Competence encompasses or overlaps with notions of efficiency, success, accountability, excellence and self-justification. This collection explores ways in which individuals, teams or groups in organizations discursively present themselves as competent to perform tasks or functions, possibly at a superior level.

The classic #1 New York Times bestseller that answers the age-old question Why is incompetence so maddeningly rampant and so vexingly triumphant? The Peter Principle, the eponymous law Dr. Laurence J. Peter coined, explains that everyone in a hierarchy—from the office intern to the CEO, from the low-level civil servant to a nation’s president—will inevitably rise to his or her level of incompetence. Dr. Peter explains why incompetence is at the root of everything we endeavor to do—why schools bestow ignorance, why governments condone anarchy, why courts dispense injustice, why prosperity causes unhappiness, and why utopian plans never generate utopias. With the wit of Mark Twain, the psychological acuity of Sigmund Freud, and the theoretical impact of Isaac Newton, Dr. Laurence J. Peter and Raymond Hull’s The Peter Principle brilliantly explains how incompetence and its accompanying symptoms, syndromes, and remedies define the world and the work we do in it.

A handy guide offering a practical plan for targeting skills any employee wants to develop and employers most desire. It's hard to tell if today's competitive job market is more unsettling for employees seeking job security or companies trying to retain loyal workers. The Value-Added Employee provides fresh insights on what makes employees valuable to the organization and how companies can keep productive employees on the job. Employees will understand how to increase their personal marketability by developing specific skills, knowledge, and attitudes. Managers and coaches will find the tools and resources to make employees more valuable to the organization. Even policymakers and human resource professionals can drive change and business improvement through the application of competency modeling processes. The Value-Added Employee is a step-by-step plan for targeting the competencies an employee wants to develop and employers most desire. It discusses 31 core competencies, including interpersonal competencies, business competencies, and self-management competencies. Designed as a handbook, The Value-Added Employee is a toolkit of ideas and a workbook to be written in and referred to on a regular basis. Through its use, employees and their companies will discover a firm foundation for meeting future goals.

The shortage of skills in the workforce is one of the major problems facing enterprises today. How American businesses and organizations intend to deal with these issues and operate in a global market under strong competition is one of their primary worries. The only logical and tangible solution to this issue is for the educational system and major businesses and organizations to begin making investments in educating more children and young adults in soft skills like the 21st-century 4Cs skills (critical thinking, communication, creativity, and collaboration) to prepare them to meet the challenges of emerging businesses and technologies. The 21st century has witnessed a rapid transformation in the global workforce and the skills required to thrive in it. Traditional knowledge-based skills alone are no longer sufficient to succeed in today’s complex and dynamic business environment. Instead, organizations increasingly value what is known as the "4Cs" skills: communication, collaboration, critical thinking, and creativity. However, a significant skills gap exists, where many employees lack these crucial abilities. This book explores the impact of the 21st-century 4Cs skills gap in organizations and how it affects their performance, innovation, and competitiveness. The 21st-century 4Cs skills gap poses a significant challenge for organizations across industries. The inability to communicate effectively, collaborate seamlessly, think critically, and foster creativity can hinder productivity, innovation, and competitiveness. As the business landscape continues to evolve, addressing this skills gap is not only a necessity but also a strategic imperative for organizations looking to thrive in the 21st century. Bridging the gap through training, recruitment, and a commitment to a learning culture will be essential for success in the increasingly complex and interconnected world of business.

This multidisciplinary volume brings together wide-ranging empirical research that goes behind the scenes of diverse organizations dealing with business, politics, law, media, education, and sports to unravel stereotypes of discursive leadership practices as they unfold in situ. It includes contributions that explore how leadership discourse is impacted by increasing pressures of “glocalization” (the need to communicate across cultures and languages), “mediatization” (leaving ubiquitous digital traces), standardization (with quality management programmes negotiating organizational procedures), mobility (endless fast-paced long distance synchronization) and acceleration (permanent co-adaption and change). The discussion of purposefully chosen case studies moves beyond questions of who is a leader and what leaders do, to how leadership stereotypes are being challenged in various communities of practice, and thereby making change possible. Cross-cultural and interdisciplinary approaches are used to get deeper insights into the competing, multi-voiced, controversial and complex identities and relationships enacted in leadership discourse practices.

This very impressive Handbook takes established research topics about women in management and treats them in fresh and novel ways. The chapters are intellectually interesting, sound, and provocative, and meet the editors aspiration to stimulate high quality research on women s experiences in work organizations. I recommend it highly. Jean M. Bartunek, Boston College, US This comprehensive Handbook presents specially commissioned original essays on the societal roles and contexts facing women in business and management, the specific career and work life issues of women in these fields, organizational processes affecting women, and the role of women as leaders in business and management. The essays shed light on the extant structures and practices of society and organizations that constrain or facilitate women s representation, treatment, quality of life, and success. Despite decades of ongoing inquiry and increasing interest, research on women in business and management remains a specialized field without mainstream acceptance within business and management disciplines. The Handbook presents the current state of knowledge about women in business and management and specifies the directions for future research likely to be most constructive for advancing the representation, treatment, quality of life, and success of women who work in these fields. It provides the foundations for improved societal and organizational structures, policies, and relational practices affecting all in business and management. Thus, by enhancing the knowledge base that improves the work and life situations of women, it suggests ways to elevate the societal and organizational systems for all. The Handbook will be an essential reference source for recent advances in research and theory, informing both scholars of organization studies, gender, diversity, and feminism; human resource specialists; and educators of and consultants to business organizations and management.

Competencies historically have been vital for skill building, and competency-based approaches have demonstrated their impact on business performance and organizational effectiveness in today’s marketplace. However, this has been discussed exclusively in chapters and books as separate propositions. It is essential to understand the two as linked together, building upon the other, merging individual and organizational perspectives of competencies development. Building Competencies for Organizational Success: Emerging Research and Opportunities presents a narrowly focused discussion of competency-based approaches and performance management and examines how these concepts align with business processes and procedures, management systems, and business objectives. It brings to light a new era of business performance management that complements the collaborative working of individuals and organizations to achieve business desires and addresses such topics as competent organization, knowledge management, and performance management systems. This book helps leaders, managers, executives, consultants, practitioners, academicians, researchers, and students with the understanding of how to utilize intellectual assets as well as how to develop a better future and outcomes for business and people management.