Relationships Among Developmental Competency Measures and Objective Work Outcomes in a New Zealand Retail Context

Abstract

Competencies represent an important and popular topic in human resource development. Despite the popularity of competencies, a divide exists between practitioner approaches to developmental competency measures and the empirical scrutiny of such approaches. However, the scarce empirical studies on competency measures have begun to bridge this gap. In the present study, behavioral competency ratings and objective outcome measures were collected from a sample of entry-level (N = 118) employees in a retail organization in New Zealand. A correlational design was applied to data in this study and, using canonical correlation analyses, meaningful relationships were observed among competency measures and objective work outcomes. Such relationships are presented as being practically useful when making decisions about weighting certain competencies over others for developmental purposes.