La Declaración de Principios de Basilea

The term competency has no broadly known, particular definition (Jubb and Robotham, 1997; Strebler, 1997). Indeed, researchers and practitioners have developed a number of meanings that function as a focus for their efforts and thus adapt an approach to competency to their particular work. This has resulted in the formation of a multi-faceted conception, called competencies. It will be maintained that the underlying principle for the use of competencies will determine the definition given to the term (Fejfarová and Urbancová, 2015; Khoshgoftar and Osman, 2009). Separate meanings and new labels for the term have recently advanced through common usage. Within specialist groups in the UK, for example, Strebler (1997) suggested that two different meanings of the term competency have been established. Competencies may be ‘expressed as behaviours that an individual needs to demonstrate'’, or they may be `’expressed as minimum standards of ...performance'’ (Strebler, 1997). Table 3.1 summarises a review of the literature showing the main positions taken on a definition of the term competency. It can be seen from the table that competency can be defined as the applied skills and knowledge that enables people to successfully perform their work while learning objectives are specific to a course of instruction.

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Table 3.1: Competency definitions from different sources Author Definition

Marrelli (1998) Competencies are measurable human capabilities that are required for effective work performance demands.

D. D. Dubois (1998)

Competencies are those characteristics- knowledge, skills, mindsets, thought patterns, and the like that, when used either singularly or in various combinations, result in successful performance.

Boyatzis (1982) Boyatzis described competencies as the underlying characteristics of an individual, which are casually (change in one variable cause change in another) related to effective job performance

Selby et al. (2000)

Selby described competency as an ability expressed in terms of behaviour

(National SurveyN. S. Report, 1994)

The National Vocational Council for Vocational Qualifications described competency as performance standards, the ability to perform work roles or jobs to the standard required in employment

(Perrenored, 2002)

A capacity to mobilise diverse cognitive resources to meet a certain type of situation

(Le Boterf, 1998)

LeBoterf says that competencies are not themselves resources in the sense of knowing how to act, knowing how to do, or attitudes, but they mobilise, integrate and orchestrate such resources. This mobilisation is only pertinent in one situation, and each situation is unique, although it could be approached as an analogy to other situations that are already known

(Schuler and Jackson, 2003)

Competencies are defined as ‘the skills, knowledge, abilities and other characteristics that someone needs to perform a job effectively’

(Intagliata et al., 2000)

Most fundamentally, competencies provide organisations with a way to define in behavioural terms what their leaders need to do to produce the results the organisation desires and do so in a way that is consistent with and builds its culture. They should provide the ‘North Star’ by which leaders at all levels navigate in order to create synergy and produce more significant and consistent results.

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The concept of organisational competencies is one of the most misunderstood and misapplied concepts in organisational management (Ahmed et al., 2003; Chaston et al., 2001; Munck and Borim-de-Souza, 2012; Murray and Donegan, 2003). Organisational competencies are often thought to be simply employee skills rather than the compelling cross-company core competencies that drive integrated business execution and management alignment (Chaston et al., 2001; Munck and Borim-de-Souza, 2012; Murray and Donegan, 2003). A broader definition of organisational competencies focuses on the first word, namely ‘organisational’. Under this definition, it is the organisation as a whole that must perform and not just an individual employee. In accordance with this approach the organisation must step outside itself and evaluate what things it does on an ongoing, systemic basis that enables it to achieve its mission vision (Balint and Kourouklis, 1998; Chaston et al., 2001; Gabbott et al., 2002; Munck and Borim-de-Souza, 2012; Murray and Donegan, 2003). Therefore, in identifying organisational competencies, the process cannot be confused with the qualities of individuals or, what human resource management literature refers to as, ‘competencies’ (Draganidis et al., 2006). These relate more to the skills, knowledge, experience and behaviour of individuals. Instead, organisational competencies in a strategy context, refers to the aggregated capabilities of the organisation (namely, what the organisation is able to do through the combined and integrated efforts of many) providing it with sustainable value and broad applicability across the business (Sanchez and Levine, 2009).

Identifying, developing, and monitoring any type of competency, including organisational competencies, is called the competencies lifecycle (Hijazeh, 2011; Lawler, 1994; Mansfield, 1996). The competency lifecycle is the combination of four macro-phases, which aim at the continuous improvement and development of individual and organisational competencies. The four macro-phases are shown in Figure 3.1, which includes mapping, diagnosis, development, and monitoring (Fejfarová and Urbancová, 2015; Khoshgoftar and Osman, 2009). Competency mapping aims to deliver the organisation with an overview of all the essential competencies with the aim of fulfilling its targets; these are explained by the organisational business plan, the project requirements, the group needs, and the job role requirements. The necessary proficiency level for each job profile is also defined in this phase. The second phase is competency diagnosis, meaning an example of the current situation regarding the competencies and equivalent proficiency level that each employee holds. A skills

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gap analysis is also essential in this phase, in order to outline the gap between the number and level of competencies that the employees possess, in comparison with the number and level of competencies required by the organisation according to job roles. Competency

development is the third phase and it deals with the scheduling of activities so as to raise the number and proficiency level of the competencies that an employee should have, according to the previous two phases and the skills gap analysis. The last phase is the monitoring of competencies, namely, a continuous examination of the results achieved by the competency development phase.

Figure 3.1: Competencies lifecycle phases (Fejfarová and Urbancová, 2015; Khoshgoftar and Osman, 2009)

While this research aims to identify the relationship between BIM maturity competencies and BIM uses benefits, only the mapping step will be adopted to identify the core organisational competencies which are vital at this stage of the research. The other steps which represents the practical competency implementation will be used later to explore how the identified BIM competencies will be adopted. BIM is classified as a system innovation, as defined by Slaughter (1998), as it uses multiple innovations to achieve new levels of industry performance. However, the growing use of BIM has highlighted the importance of collaboration and culture change within the industry and across its stakeholders. Whilst these are significant challenges, highlighted through Government reports (Simon, 1944; Latham, 1994; Egan, 1998), it is considered likely they would have been addressed in due course, and that BIM has merely

Mapping (1) Diagnosis (2) Development (3) Monitoring (4)

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been the precipitator of the solution. As such, there has been growing opinion across BIM literature that there has been scant regard for the importance of stakeholder competency in implementing BIM and how further exploration of this area may produce some valuable insights (Y Arayici et al., 2011; Lindblad and Vass, 2015; Tse et al., 2005). Moreover, Linderoth (2010) confirms that the adoption and use of BIM could be shaped by the interplay between the technology and the social context in which it is adopted and used. Such studies indicate that a significant reason for the poor adoption and implementation of BIM is the failure to recognise the user competencies required to manage BIM (Succar, 2015).

Before identifying the core organisational competencies for BIM implementation inside the organisation, it is necessary to understand the term maturity, which represents the proficiency level of competency. This is significant because the identification of BIM competencies depends mainly on existing BIM maturity models which have been validated and used instead of wasting time and effort in re-inventing the BIM competencies. The next section will add explore the term maturity and its importance in measuring the quality, repeatability and degree of excellence of BIM competency.