Does manager soft skills competence impact unit performance? Not sufficient, but quite necessary

Resumo

Firms worldwide increasingly link competency-based appraisals to rewards as a tool to align human capital to business strategy and performance. Its assumption is that competence mastery at the individual level would drive up unit- or organizational-level performance. However, few empirical studies tested the empirical validity of this assumption. We conducted a large-scale empirical analysis, involving “live” and consequential soft skills competence appraisal data for 682 unit managers in a large bank. We tested if appraised proficiency in four soft skills-related competencies influenced unit-level performance, using both a sufficiency logic and a necessity logic. Our results indicated that, while from a sufficiency logic, unit-level performance could not be significantly explained from individual-level mastery of soft skills, from a necessity logic competence in soft skills at the individual level were necessary – with a large effect – to achieve high unit-level performance. Implications of our findings for soft skill development, appraisal and reward are discussed.

Ficha do documento

Tipo

Artigo científico

Ano

2020

Instituição

Fundação Getulio Vargas

Fonte

Repositório da FGV

Idioma

Português

Acesso

Não informado

Identificador

oai:repositorio.fgv.br:10438/32673

Palavras-chave

Soft skillsNecessary Condition AnalysisPerformance appraisalCiências sociaisHabilidades sociaisDesempenho