Developing human resource competencies: an empirical evidence

ABSTRACT

The paper conceptually defines and empirically investigates the density of work experience along with individual characteristics (cognitive ability, Conscientiousness, and Openness to Experience) and examine their influence on Human Resource (HR) competencies. 274 HR executives from diverse industry background and their supervisors participated in the data collection efforts spread over three phases. Data analyses revealed three key findings (i) executives’ density of work experience positively relates to HR competencies, (ii) executives’ cognitive ability is the strongest predictor of the positive relationship to HR competencies, and (iii) executives with high Conscientiousness tend to achieve levels of density of work experience. Relative weight analyses reinforce that cognitive ability and density of work experience are the most prominent predictors of HR competencies. Implications for practice are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Density of work experience
• cognitive ability
• conscientiousness
• openness to experience

Acknowledgments

The author would like to express my sincere gratitude to the Editor-in-Chief, Prof. Jessica Li and two anonymous reviewers for their constructive feedback on the earlier versions of this manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.