Competence Calculability

In this subsection, methods to visualize individual competence in objects of creative competence and performance competences are developed in order to represent values in the phenomena and make them calculable.

The two types of competence have been defined as the human ability to activate knowledge in a social context: “referring to an organism’s capacity to interact effectively with its environment”

(White, 1959, p. 297). The two types are complementary and supplement mutually the other element by addressing different operational tasks and working contexts. In the practices of allocation or recruitments at a distance, they are able to describe varieties, differences and combinations in the supply and demand for enacted knowledge on a detailed scale

distinguishing between simple operational markers as routine-based/development-oriented, known/unknown contexts, and one-man/collaborative tasks (Chapter 3, (Biggs et al., 1982;

Bloom, 1970)).

The view of knowledge is entrepreneurial and pragmatic: reusable objects mapped in the known geography of disciplines and labor markets. Knowledge has an objective and separate identity that will be reflected in the construction of the measurement unit, whereas competencies are personal capacities and abilities owned by individuals to activate the knowledge objects. In other words, without knowledge there is no competence, because there are no objects to activate.

Simplifying the two tables of taxonomies¹⁶, borrowing from Argyris (C. Argyris, 2004a; C.

Argyris, 2004b) and Biggs and Bloom (Biggs et al., 1982; Bloom, 1970) the following

figure-16 Chapter 5.3: Competence Calculability

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based taxonomies are designed to label individual capacity to activate knowledge objects by use of creative and performative competencies.

5.3.1 Visualizing and Valuing Creative Competence

Conceptualizing a valuing logic for Creative Competence, CC, the below taxonomy is

developed by the merger and synthetizing of theories developed by Argyris, Biggs and Bloom.

The various contextual social dimensions in the theorizing of creativity and learning have been superposed and added in the two taxonomies for Performance Competence, PC, respectively Creative Competence, CC, described next:

Taxonomy for Creative Competence

The person is capable of activating a knowledge object in a creative way on one of the five different levels by:

1. Conducting a dialog, superficially, and scheduled, about the knowledge object (Biggs’ level 1)

2. Reproducing the substance of the object, understanding and interpreting it (Bloom’s level 2)

3. Exemplifying the object, putting substance into the relevant contexts, familiar with related disciplines and issues, and identifying it in relation to subjects and levels—

single loop (Bloom’s level 3+ Argyris’ notion of single loop )

4. Applying different knowledge parts, assessing, analyzing, and relating them to new substance in given targets. Able to schedule planning, work on a meta-level, and get relevant associations, able to argue (Biggs’ and Bloom’s level 4)

5. Independently accessing other contexts, handling a number of levels of abstraction and complexities, combining objects in new ways, integrating disciplines, methods, and systems—double loop (Bloom’s and Biggs’ level 5 and Argyris’ notion of double loop).

The above concept shows organizational notions from the previously cited frameworks: A single loop will accept the target and invent new ways of solving the problems (3), a double loop will contest the target claiming its irrelevance and argue for another arena to fight the problem (5).

Figures from the above taxonomy for Creative Competences will in the concept be attached to the knowledge objects documenting one individual’s capability to activate the owned knowledge object through creativity thereby describing its creative potential in operations.

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5.3.2 Visualizing and Valuing Performance Competence

Conceptualizing a valuing logic for Performance Competence, PC, the below taxonomy is developed under similar conditions as the former for CC. The various contextual social dimensions in the theorizing of performance have been constructed for PC.

Taxonomy for Performance Competence

The person is capable of activating knowledge objects using his/her competence at one of the following five levels:

1. Is able to and prefers to work alone in known settings and in routines (context is structured, Bloom’s distinction between known/unknown and the distinction structured/unstructured (Augier et al., 2001))

2. Is able to and prefers to work in teams in known settings and in known processes (as 1.

but “alone” is exchanged with collaboration “in teams,” the distinction “alone/team”

being important at a distance)

3. Is able to work both in teams and independently in unknown settings and unknown processes (context unstructured, unknown and complicated: the notion of

“unknowingness” (Bloom) is underlined)

4. Is able to plan, dispose, engage, inspire others, and take responsibility (elements of general leadership are underlined)

5. Is able to move globally, to gain a foreign audience, to act naturally in other cultures using other languages, can create credibility also through digital media (Biggs’ and Bloom’s level 5 independently of time and space).

The two taxonomies are complementary and represent qualitative competence values. The quantitative–qualitative distinctions are disturbed in the performance taxonomy, because the ascending order does not necessarily indicate higher quality: collaborative work (level 2) is not always better than working alone (level 1). Contexts will define the relations, albeit in the creative taxonomy the relation between quantitative and qualitative is linear where 1 = less creative competence and 5 = more creative competence. The step from 4 to 5 distinguishes the capability to apply the knowledge objects in double loops offering disruptive, innovative solutions.

Scaling is a common tool in research ordering and prioritizing importance. The above taxonomies take after the Likert scale. A Likert scale is a psychometric scale commonly involved in research that employs questionnaires. This is not the case here, because the above taxonomy is the result of constructions of deduced knowledge. It is not a rating scale, but a Likert-type of scale. Likert’s scale emerged from collective responses to a set of questions

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where responses are scored along a range. Technically, a Likert-type scale aims to capture variation that points to underlying phenomena. Respondents specify their level of agreement or disagreement on a symmetric agree–disagree scale for a series of statements. Thus, the range captures the intensity of attitudes to a given item. A scale can be created as the simple sum of questionnaire responses over the full range of the scale, when assuming that distances on each item are equal. This is, as referred, not the case in the used taxonomy. Still, the Likert

resemblance is to become more explicit in the organizational implementation processes, because to note the systemic input of knowledge and competence questionnaires have been constructed and written in code to transfer invisible, individual competencies to taxonometric levels¹⁷. However, the questionnaires do not explore attitudes or interpretations, but facts. In 26 questions the person will answer theory driven questions about how the person works with the concerned object of knowledge. Technologically, the 26 clicks are automatically concentrated into 2 figures between 1-5, one for CC and one for PC.

Having applied the design elements to concretize N-F measurement units by the identification of methods to visualize and measure explicit and tacit knowledge objects including two

taxonomies for generic competence objects in figures, the result is ready to be conceptualized in the next section. This proposes materialized, but unlimited, combinations of objects of generic, global value representations of explicit academic, company-specific, and tacit knowledge objects, performance competence, and creative competence.