Selecting the key competences and the drivers

The key competences were selected regarding the current organizational challenges, competition, changing legislation, and other perceived drivers of success. The health care sector is very much driven by the professions’ assumed roles and duties. It is a fairly new phenomenon that doctors and nurses work closely together (Figure 2, point A), and authority over each patient’s care is distributed among various professions, such as physiotherapists, psychologists, nurses and doctors. In occupational health care, another issue is to share (Figure 2, point B) not only the patient-specific knowledge between professions, but also the customer’s company-specific information between service teams. The health problems are often specific to the working environments, and thus the history of problems, treatments, and solutions are valuable in the service production. Though the

need for trans-professional knowledge-sharing is widely accepted, the practice does not reflect the ideal.

Another challenging area was the customer interface (Figure 2, point C). In an occupational health care organization the nurses or doctors are actually the sales force for the service. It was noted that a lot of timidity and sensitivity is present in the negotiations related to selling the service. The managers knew that some individuals excel in the customer interface, while others feel intimidated. While the health care professionals are not expected to be hardcore salespeople, they should feel confident in discussing the impact of the service on customers’ business and should actively search for a partnering role. This was another highly crucial competence area which the researchers realized required more attention in order to figure out what kind of support people need.

During the course of the discussions between the researchers and the management, it became obvious in many ways that the company needs a cultural change in order to become more innovative and proactive. The competence that enabled the organization to succeed in the past does not seem to be enough for it to thrive in the future. Many old ways of thinking need to be questioned, and new foundations need to be identified for greater competitiveness. For this purpose, the reflective practice (Figure 2, point D) was selected as a critical meta-competence. It was seen as a “gate-keeper” (Cheetham & Chivers 1998) to developing the other competences.

The drivers of the competences (Figure 2) were constructed hand-in-hand with these organizations’ strategically critical competences. For example, the active sharing of knowledge was seen as a matter of constructing and sharing knowing, self-regulation, networks, and organizational structures. These drivers, presented below, were seen as certain types of focus dimensions of promoting reflective professional competence and practice. In the RCA model the competence drivers consist of individual (self-regulation and knowing), social (knowing, interaction, and networks) and organizational (management competence) dimensions (Crossan et al. 1999, Hilden & Tikkamäki 2013).

Knowing consists of knowledge and competences constructed in practice, during the processes of participation in the organization’s daily life. It means co-creation of competences where learning and doing are intertwined. Thus, knowing is socially constructed. Knowing includes thinking, doing, and feeling (Wenger; Nicolini et al. 2003). It gives the significance and meaning for actions and makes both individuals’ learning experiences and learning from others visible. It helps employees to understand the “big picture” of professionalism and the work organization. In the RCA questionnaire, using the customer partnering as an exemplary competence, the professionals were asked to estimate their knowing by answering questions (see Table 1).

Table 1. Examples of the questions related to knowing in the RCA questionnaire

Self-regulation means the willingness, patience, and emotional awareness to use (Epstein & Hundert 2002) the knowing. Self-regulation is the individual’s competence to guide themselves toward important goal states (Vohs & Baumeister 2004). In practice it means acting quickly to take opportunities, ignoring dis-interactions, acting flexible in response to various situations, overcoming obstacles, and managing conflicts between goals (Fitzsimons & Bargh 2004). Good self-regulation also aids group membership, e.g., by controlling emotions and directing behavior toward social belongingness (Vohs &

• I have enough knowing related to partnering skills with customer Scale 1–5 (totally agree – totally disagree)

• My strengths in being a partner to our customers are as follows:

• What kind of support do I need to become more successful in partnering with our customers?

Ciarocco 2004). Several examples of questions related to self-regulation are presented in Table 2.

Table 2. Examples of questions related to self-regulation in the RCA questionnaire

Interaction and networks refer to interpersonal competence. In practice this means, e.g., effective communication with customers and colleagues (Epstein & Hundert 2002), seeing and utilizing others’ competences, and searching actively for new ideas and perspectives. It is the co-creating and sharing of knowing inside and outside the organization. Several example questions related to interaction and networks are presented in Table 3.

Table 3. Examples of questions related to interaction and networks in the RCA questionnaire

Management control defines the strategy, structures, routines, and procedures for individuals and groups to construct and develop their competence and practice reflection in their everyday work. In this study, the typology presented by Malmi and Brown (2008) is utilized for understanding the variety of managerial tools and systems (related to culture, planning, measuring, rewarding, and work organization) that may or may not induce the utilization of competences and reflective practices (see examples in Table 4).

• I’m enthusiastic about my work Scale 1–5 (totally agree – totally disagree) • I’m motivated the most in my work by (1–3 factors)…

• I can set, get enthusiastic about, and achieve goals at work Scale 1–5 (totally agree – totally disagree)

•

Scale 1-5 (totally agree-totally disagree)

• I understand and utilize our customer’s viewpoint in my daily work Scale 1–5 (a lot – very little), especially when…

• I utilize our organization’s networks in my work

Scale 1–5 (a lot – very little). How do you do this in practice? I like to share my expertise with my colleagues

Scale 1–5 (a lot – very little). How do you do this in practice? •

• •

Table 4. Examples of questions related to management control in the RCA questionnaire

In the RCA model all four of these drivers, i.e., knowing, self-regulation, interaction and networks, and management control, were seen to affect the realized competence to develop and practice partnering with customers, along with other strategically relevant competences needed at work.