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This study examines the accuracy of individual perceptions (self‐estimates) of acquired competence. A concept of relative competence is introduced to account for variation in rater elevation and differences in importance (significance) of specific competencies. The results indicate that the self‐estimates of job‐specific competencies are well executed. Because the distortion in elevation and stereotype accuracy is largely associated with general constructs, the findings suggest that we should focus on modeling competencies to the job. The results also show that even without a correction for interrater differences or a correction for the importance of different competencies, the competency model carries value‐relevant information.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relative importance of project management (PM) competences across the different stages of a software project life cycle to identify competence development gaps and opportunities.

A deductive and quantitative approach was adopted to address the research questions with a web-based survey for data collection.

After reviewing the context of competences and PM competences, the importance of the PM competences overall and for specific stages in the project life cycle was analysed. The result highlights that functional and meta-competences are perceived to be the most important competence dimensions for software project practitioners.

This study makes three contributions. First, it consolidates PM competences into a set of 20 within four competence dimensions. Second, it prioritises these competences across the software project life cycle. Third, it identifies the significance of the inter-relationship between PM competences and project life cycle to reveal PM competence development gaps and opportunities.

This paper seeks to develop a model for the assignment of employees to workplaces. Assignment methods are of high relevance in practice because employees should be assigned to workplaces according to their competences and preferences to ensure that motivated employees carry out tasks effectively and efficiently.

Two goal programming models are introduced with inputs and valuations using the analytic hierarchy process.

The two goal programming models for the assignment of employees to workplaces, which take into account both employee competences and preferences as well as workplace competence requirements and attributes, seem to be effective in helping to arrive at an optimal assignment decision.

In practice, one major problem is that the input data for the goal programming models are not updated regularly. Thus, the documentation of the competence profiles and the preferences of the employees might be out of date or incomplete.

The development of the two goal programming models which could be applied immediately in practical competence management is what makes the work valuable and addresses a gap in the modelling of personnel assignment methodologies.

This paper discusses a number of issues affecting mergers and acquisitions (M&A) from the perspective of competence-based management. A new framework for competence gap analysis is developed which can be used to assess important aspects of M&A decisions. The usefulness of M&A is compared with other gap-closing actions. This model is founded in the systems view of the firm as developed by Sanchez and Heene (1996), where strategic gaps perceived by managers motivate actions to change the resource and competence base of a firm. In the analysis process derived from this model, several resource states must be identified and analyzed, especially those critical to competences that are needed to achieve sustained competitive advantages in targeted future markets. This approach to strategic gap analysis is also helpful in evaluating alternative gap-closing actions. In this context, M&A are shown to be particularly appropriate actions to fill numerous and large competence gaps especially with a high degree of interaction between involved resources.

The purpose of this paper is to compare Chinese high-tech firms with other international firms in terms of quality capability and competence.

This study uses data from the GMRG fourth round survey and provides a method for differentiating and empirically measuring quality competence and capability using a sample of 343 plants in 17 countries in the high-tech manufacturing sector.

It is shown that the theory of performance frontiers can be used to explain differences in levels of investment in quality management, as well as competence and capability, in plants across regions with varying levels of economic development. Further, it is shown that plants in China provide an example of a special case in that they do not display the same characteristics as plants in other emerging economies.

The study is limited to the high-tech sector and is also constrained by the countries in which the GMRG data has been gathered.

Investment in quality management methods may not always result in discernible variance in quality indicators. In this study this has been shown to be the case in plants in the industrialized world, highlighting the importance of developing a requisite proficiency in innovation. For the plants in China leverage may lie in focussing on how and where resources are being invested, and how quality management is actually valued within a plant.

The study indicates that although some economies in the world may experience rapid growth this also needs to be tempered by a requisite investment in building human capability.

The evidence indicates that the plants in China in this study do not possess similar levels of quality competence and capability, and struggle to make investment in quality management alter outcomes.

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.

Using the literature on innovation research, this paper proposes to establish and empirically test a prediction model which consists of four major factors in the adoption of online retailing by organisations, namely relative advantage, competitive pressure, channel conflict and technical resource competence.

Data collected from 140 different companies indicate strong empirical support for the model. Relevant hypotheses were derived and tested by logistic regression analysis.

The results revealed that relative advantage, competitive pressure and technical resource competence have positive effects on the adoption of online retailing.

The research was conducted in Hong Kong, which may limit the generalisability of the findings.

While many studies contribute to an understanding of behaviours of the online market from a consumer perspective, there are few concrete investigations of the organisational viewpoint. With data obtained from practitioners in 140 companies, the major factors of online retailing adoption are addressed, providing strategic directions for managers to evaluate its adoption.

Although many conceptual papers and case studies have identified different potential factors affecting the adoption of online retailing, there are few empirical studies which establish prediction models for its adoption. In fact, during the past decade, in spite of growing interest in B2C transactions, organisations have not necessarily rushed towards adopting online sales. It is critical to have more empirical evidence of the factors affecting the adoption of online sales to help managers further access the benefits of its continuous and potential development. This study attempts to fill the research gap.

The paper seeks to explain the collaborative intent, trust development, and conflict resolution in a headquarters‐subsidiary relationship in a new product launch context in an emerging market.

Grounded theory development is employed through personal interviews with senior executives of selected multinational firms operating in Turkey.

A major challenge in collaboration is convincing both parties to the dyad that the expertise of the other party is essential for effective collaboration.

The findings are based solely on looking at the subsidiary side of the subsidiary‐HQ dyad in a single country, which limits their generalizability. Since we did not interview the HQ side of this dyad, speculations made about the possible reactions of HQ personnel to subsidiary actions must be interpreted with caution.

The perceptions of both parties play a far more important role than the facts or perceptions of just one party when it comes to relationships and conflict resolution. Both parties need to pay more attention to the possible causes of means incongruence and take perception gaps and the other side's needs and expertise into account when approaching collaboration and conflict resolution.

Agency theory is extended to a multinational firm‐subsidiary context in order to suggest mechanisms for resolving conflict through increased communication, greater trust in each other's capabilities, and greater collaboration in meeting common challenges. A diagnostic and prescriptive framework and mechanisms are also offered through which disruptive conflict can be transformed into functional conflict and collaboration.

Using a sample of 250 Tunisian companies, this paper aims to assess the joint audit mission quality in Tunisia.

The present work aimed at investigating the determining factors of the joint audit quality.

A total of nine essential determining factors were predictably identified: length of service, experience, size asymmetry between the joint auditors, complexity, governance, expertise, information and communications technology use, profitability and staff qualification. However, results show that specialization, satisfaction, the supply of services other than audit, work distribution, leverage as well as size have a positive but non-significant correlation with the joint audit quality, which may be due to the Tunisian context.

Many previous works have been conducted on joint audit in France (Haak et al., 2018), Denmark (Lesage et al., 2017), Germany (Velte and Azibi, 2015), Sweden (Zerni et al., 2012) and Italy (Bianchi et al., 2019). However, to the authors’ knowledge, the Tunisian context is still under-studied and, thus, the objective was to fill this gap in the literature b.y examining the determinants of the quality of joint audit in Tunisia.

Language training has assumed a higher profile over the last five years, yet many employers still appear to lack understanding of the needs, motivations, and attitudes of staff who undertake a course in a modern language. This study was carried out over a six‐month period (1991‐1992), specifically to obtain data on participant attitudes, and the various positive and negative influences on their linguistic performance. Of greatest interest to industrial trainers is the way in which the findings detail those influences which motivate or demotivate those already working, to learn a foreign language – information which could be invaluable when designing language programmes for specific individuals or job‐functional areas within an organization.