A Global Reflexion Portfolio-based Competence Development Process

Design for Lifelong Learning in Companies with a High Degree of Diversity

Ilona Grubliauskaite

Department of Development Learning, SAP SE, Walldorf, Germany

Keywords: Learning of Professionals in Companies, Workplace Learning in Companies, Lifelong Education,

Higher Education Global Reflexion Portfolio, Competence Development.

Abstract: Competence management in multi-national companies is a complex challenge. Business needs generate

competence requirements which are imposed on the workforce. A conflict emerges between the imposed

requirements with generated standardized learning offerings and a workforce with heterogeneous

backgrounds and learning needs. Goal of the paper is the investigation of this conflict from a lifelong learning

perspective of individual work process embedded learning. Core contributions of the paper are a study of

work processes and a competence management process. For this purpose an extensive observation study was

conducted, covering 800 hours of data collected from 50 participants over 100 days. A competence

management process is proposed which builds on the creation of reflexion portfolios to analyze the

distribution of a competence among different locations and target groups.

1 INTRODUCTION

Especially in the high tech industry, technological

changes as well as the growing expectations on

product design, stability and innovation make

teaching and learning of professionals in companies

very important. This development of a “knowledge

workforce” (Drucker 1994) needs to be closely

aligned with business needs. One strategy of a

company to realize this alignment is competence

management (Boon and Van der Klink 2001; Garavan

and Mcguire 2001; Hoge et al. 2005; Weinert 2001).

Required competences for a workforce are identified

and monitored. To address a disbalance between

requirement and existing competence distribution

learning offerings are rolled-out. In knowledge-

intensive domains this is a complex challenge which

generates a large body of learning offerings which

needs to be curated – developed and maintained. This

process must consider two conflicting challenges: 1)

Top-down demand: Learning requirements are

decided from the business need. Frequently, hype-

cycles influence the business needs. The top-down

approach inherently requires a quick realization of

learning offerings; and 2) Bottom-up: Learning

offerings are developed for the workforce which itself

has heterogeneous backgrounds and thus different

requirements towards a learning offering. The

heterogeneity of backgrounds and requirements is

especially true for companies with a globally

distributed workforce.

As a solution, companies frequently decide for a

mixture of formal, non-formal and informal

learnings, considering a 70-20-10 approach

(Lombardo and Eichinger 1996) which focuses on

experiential learning (70 percent), learning through

others as peer-to-peer learning (20 percent) and

learning through formal activities (10 percent). The

actual learning content is governed by

standardization. One selection of learning offerings is

intended to solve the demand of the whole workforce

– one size fits all. Still, there is a “tension between

global standardization and local practices” (Hustad

and Munkvold 2005) – learning offerings do not meet

the bottom-up requirements which as an effect is a

threat for learning success. In the worst case, the

business need cannot be fulfilled by the workforce.

Therefore, the process for creating learning

offerings in companies is faced with the following

issue: A harmonization of the conflicting challenges

of top-down and bottom-up demand is required. In

this paper we follow a work-process perspective to

address this challenge. By far most learning needs and

learning moments materialize in the work process.

(Raybould 1995) stated that “many organizations

report that 85-90% of person’s knowledge is learned

Grubliauskaite, I.

A Global Reﬂexion Portfolio-based Competence Development Process - Design for Lifelong Learning in Companies with a High Degree of Diversity.

DOI: 10.5220/0006388206710682

In Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Computer Supported Education (CSEDU 2017) - Volume 1, pages 671-682

ISBN: 978-989-758-239-4

671

on the job and only 10-15% is learned in formal

learning events”.

To address the aforementioned conflict, this paper

investigates workplace learning, its requirements and

means to integrate the findings into competence

management. This approach has two core

contributions: 1) Understanding Learning: This work

presents an ethnographic study with the goal to gain

understanding about the work processes and thus

workplace learning of professionals in a global

company. The study takes place in a large software

company with global business and workforce 2)

Supporting Learning: The data gained from the

ethnographic study enables to generate insights into

the work and learning process. This serves as a

foundation to create a mechanism called a global

reflexion portfolio-based competence management

process which addresses individual, social and

organizational learning needs and demands locally

and globally – in a spiral process model (Section 7.2).

By generating insights into local practices and the

different states of competence development the

creation of dedicated learning mixes as well as the

identification of best practices for learning offerings

can be supported.

This paper is structured as follows: Section 2

presents the current research status on competence

development and management processes; Section 3

describes the “bridge” from Competence

Development to the Lifelong Learning, Section 4

gives an understanding of Lifelong Learning in the

Workplace; Section 5 presents a taxonomy to classify

the learning process at the workplace, Section 6

illustrates an ethnographic study to workplace

learning in a global company. In section 7 the idea of

a global reflexion portfolio-based process for

competence development and management is

presented and section 8 concludes the paper.

2 RELATED WORK:

COMPETENCE

DEVELOPMENT AND

MANAGEMENT IN

SCOMPANIES

Competence development can be defined as an

“overall designation for the various measures that can

be used to affect the supply of competence on the

internal labour market (in individual employees,

groups of employees or the whole personnel group)”

(Ellström and Kock 2008) or just as a “way in which

organizations manage the competencies of the

corporation, the groups and the individuals” (Berio

and Harzallah 2005).

Other researchers stated, that “research into the

effects of education and other forms of competence

development in organizations is rather

underdeveloped, both theoretically and empirically”

(Ellström and Kock 2008). Later both authors

stressed the “need for the elaboration of theoretical

and empirical basis of the distinction between formal

and integrated strategies for competence

development, and an empirical research of the effects

of the two types of strategy, not only for individual

learning outcomes, but also for effects at an

organizational level” (Kock et al. 2011).

Competence Management (CM) can be organized

according to four kinds of processes (Berio and

Harzallah 2005): 1) Competence identification

(required); 2) Competence assessment (acquired); 3)

Competence acquisition (involved) and 4)

Competence usage (produced and transformed).

A case study (nine on-site interviews) to IT

supported competence development in the

telecommunication company Ericsson (Hustad and

Munkvold 2005) showed that the CM process in

Ericsson is established as part of the organization’s

strategic process which is divided into three stages –

analysis, planning, implementation. Three main

challenges for the implementation of a global

competence management system were: 1) Designing

a competence framework; 2) Tensions between

global standardization and local practices; 3) Gaining

commitment from the employees.

3 FROM COMPETENCE

DEVELOPMENT TO

LIFELONG LEARNING

In knowledge-intensive organizations competence

management is used as a technique to align the triad

of individual, social and organizational dimensions

(Marrelli 1998; Hoge et al. 2005; Garavan and

Mcguire 2001) using different perspectives such as

resource-based view, distinctive, core competences

or organizational capability (Probst et al. 2000). This

brings the term competence beyond its traditional

specification as work related knowledge, skill, or

ability, held by an individual” (Nordhaug 1993). In

contrast the resource-based view which “has

influenced the field of strategic human resource

management” (Wright et al. 2001) considers

competence threefold: as human capital (individual

dimension), as social capital (groups) and as

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organizational capital. In this resource perspective,

the individual needs to fulfil a very specific role

between organizational and social dimensions. To

enable the individual to fulfil the role specific skills,

abilities and knowledge is required which can be

achieved by learning, based on learning offerings

provided by the company.

Thus competence management imposes

competence needs for the individual which triggers

the creation of learning offerings (top down) on the

one hand. This not necessarily can be successfully

consumed by the individuals in the company who

have various, heterogeneous learning requirements

and preconditions (bottom up). One potential reason

for this is that competence management as an

organizational process tends to focus highly on

business needs, without building up a complete

understanding of the individual and social conditions.

Individuals have another perspective. They execute

work and are subject to their own lifelong learning

processes which not necessarily go together with the

companies learning offerings generated from a

competence management process.

In this paper, we try to find a way to address this

lack of connection between the individual and

learning offering design for competence

management. To do this, first the concept of lifelong

learning needs to be fully understood to identify

means to integrate competence development with

learning offering design which embraces the

individual in its lifelong learning process.

4 LIFELONG LEARNING IN THE

WORKPLACE

The following section investigates lifelong learning

and will show that in the work process learning results

of the individual manifest and that an investigation of

the work process can be the foundation for improved

competence management and learning offering

design by aligning the earlier mentioned top-down

and bottom-up requirements.

A large body of research on lifelong learning in

the workplace exists. In many cases, it is broken down

into formal, non-formal and informal learning

activities (Marsick and Watkins 2001; Eraut 2000;

Eraut 2004; Sauter and Sauter 2013). This distinction

in many cases helps to realize a focused investigation

of learning. However, the resulting separation

complicates the investigation of interconnected social

and organizational aspects on individual learning. For

this, the perspective of Billett (Billett 2002; Billett

2004; Billett 2010a; Billett 2010b) and others (Lave

1991; Engeström and Middleton 1996; Suchman

1996) is more suitable. They enable a perspective on

workplace learning which explicitly considers the

relations and interdependencies of social norms and

practices guiding the individual. Learning becomes a

social process which is deeply integrated into the

daily activities of the individual. Lifelong Learning

by Billett is seen as an “inevitable and ongoing

process of development that occurs through

individuals’ engagement in conscious and non-

conscious thinking and acting throughout their lives”

(Billett 2010a). This entails an interdependency

between work in learning and learning in work – a

complex phenomenon of Lifelong Learning at the

Workplace.

As Billett stated, “the most common sites and

settings for learning that which occurs throughout

everyday thinking and acting largely sit outside

courses” (Billett 2010b). This paper aims at

highlighting the relevance of work process embedded

learning. Goal-directed activities structured by

workplace experiences – depending of the regulations

of workers participation – thus influencing

constitution of their individual and collective

experiences during their daily working life are in the

focus of this work.

4.1 Structure of Workplace Activities

and Participation

Activities and active participation at the workplace

are shaped by values and norms that derive from

specific worldviews (Billett 2002). Thus, the

individual, governed by social factors and norms and

being in some respect the creator of his work process

must be closely investigated in the context of lifelong

learning. Norms, values and regulations are highly

relevant elements shaping workplace learning

activities of professionals. Those norms, regulations

and values are caused not only by the cultural and

organizational, but also social and especially

individual aspects, which serve as a kind of

“structuring structure” for working and learning

activities in daily work of professionals. Every single

working day has a more or less different structure

which as a consequence structures working and

learning activities differently – depending on the

work focus and job profile.

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4.2 Workplace Learning as a

Negotiated and Reciprocal Process

Knowledge is “reciprocally” shaped by individuals

and their experiences at the workplace (Valsiner and

Van der Veer 2000). As Billett and Bound stated,

“individuals’ learning is not “socialization”

(Livingstone 1999) or “enculturation” (Gavelek and

Kong 2012). Individual agency shapes engagement in

work practice and what is learnt (Billett and Boud

2001). Thus, workplace learning can be seen as

“workplace participation and sustaining practice”

(Billett 2002).

4.3 Workplace Learning Summary in

the Context of This Work

The scope of this work of the conflict of top-down

and bottom-up development of learning offerings in

global companies – focusing on an IT company. A

conflict which requires a better understanding of the

relationship. This section has shown how important is

it to understand the work processes of professionals

as “knowledge workers” (Drucker 1994), to be able

to understand how professionals learn in their daily

work. Thus, the bottom-up aspect of learning offering

design should be founded on findings from the work

process. To achieve it, it requires: 1) Work processes

of professionals in companies should be investigated

to enable to gain important insights about the learning

activities of professionals at work; 2) The

investigation of the work processes should use

methods which enable to identify learning in the

context of social norms, values and practices. Thus,

ethnographic methods are beneficial for this.

5 WORKPLACE LEARNING

PROCESS CLASSIFICATION

An investigation of the work process needs to explore

the basic building blocks of the work process. To

explore the specific aspects identified in the previous

section – capturing the situatedness of learning and

the relevant influence of community and culture a

rich, yet acknowledged taxonomy is necessary.

This section focuses on existing work on three

complimentary perspectives on the work process and

respective taxonomies: 1) Activity taxonomy to

capture the basic modes of observable interactions of

a subject with its environment throughout the

workday; 2) Roles taxonomy to focus on how the

knowledge worker learns or teaches – using a

perspective of “giver” and “taker” learning activities;

3) Communication mode taxonomy to distinguish

between different local modes of interaction of a

subject with his environment. The choice of

taxonomies sketches the work process model of this

paper: work processes are considered to be

characterized by activities, roles and communication

modes. Taxonomies of activities and roles used in this

work were selected according to two criteria –

communication character and indicators for learning.

Here, the taxonomies are used to investigate: 1)

Activities of knowledge workers as a kind of

knowledge action they are practicing in their daily

work; and 2) Roles as a kind of learner behaviour

during their knowledge activities at work.

5.1 Activities: Using and Adapting

Existing Taxonomies for Lifelong

Learning Investigation

The main goal of the activity taxonomy is to provide

a rich vocabulary for individual interaction with the

environment. The focus is discriminatory power and

completeness with respect to capturing the workday

and learning throughout the workday. The activity

taxonomy directly builds on earlier work by

(Reinhard et al. 2008) which itself integrates the

following activities derived by different authors:

Information Organization; Conversation; Update;

Analyse; Dissemination; Feedback; Authoring, Co-

authoring and Expert search.

While the work by (Reinhard et al. 2008) provides

a valuable combination of activities, there are

limitations when it comes to capturing the workday

with a specific focus on learning. To address this the

aforementioned activities were merged and extended

(in italics) in the following respect: 1)

Communication Character: Conversation, Update,

Feedback, Reflexion, Analyse, Dissemination, Expert

search; 2) Indicator for Learning: Expert search,

Information search&reading web, information

search&reading print, information search&reading

web and print.

5.2 Roles: using and Adapting Existing

Taxonomies for Lifelong Learning

Investigation

The foundation for the role activity to investigate the

“giver” and “taker” perspective of learning activities

was also the work by (Reinhard et al. 2008). The

relevant roles are: Sharer, Linker, Networker;

Retriever; Controller, Organizer; Solver, Helper.

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Additionally, as argued above, existing taxonomies of

roles were merged and extended (in italics) in the

following respect: 1) Communication Character:

Sharer, Linker, Networker, Explainer, Analyser,

Decisionproofer&decisionmaker; 2) Indicator for

Learning: Solver, Helper Retriever, Networker and

Explainer.

5.3 Communication Modes

The communication mode complements the

perspective of activities and roles. Communication

mode stands for the realization of social interaction

during the work process. The following types of

communication modes within a company can be

distinguished: virtually (e.g. skype for business), face

to face (in person), face to face&virtually

(combination of virtual and personal communication,

e.g. conferences, meetings) and office&individually

(work alone in the office).

5.4 Conclusion

Activities, roles, and communication modes are

relevant because of the following reason:

 Activities help to classify data about what

professionals are doing during their daily working

days: Types, duration and focus of those activities

help to identify the learning moments (explicit) or

its indicators (implicit). This information helps to

understand how people interact with themselves

as individuals and with others as collaborating

groups, teams.

 Roles help also to classify, select and understand

the ways how professionals act focused on “giver”

and/or “taker” perspectives. This helps to

understand the transformation between sender and

receiver of information and experiences. Those

insights show how explicit or implicit the

“outcome” of learning (e.g. sharer or retriever) is.

 Communication modes help to find out, what are

the more or less preferred communication

channels. This information can be very useful by

creating global learning offerings which shows

common local preferences in communicating with

each other.

Taxonomies of activities, roles and

communication modes will be used in the following

study to investigate how workplace learning of

professionals in a global company manifests.

6 AN ETHNOGRAPHIC STUDY

IN A COMPANY: HOW DO

PROFESSIONALS LEARN?

The following ethnographic study aims to investigate

the workplace learning in a global company with the

focus on how do professionals really learn in practice.

6.1 Goal: Understanding of the

Learning Process

The goal is to understand 1) how learned knowledge

manifests in the daily work, 2) how learning takes

place in the daily work, and 3) to identify moments of

failure due to a lack of knowledge. This investigation

will help to understand how competence management

can consider actual learning prerequisites and

requirement in the design process of learning

offerings.

6.2 Method: Participant Observation,

Interviews and Questionnaires

To achieve the goal, participant observation was

chosen as data collection method rooted in

ethnographical research with additionally combined

qualitative and quantitative methods. The methodical

approach of this study for combining methods was

influenced by the insights gained about Lifelong

Learning in the Workplace (cf. Section 4). This way

of method combination as mixed-methods is also

called “systematic triangulation of perspectives”

(Flick 1991).

6.2.1 Ethnography

“Ethnography always implies a theory of culture”

(Spradley 1980). It results that an ethnographic

approach aims at studying other cultures and thus

other cultural learning activities. There are three

essential aspects related to that: “what people do,

what people know, and the things people make and

use” (Spradley 1980). Those aspects in the context of

learning activities are automatically in continuous

relation with cultural behaviour such as reading,

cultural knowledge such as norms and rules and also

cultural artefacts such as shaping and making the

things from natural resources. Later (Atkinson and

Hammersley 1994) distinguished ethnography by the

main features: “exploring the nature of social

phenomena”, “tendency to work preliminary with

‘unstructured’ data”, and “analysis of data that

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involves explicit interpretation of the meanings and

functions”.

Therefore, the values of ethnographic

(qualitative) methods compared with quantitative

methods such as online surveys, have a “greater

ability to capture the nature of social phenomena”

(Hammersley 2013), e.g., culture, perspectives,

practices of the people. In sum, ethnography aims to

find a way of “getting inside” of peoples’ (individuals

and/or groups) view in the Here and Now.

6.2.2 Participant Observation

Participant observation as qualitative data collection

method enables the generation of qualitative

descriptions and formulation of “concept for

measurement, as well generalizations and hypothesis

that with further testing may be used to construct

explanatory studies” (Jorgensen 1989).

The following arguments of participant

observation were relevant for our methodical decision

in the study: 1) Insider’s Perspective to get a view of

“reality”; from the daily working life perspective; 2)

Location in the Here and Now of daily work; 3)

Interpretations to generate qualitative description and

thus provide practical “truths”; 4) Process logic and

“logic of discovery” to keep the flexibility, openness,

reflexivity during participant observation as open-

ended process; 5) An in-depth, qualitative, case study

approach and design, to describe and analyse

individual cases – here focused on their learning

behaviour (Jorgensen 1989); and 6) The researchers

role as “ professional stranger” (Flick 1991) enables

to observe and gain experiences from individuals

interactions with other people.

6.2.3 Mixing Qualitative and Quantitative

Methods

The combination of qualitative and quantitative

methods has different strengths (Steckler et al. 1992):

First, generating of rich detailed, valid process data;

Second, producing factual, reliable outcome data. To

achieve this, we combined the following methods:

 Ethnographic Interviews, to get more information

to the specific cases, topics during the

observation, esp. in spontaneous situations;

 Qualitative Interviews, for discussion with the

observed participant to reflect and evaluate the

observed working process and to discuss the “first

evaluation insights” of the observation days in a

feedback sessions. For each feedback session an

individual profile based on the “topics”, “roles”

and “activities” of the participants during those

two observation days were created. Descriptive

Statistics was used for the quantitative analysis of

the data gained from observation. Classified data

was quantified in terms of duration and analysed

using aggregation, normalization and basic

statistical measures (e.g. average, standard

deviation);

 Semi-Structured Interviews, to get an up to date

information about the participants (demographic

data based). Those interviews included one open

question about the learning – Self-evaluation of

their own understanding and practicing. The

interviews were analyized using Qualitative

Content Analysis as an approach of systematic,

rule guided qualitative text analysis (Mayring

2014).

6.3 Study Design

The target group for the observation was composed

of professionals with two job types: 1) Professionals

who have personal responsibilities (Managers, Senior

Managers, and Development Executives); 2)

Professionals who have technical responsibilities,

without direct people responsibility (Experts, Chief

Experts). Both groups originated form

“Development” as “Functional Area” of a large

global software company. The target group was

sampled from the workforce of a large global

software company. Participants involved in this study

came from six countries: Germany, China, India,

USA, Israel and Bulgaria. International Target Group

had a number of 50 global participants: 22 experts, 28

managers.

The goal of the study was to explore: 1) Local

differences of individual and collective workplace

practices between globally distributed professionals

as knowledge workers in their activities and roles,

also differences related to their job profiles

(manager’s vs expert); 2) Locally preferred ways to

communicate knowledge, common communication

channels of professionals in local and global team-

working; 3) Implicit (tacit) dimension of knowledge,

which is (as mentioned above) highly relevant for

different types of workplace learning, especially non-

and informal learning activities.

Summarized, those insights should help in

understanding connections between Lifelong

Learning and Work Processes on the one hand and

how possibilities of considering them successfully in

a Competence Management Process.

Information was captured as specified in 6.2.3: 1)

Observation data was collected, processed, validated

and analysed; and 2) Self-evaluation questionnaires

were filled out by the participants to get their personal

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opinion on learning.

6.3.1 Participant Observation

The following observation process was developed

based on several observation trials with workers in a

company due to its positive combination of collecting

much information and avoiding repetition of

observed phenomena: Participant observation of

professionals during their daily work. Data was

collected by a single observer. The observation had a

duration of two workdays per person.

A four Stages Process of observation combined

with additional methods was conducted as follows:

(1) Participant Observation: Each participant was

shadowed for two days. During the shadowing

two tapes of information were collected: time in

minutes and a description of what the participant

is doing;

(2) Immediate Transcripts: Immediately after each

observation session the collected data was cleaned

and structured into the following categories: time;

process (summarized set of activities); activities;

roles; communication mode; topics of the work;

and interaction with other persons. Basically, the

activity, role and communication mode taxonomy

specified in section 5 of this paper was applied to

the data. The process reassured the usefulness of

the taxonomies for a seamless specification of the

work activities observed during the process. The

observer did not have access to all meetings of the

observed persons due to confidentiality of some

meetings – in those cases the time was captured

and specified as “observation break” in the data.

A peculiarity was that many things the

participants did addressed more than one element

in the activity and role taxonomy in parallel;

(3) Data Analytics Stage I-Individual level:

Generating individual profiles for each

participant. Calculation of different indicators

based on the observed timespans. The durations of

activities, roles and communication modes was

calculated per participant. The coocurrence of

activites, roles and communication modes was

measured. The resulting classification was always

verified in a feedback session with the participant;

(4) Data Analytics Stage II-Class level: Data

comparison between all six countries mentioned

above and the target group based on different job

profiles. The tools used for data analysis were R

and Excel.

6.3.2 Self-evaluation Questionnaires

The participant observation was complimented by a

self-evaluation of the participants with a focus on

their own view on learning practices. The self-

evaluation had the same participants like the

participant observation.

The self-evaluation was structured as follows.

Each person filled out a semi-structured questionnaire

with a set of questions to capture the personal

understanding of learning, beneficial and

complicating factors for learning. The questionnaire

was filled out one time per person after the whole

observation period of two days. The decision to put

the questionnaire at the end of the observation phase

on the one hand captured an increasing self-

awareness of the participants for learning – which

was an implicit effect of them being part in an

observation study which focused on learning. On the

other hand, taking the questionnaire at the end

avoided an amplification of this awareness which

could result from taking the questionnaire. The

questionnaires were evaluated using qualitative

content analysis.

Summarized, a study design which combined

different data collection and evaluation methods

aimed at more in-depth investigation, more valid data

evaluation and thus a deeper understanding of the

subject.

6.4 Data Set

Two data sets were obtained by the study: 1) Data

evaluation of participant observation; 2) Self-

evaluation data of semi-questionnaires. Both data sets

contain data of the 50 participating professionals with

28 experts and 22 managers; 15 female and 35 male,

in total 11 nationalities but located in 6 countries. The

data was collected in 6 different countries: Germany,

China, India, USA, Israel and Bulgaria. Work

experience of the target group: most professionals

involved in the data collection phase had a long work

experience of 16-20 years (N=15) and 11-15 years

(N=14).

Age Spectrum of the target group: most

participants were in the age group of 41-50 years

(N=23) and 51-older (N=14).

The observation data set covered 100 days and

800h of participant observation. The self-evaluation

data set covered the opinions of all 50 participants of

the observation study.

6.5 Data Evaluation

The constitutive element of evaluation was twofold:

1) Data Analytics based on the data gained from

observation activities, using aggregated durations of

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assigned activities, roles and communication modes.

This evaluation aimed to identify the learning

moments of professionals as “knowledge workers” in

terms of activities, processes, roles, and

communication modes; and 2) Analysis of the self-

evaluation of professionals based on their

descriptions aimed to identify the learning moments

based on the professionals’ own understanding.

Additionally, differences between two types of

job profiles were analyzed – managers and experts –

but due to the marginal/no significant differences on

the level of the used classes, it is not reported here but

will be subject for future work.

6.5.1 Evaluation of Observation Data:

Identifying Local Learning using

Existing Taxonomies

In the following, an investigation of the distributions

of activities, roles and communication modes with

respect to the target group (experts, managers) and

countries is provided. Here we report normalized

data. Due to space restrictions other analysis with a

focus on deviation and outlier analysis is not reported.

The data presented must be read as follows: the

data of the X axis shows the categories in terms of

activities, processes, roles and communication

modes, which is sorted by highest frequency. The

data of the Y axis shows the percentage allocation of

those categories in the sum total (Individual data is

here already normalized per person and summed per

location). Each location has different colour marking.

The following figures 1, 2 and 3 show local

differences and similarities between Germany, China

India, USA, Israel and Bulgaria according to

activities, roles and communication modes.

1. Activities

The following overview of activities (Figure 1) shows

what activities (Section 5) could be identified based

on the measured durations. The overview shows, that

those activities which are seen as explicit indicators

for learning, such as expert search, information

search&reading web, information search&reading

web and print or information search&reading print

(left side of the spider chart) could not often be

observed. Activities which have explicit

communication character such as

conversation&update, conversation&feedback,

conversation&reflexion or listening&asking were

often observed. There are two outliers – Bulgaria,

where “observation break” was extremely often

observed and India – where “information

search&reading web” was more often observed than

in other locations. This implies, that India preferred

much more individual based information search

modes than the other countries included in the study.

Figure 1: Local Activities of Professionals.

To summarize the overview of activities (Figure 1), it

can be said that implicit interpersonal learning

identifications dominate (e.g., conversation&update,

listening&asking, analyze&dissemination). Thus, not

so many explicit information search activities were

identified (like expert search, information

search&reading web). This reminds of Billett’s

reflexions about Lifelong Learning in the Workplace

(Section 4) and its focus on social practices, e.g.

interaction with others.

2. Roles

The following overview of roles (Figure 2) shows,

that explicit roles as indicators for learning (e.g.,

helper&networker, retriever&solver,

linker&networker) could not often be observed. Roles

influenced by regulations within a workplace such as

retriever&controller (especially in India),

retriever&analyzer (especially in China),

controller&organizer could more often be observed.

Figure 2: Local Roles of Professionals.

Summarized, the overview (Figure 2) implies, that an

implicit dimension of a learner dominates.

3. Communication Modes

An overview of communication modes shows that

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678

“face to face” mode was most commonly used during

observation activities in all locations involved. This

implies, that communication in person can be

considered as being very important. Only in India and

Bulgaria “office&individually” mode is preferred.

Figure 3: Local Communication Modes of Professionals.

The data gained from the overview about

communication modes (Figure 3) can be used for the

creation of global learning offerings in companies.

Concludely, we see a large variety of different

types of locally preferred learning practices – due to

the activities, processes, roles, communication

modes.

6.5.2 Self-Evaluation: Identifying Learning

through Professionals Own

Understanding

The questionnaire the 50 participants filled out

included the free-text question “What does learning

in the company mean for you?” The answers were

coded and mentions were counted. The result is

shown in Figure 4 (for the top mention count of the

codes mentioned at least by 5 participants

Figure 4: Self-Evaluation of professionals about learning.

Summarized it can be seen a large variety of different

kinds of locally preferred learning practices: There is

a high preference for workplace learning and

interactive formats. Formal learning formats receive

less mentions but are still part of preferred learning

types. The broad spectrum of different kinds of

preferred-learnings underpins the scepticism towards

one-size fits all learning format.

6.6 Results

It must be mentioned that the generalization of a study

as presented here is not necessarily given. However,

many aspects have proven very stable among the 50

participants. Therefore, generalization seems to be

possible. The data gained from global participant

observation can be concluded as follows:

First, local activities are different between all

countries according to the information search (e.g.

expert search) as indicator for learning (e.g. India and

Bulgaria vs Germany, China and USA and Israel).

Second, local roles don’t show explicitly

professionals as learners in terms of giver (e.g.,

solver) or taker (e.g. linker) – thus roles are

characterized by tacit nature of learning.

Third, preferred communication mode of

professionals locally also shows differences, e.g.,

“office-individually” is as top 1 in India and Bulgaria,

face to face – in other four locations. Therefore, all

those local differences shows that “one size fits all

format” of learning could difficult help to achieve

results that benefit all participants locally. Due to that,

a mechanism is needed, which can recognize and

address different local learning demands and needs.

In the next section will be presented a competence

development process.

7 APPROACH

This section presents a competence management

process which is structured based on a reflexion-

portfolio. The idea is to avoid an immediate reuse of

the findings from the study. The portfolio much more

aims at providing a method to make informed

decisions which consider top-down and bottom-up

requirements as well by collecting relevant data.

The reflexion portfolio allows for the

identification of local practices and provides an

overview of the existing competence levels in a target

group. The specific benefit of this process is the

creation of learning offerings as dedicated learning

mixes (formal, non-formal, informal) which address

local practices. Thus, they can help realize

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679

competence management and address the identified

tension in competence management.

7.1 Participant Observation as Basis

for Building a Reflexion Portfolio

Goal is to create a process for the design of learning

offerings which is capable of integrating the

differences in a globally distributed and diverse target

group. Inspired by the beneficial insights gained

during the observation study, the decision taken is to

strongly stimulate a comparable process of reflecting

empirical data which represents local learning

behaviours and local competence profiles. At the

same time, it is absolutely necessary to limit the effort

required for collecting the data and to reason about

the data. The chosen approach is the use of reflexion

portfolios which helps in making the intangible

workplace learning processes tangible (Section 4). To

make this more explicit a short background on

portfolios shall be given first. Then, our learning

design process is described.

A portfolio can be described as “a purposeful

compilation and reflection of one’s work, efforts and

progress” (Milman 2005). According to

Baumgartner`s taxonomy of e-portfolios (digital form

of a portfolio), a reflexion portfolio involves two sub-

types of portfolio: 1) Learning portfolio, to show the

learning products and processes. This type on the

individual level includes the learning products

(summative: objectives) and learning processes

(formative: activities – individual and/or

collaborative) of professionals; 2) Evaluation

portfolio, to evaluate the skills and competences by

e.g. curriculum in form of exams of professionals.

(Baumgartner and Himpsl 2006).

In this work a reflexion portfolio can be

understood as a living document which focuses a

competence of interest and structures information

about the competence from one or more locations,

communities, individuals. This kind of document

aims to show and especially to reflect the competence

development across different locations and target

groups.

7.2 Reflexion Portfolio for Assessment

of Competences in Companies

Basically, the reflexion portfolio is a living document

which collects competence related information for a

specific competence in a target group with respect to

a chosen competence goal (Figure 5). It is maintained

by a competence manager – probably human

resources staff. First, a target section of the portfolio

specifies the competence, target group and

competence goal. The remaining portfolio is

governed by an iterative process of competence

management which is supported by the portfolio. This

process is composed of three steps: as-is analysis,

gap-analysis and measures. Each iteration forms one

chapter of the reflexion portfolio, including the

following information: 1) The “as-is” section offers

information about the state of competence within the

target group at a given point in time. This section

allows to gain detailed information about the target

group where a competence of interest is located

(locations, local learning groups/communities,

individuals); preferred methods in working and

learning with this competence of interest; local and

cultural aspects as factors influencing the handling of

this competence; 2) “Gap-analysis” aims at exploring

the status of a competence of interest within the target

group. This in-depth analysis allows to explore a

“lack” of this competence on the macro (locations),

meso (learning communities) and micro (individuals)

levels of an ecosystem. The findings gained in this

section enable to derive suitable measures; 3)

“Measures” to address the identified gaps in the phase

before can be formal (e.g., formal training programs),

non-formal (e.g., learning communities, virtual

forums) and/or informal (e.g., learning spaces).

ReflexionPortfolio

ReflexionPortfolioChapters=n‐IterationsoftheCompetenceManagementProcess

To‐beSpecification

(Competence,Target

Group,Competence

Goal)

As‐isAnalysis GapAnalysis

SpecifyLearning

MixMeasures

Roll‐outof

LearningMix

Figure 5: Process of a Reflexion Portfolio.

Typically one iteration can have a duration between a

couple of months and one year. It depends, what kind

of competence is needed, who target group is and how

long it takes to gain and evaluate the data and derive

suitable measures

7.3 Towards a Tool Perspective on

Competence Development

The described competence development process

builds on the collection of data about local

competence profiles and learning preferences. As

earlier mentioned, it is of utmost important to

simplify the data collection and analysis process. For

this purpose, we currently design a tool which

supports the whole process described in Section 7.2.

The data collection is core of the tool. By connecting

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to the active directory of a company and existing skill

databases the target group identification is simplified.

Furthermore, the tool supports the adaptation of the

prepared competence questionnaires, the roll-out,

follow-up and transformation of the questionnaire

answers into reflexion portfolio sections. The tool

support is semi-automatic – requiring an investigation

of data in each step – to assure high quality and foster

the reflexion of the subject matter by the competence

manager throughout the whole process.

8 CONCLUSIONS

This paper has investigated a common challenge of

competence management in companies. Business

needs generate competence requirements which are

imposed on the workforce. A conflict emerges

between the imposed requirements with generated

standardized learning offerings and a workforce with

heterogeneous backgrounds and learning needs.

Goal of the paper is investigation of this conflict

from a lifelong learning perspective of individual

work process embedded learning. Core contributions

of the paper are a study of work processes and a

competence management process.

The study investigated individual learning

processes to understand how learning takes place, the

learning needs, how they emerge and how they are

fulfilled (bottom-up perspective). For this purpose

participant observation of 50 knowledge workers

(managers, experts), 2 days each, resulting in 800

hours of collected data was conducted and analysed.

Important findings were: 1) Work process embedded

learning: Most learning happens as part of the work

activities and was unpredictable beforehand 2)

Learning in interaction: Frequently, individuals learn

by sharing experience and information with others 3)

Less relevance of job profiles: A large amount of

learning needs is independent from the specific job

profile.

Competence Management Process: The process is

a framework to align competence requirements with

an understanding of learning needs and conditions of

the workforce. The process re-uses the work process

knowledge collected during the study and helps in

realizing a competence management process which

integrates business needs and individual needs. The

process explicitly avoids a dogmatic perspective on

company learning needs on business or individual

side. In contrast the goal is to have a process which

builds on learning need related data which is collected

and regularly updated. Thus, we assume that aspects

we identified in the study (learning in the work

process/learning in interaction and the relevance of

roles) will automatically be identified and addressed

for those competences and workforces which actually

require it.

Future work will apply the reflexion portfolio and

assess it especially with respect to its effect on the

conflict between business and individual needs.

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