Today, many organisations are reliant on the competence of individual knowledge workers. Information systems to support competence management are thus considered to be vital tools in order to gain competitive advantage. Competence systems are intended to support staff allocation and management of competence by providing firms with competence overviews. This paper presents a qualitative case study of the adoption of such systems in a fast-growing knowledge-intensive organisation. Applying a situated change perspective on organisational transformation, the paper analyses how different changes were managed in the process of competence systems adoption. Building on this analysis, this paper contributes a set of managerial implications for managing the situated nature of such changes in leveraging the use of competence systems. In addition, the paper also discusses how the implications generated apply to the management of knowledge management systems adoption.

This paper describes and evaluates the design of competence visualizer (CV), which is a competence system generating competence patterns of project groups. The system provides novel features that: (1) make it possible to survey competence status of teams in different sizes at a specific moment; (2) handle information about both existing competencies and competence interests; and (3) manage snapshots of a particular point of time and development over a certain period regarding existing competencies and competence interests. The results from the system evaluation include fields of application, future design challenges, and organizational issues. A first conclusion is that competence systems need the potential to handle flexible visualizations of existing competencies as well as competence interests of organizational members. A second conclusion is that organizational issues, such as incentives and management, are critical in order to attain data quality in a competence system. ©

This paper examines barriers to adopting competence systems in knowledge work practice. On the basis of a technology review and a user site investigation, the paper relates the technical features of the investigated competence systems to the adoption barriers identified in six user organizations. The multiple-case study shows that the competence systems can be described as merely traditional personnel administration systems complemented by features that passively archive formalized descriptions of competencies. Building on this observation, the general objective of the paper is to provide design suggestions that facilitate successful integration of competence systems in organizations. The main conclusion of this paper is that competence systems need to have features conveying a technology spirit more in line with the knowledge work practice found in organizations. By researching competence systems and their features specifically, this paper contributes technology-specific knowledge within the area of knowledge management systems