and firm performance.

Data were collected through a Web-based cross-sectional survey from SC professionals working in different industries at various designations. Further, the collected data were analyzed using partial least squares for hypotheses’ testing.

The findings suggest a positive influence of demand- and supply-side competences on SC resilience. Supply chain resilience was also found to have a positive influence on operational and relational performance. Further, process compliance was found to positively moderate the relationship between the competences and resilience. Lastly, the relationship between resilience and performance was found to gain momentum in the presence of EU.

Data were collected from a single respondent per firm. Hence, future research should attempt to collect data from multiple respondents for increased generalization.

The study holds significance for academicians and practitioners, as it investigates the importance of supply- and demand-side competences on the development of SC resilience and its impact on performance. This investigation showed that building resilience in a SC is dependent on the degree to which firms are process-compliant. Further, it was empirically proved that resilience’s positive influence on performance increases more with the presence of uncertainties.

The aim of this paper is to analyse the staff development and performance appraisal in a Brazilian research centre.

The key issues of this case study are: the main organisational changes which have taken place over the last decades; the aspects of the organisational structure that have either contributed to or hindered competence‐based management; the development of necessary researchers' competences related to main projects and processes and the way of appraising the development of their competences. The analysis of this paper was carried out considering the following phases: strategic planning, specifications of projects and processes, competence‐based management and performance appraisal of researchers.

Although integration was found between the performance measurement and strategic plans defined by the research centre, competence‐based management is still centred on individuals and based on their tasks. The link between researchers' competences and their social context is not considered.

Feedback from the results of research projects and recycling of organisational processes would allow the studied organisation not only to identify the individual competences necessary for each activity, but also to improve the relationship between professional growth and innovation brought about by competitive strategies of companies.