Learning framework – Defining strategic technology competences

Abstract

A learning, developing organization is considered a prerequisite for a company to gain competitive advantage or gain cost advantages, by learning more effective ways to operate their business. Organizational development requires successful competence management that supports learning both from strategic and individual development points of view, as well as makes use of employees’ intrinsic motivation to learn. This combination creates a requirement to recognize which competences are most valuable to the organization and would support selected strategy, as well as to what kind of prerequisites there are for employees to learn each required area. The scope of this study is to establish a framework that helps organizations to identify their strategic technical competence areas, and to map them with information on existing competences and skills, as well as tools to plan competence management actions further and link them to company strategy and timelines. It gives tools to map required competences to strategy, as well as to align employees’ competence development to strategic business development.