Rearch on Competency Model:A Literature Review and Empirical Studies
Abstract
Western countries have applied competency models to addressing problems existed in their administrative and managerial systems since 1970s，and the findings is positine and promising. However, competency model hasn’t been introduced to China until 1990s and it is still unknown and mysterious to many Chine managers. This paper aims to uncover the mysterious veil of competency model in order to broaden the horizon of Chine managers and boost China's human resource development as well as management.
Keywords:Competency，Competency Models，Empirical Studies of Competency Models
It has been more than 30 years since competency model was utilized to human resource management.In western countries，competency model first displayed its effectiveness in government administration, meanwhile many multinationals and their branch companies ap
plied the competency model to their daily business management and their business was a great success. As the notion of competency is gradually come to light and accepted by people all around the world，more and more enterpris have been trying to build their own competency model under the help of professional consultant firms. As a result，competency model has gradually been a very fashionable phra in the field of management and quite a few enterpris are thus benefited from it. In recent years, competency model has become a hot spot in the Chine academia as well as big-，middle- and small-sized enterpris alike，many relevant writings and books have also been translated and published. However, competency and competency model are still mysterious to many Chine scholars, business managers as well as government administrators.
Purpo and Significance of the Study
The purpo of the study aims to make a critical literature review of the competency model，clarify some confusion related to it and explore its application. The following que
stions are employed to guide this study:What is competency? What is competency model? What are the theoretical and empirical findings related to competency model?
The study illustrates how we could take advantage of competency model in our harmonious society building. On one hand，the study will delineate competency and competency model in order to clarify confusions related to it since it is still strange and mysterious to many Chine managers and administrators;on the other hand，the study would enrich Chine HRD&HRM in the field of government administration and business management both theoretically and empirically.
Rearch Method
The prent study has utilized qualitative analysis, induction and deduction. Since this rearch is a literature review in some n, qualitative analysis will be an indispensable rearch method; Induction and deduction are applied to both theoretical and empirical studies.
In order to enhance the credibility of prent rearch，only the authoritative publications on competency model are reviewed，including books and papers written by foreign and Chine scholars and HRDHRM practitioners. By arching for the keywords "competency" "competency model" and "competency model building" as well as "empirical studies on competency models"，books and papers written by well-known foreign scholars such as McClelland D. C.，Lyle M. Spencer, Anntoinette D. Lucia, Richard Lepsinger etc.，are available; by the same token，books and papers written by Chine scholars such as Zhi-gong He，Jianfeng Peng, Shaohua Fang, Nengquan Wu，etc.，could be consulted. All the books and papers are published between 1950s and 2007. In addition, many data cited in this paper comes from empirical studies at home and abroad.
Findings
In this part，a literature review of competency is firstly carried out;then competency model as well as its evolution，development and innovation is delineated;finally empirical
studies are reviewed. Empirical studies mainly focus on competency model building and its application to human resource development and management.
Understanding Competency
In 1973，American scholar David C. McClelland published his paper Testing for Competency Rather Than Intelligence which cited a large amount of rearch findings to illustrate
the inappropriateness of asssing personnel qualities by abusing intelligence tests. Dr. McClelland further explained that some factors (personality, intelligence, value，etc.)which people had always taken for granted in determining work performance hadn't displayed their desired result. As a result，he emphasized that people should ignore tho theoretical by pothe and subjective judgements which had been proved groundless in reality. He declared that people should tap directly tho factors and behaviors which could really impact their performance (McClelland, 1973). The factors and behaviors were named "competency" by McClelland. The publishing of this paper sy
mbolized the debut of competency rearch. From then on，many scholars started getting involved into the rearch on competency and they conceptualized competency from different perspectives as shown in the following table:
The above ten concepts of competency have a lot in common:①Competency is motive, trait，value，skill，lf-image, social role，knowledge;②Competency is a combination;③Competency should be measurable, obrvable, instructional， phasic and hierarchical;④Competency is a determinant to outstanding performance.
Thus competency is an underlying combination of individual characteristics such as motive, inner drive force, quality, attitude，sole role，lf-image, knowledge and skill，it is causally related to criterion-referenced effective and/or superior performance in a job or situation and it is measurable，obrvable and instructional.
Besides，many scholars and consultancy firms believe that competency could be explained under the help of three different models:
Iceberg Model. This model treats competency as an iceberg, the part above the water reprents behavior, knowledge and skills which are easy to measure and obrve，while the part under the water symbolizes underlying qualities such as value，attitude，social role, lf-image，traits which are hard to asss，and the deepest part under the water reprents the most latent qualities such as inner drive force，social motive, etc. which are most difficult to obrve and measure.
