Competencies for organizational change: opportunity or paradox?

In globalized markets, characterized by increasing uncertainty and highly dynamic competition, people have become, according to the mainstream managerial discourse, a crucial asset in order to support organizational change and competitiveness of companies. Despite the many ambiguities and misunderstandings surrounding the debate on competencies, the development of competency-based human resource (HR) systems seem to offer an opportunity to respond quickly and effectively to the current challenges that all kinds of organizations are facing. In this paper we critically analyze and discuss the relationship between the “competency framework” and the issue of organizational change. Our hypothesis is that HR systems based on the most diffused competency modeling practices offer limited possibilities for enacting significant – and not merely rhetorical – organizational changes. Through a literature review of available contributions on the subject, we will explore the key critiques to the mainstream positivist approach. In order to find empirical support to our hypothesis, examples from two case studies will be provided in order to both illustrate the weaknesses of the mainstream approach, and to introduce an alternative approach.