Proceedings of the 3rd European Conference on Intellectual Capital

Marzena Świgoń
provide <strong>the</strong> organization with sustainable competitive advantage”. In this paper this comprehensive
approach has been assumed, because <strong>of</strong>ten it is difficult to distinguish between worker-oriented
characteristic and job-oriented characteristic. Occupational features and person characteristics are
both a kind <strong>of</strong> mix <strong>of</strong> knowledge, skills, abilities, attitudes and behaviours.
The term ‘competence’ (single, without fur<strong>the</strong>r adjective) is problematic, because it is most commonly
used as an umbrella term for demonstrating requisite knowledge and skills as well as appropriate
behaviour in a work context. According to <strong>the</strong> unified typology <strong>of</strong> KSC (Winterton and Stringfellow
2005), <strong>the</strong>re are four dimensions <strong>of</strong> competences: cognitive competence (knowledge and
understanding), functional competence (skills), social competence (attitudes and behaviours) and
meta-competence. Meta-competence is ra<strong>the</strong>r different from <strong>the</strong> first three dimensions since it is
concerned with facilitating <strong>the</strong> acquisition <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> o<strong>the</strong>r substantive competences. The term “metacompetence”
was used as <strong>the</strong> apex <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong>se three dimensions in graphical holistic competence model
(Winterton 2009: 691). For comparison, in “TENCompetence Project” (2008), Information Society
Technologies (IST) project founded by <strong>the</strong> <strong>European</strong> Commission, a different distinction between
variery <strong>of</strong> competences classes has been adopted, namely: 1) cognitive competence (knowledge); 2)
functional competence (skills or competencies); 3) personal competence (e.g. intelligence, flexibility);
4) ethical competence (attitudes); 5) trans-/metacompetences (e.g. communication skills).
Similarly, <strong>the</strong>re is no universal typology <strong>of</strong> so called “basic skills”. They can be grouped into three
categories (Winterton and Stringfellow 2005): 1) behavioural and personal skills (e.g. flexibility, self
learning, motivation and commitment, decision making); 2) cross section and basic work and technical
skills (e.g. quality awareness, entrepreneurship, work and project organisation); 3) s<strong>of</strong>t and method
skills (e.g. communication and moderation, languages and culture, collaboration, creative, information
handling, documentation and presentation). According to <strong>the</strong> authors this typology could be reconciled
with <strong>the</strong> abovementioned unified typology <strong>of</strong> KSC since all <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> behavioural and personal skills
would appear as social competences; cross section and technical skills are mostly functional
competences (with some cognitive); s<strong>of</strong>t and method skills are a combination <strong>of</strong> functional and social
(and meta-) competences.
For <strong>the</strong> purpose <strong>of</strong> this paper – to compare two concepts: PKM and employability – it is important to
highlight that in <strong>the</strong> first concept (PKM) all terms (KSC) have a broader meaning <strong>the</strong>n in <strong>the</strong> second,
which is related to a work context only. Personal Knowledge Management could be useful not only at
work, but in a private life as well. The PKM is more universal concept, connected with effective
problem solving in all spheres <strong>of</strong> activity.
3. Personal Knowledge Management
PKM is a conceptual framework, blending technology, personal skills, processes and methodology,
PKM is <strong>of</strong>ten viewed as shifting <strong>the</strong> responsibility for personal learning, growth, and knowledge
sharing from <strong>the</strong> corporate to individual level (Jefferson 2006). It is defined as a set <strong>of</strong> skills and
attitudes that lead to more effective cognition, communication, collaboration, creativity, problem
solving, lifelong learning, social networking, leadership and <strong>the</strong> like (Pauleen 2009). PKM aspires to
foster <strong>the</strong> development and utilization <strong>of</strong> personal knowledge and competencies (Pircher 2010).
The term Personal Knowledge Management has been used for <strong>the</strong> first time in 1998 as <strong>the</strong> name for
a set <strong>of</strong> workshops for MBA students at UCLA Anderson School <strong>of</strong> Management, and <strong>the</strong>n in Tabor
School <strong>of</strong> Business at Millikin University. The goal <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong>se workshops was to learn how to cope with
information overload using technology. Workshop topics included among o<strong>the</strong>rs: skills <strong>of</strong> information
categorizing and classifications (introduced by S. R. Ranganathan, H. E. Bliss, M. Dewey, Ch. A.
Cutter), which stem from Library and Information Science (LIS); and information organizing and
management due to information technology. The authors <strong>of</strong> PKM workshops stressed that appropriate
information storing enables <strong>the</strong> transformation <strong>of</strong> information into personal knowledge (Frand and
Hixon 1998; Avery et al. 2001; Frand and Lippincott 2002). There were seven information skills
initially identified: 1) retrieving information – ga<strong>the</strong>ring from print and electronic sources, through
experimentation and oral inquiry, as well as a wide range <strong>of</strong> discipline-specific techniques; 2)
evaluating information – selecting, determining quality and relevance <strong>of</strong> pieces <strong>of</strong> information; 3)
organizing information – making <strong>the</strong> connections to link pieces <strong>of</strong> information, skills <strong>of</strong> syn<strong>the</strong>sis and
analysis; 4) collaborating around information – listening, showing respect for <strong>the</strong> understanding <strong>of</strong>
o<strong>the</strong>r’ ideas, building win/win relationships and resolving conflicts; 5) analyzing information –
extracting meaning out <strong>of</strong> date; 6) presenting information – understanding <strong>of</strong> audience, rhetoric skills;
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