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The purpose of this paper is to carry out a bibliometric analysis of the Competence-Based Management (CBM) field. From the first books dedicated to CBM (Hamel & Heene, 1994; Sanchez, Heene, & Thomas, 1996; Heene & Sanchez, 1997) to more recent publications, the CBM field experienced a significant development. As the International Conferences on Competence-Based Management is a place for exchange and development of new ideas and applications, it appears to be central to the consolidation of the field. The conferences are followed by the publication of a series of books and a journal (Research in Competence-Based Management). Therefore it seems particularly adapted to use these publications in order to analyze the CBM field. We identified 12 books and 3 journal issues published between 1994 and 2005. This corresponds to a total of 185 papers written by 213 different authors, and a total of 7,958 references cited in these papers. We present the results of our research in three steps. First, we analyze the profile of the authors of the papers. This leads to the identification of the most prominent authors and the identification of the authors' country of origin. Second, we analyze the content of the papers. We identify the type of the papers (theoretical or empirical), the main methodology (qualitative or quantitative), and the keywords. Third, we analyze the references. This allows the identification of the most frequently cited references, and their historical structure. In order to deepen the latter analysis, we perform a co-citation analysis to identify networks of references. The overall results lead to a better understanding of the organization of the CBM field.

Globalisation is transforming the competitive environment of small and medium‐sized firms. Because these firms are competing with their larger counterparts in an economy where collaboration is increasingly central to organisational effectiveness, one must pay more attention to the social networks that organisations rely on. This article focuses on the relational perspective and describes the characteristics of embedded relationships that firms have to pay attention to in order to survive.

Effective competence-based management (CBM) requires in the first instance an ability to identify an organization’s competences and the sources of those competences. Identifying competences can be especially challenging in the context of not-for-profit organizations, which have often been characterized as being “different” from for-profit organizations. In this paper we argue that not-for-profit organizations have fundamentally the same systemic requirements for survival and success as for-profit organizations – and therefore that not-for-profits ought to be amenable to competence identification and analysis through use of CBM concepts and theory in essentially the same way as for-profit organizations. We support this basic proposition through a case study of competence identification and analysis in a humanitarian relief organization (HRO), an increasingly important kind of not-for-profit organization.

Firms can (and often do) learn from each other. Benchmarking has become an accepted and increasingly widely practiced initiative for interfirm learning. Benchmarking specific capabilities and processes in one firm against another can help both firms’ managers identify strategic gaps in their capabilities and processes. More detailed forms of benchmarking may even suggest specific ways in which capabilities and processes can be improved. However, extracting significant learning from benchmarking with another company – while not unnecessarily revealing important sources of competitive advantage – requires a careful, balanced approach to managing a benchmarking process. In their paper “Limitations and challenges of benchmarking: A competence-based perspective,” Jörg Freiling and Sybille Huth develop a competence-based framework for managing benchmarking. While agreeing with the important potential benefits that benchmarking can bring to competence building, the authors point out a number of threats to a firm that may arise in a benchmarking process. In particular, the authors suggest that careful attention be paid to managing isolating mechanisms during benchmarking. Isolating mechanisms may bring a benefit by protecting strategic capabilities and processes from unintended discovery and imitation by either firm, while at the same time obscuring intended observations of each firm’s capabilities and processes that may defeat the basic intent of the benchmarking exercise. Careful management of isolating mechanisms should help assure that both parties to a benchmarking process will successfully navigate the three crucial steps identified by the authors in an effective benchmarking process: recognition, assimilation, and exploitation of new “best practices.”

In this paper we examine some fundamental epistemological issues in building theory for applied management science, by which we mean theory that can be usefully applied in a scientific approach to management research and practice. We first define and distinguish “grand theory” from “mid-range theory” in the social and management sciences. We then elaborate and contrast epistemologies for (i) building “grand theory” intended to be applicable to all cases and contexts, and (ii) building “mid-range theory” intended to apply to specific kinds of contexts. We illustrate the epistemological challenges in building grand theory in management science by considering important differences in the abilities of two “grand theories” in strategic management – industry structure theory and firm resources theory – to support development of conceptually consistent models and propositions for empirical testing, theoretical refinement, and application in management practice. We then suggest how a mid-range theory building approach can help to achieve integration of the two grand strategic management theories and improve their ability to support empirical testing, theory refinement, and application of theory in practice. Finally, we suggest how the competence-based management (CBM) perspective provides the foundational concepts needed to build both mid-range theory and (potentially) grand theory in strategic management that can be usefully applied in management science.

This paper analyzes the dynamics in resource development and the complexity of resource origin. Three factors – stakeholders, interactions, and scarcity – prove helpful to explain both dynamics and complexity of factor-markets. We build on these three factors and propose a systemic model on dynamic interactions to illustrate the structural characteristics of a factor-market. We suggest to managers to analyze first factor-markets separately, so they can collect as much information as possible on resource relationships with strategic importance. Then this information is incorporated in a “resource matrix,” which facilitates analyzing the interdependencies of various resource relationships and helps practitioners develop an integrated strategy to compete in factor-markets.