Competencies for knowledge management: development and validation of a scale

Purpose – The purpose of the current paper is to develop and validate a scale for measuring and managing the acquisition of competences provided by higher education studies. Design/methodology/approach – A representative sample of Spanish graduates was obtained in the framework of the REFLEX project. In this questionnaire, a battery of 19 self-assessed items was used to measure the contribution of universities to the acquisition of generic competences. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were performed. Findings – The main competences acquired in higher education according to Spanish graduates can be grouped as follows: innovation, interpersonal, knowledge management, communication, organisational and professional development. Results indicated excellent fit indexes of this six-factor model to data. Research limitations/implications – This scale may be particularly useful to understand the process of transition of higher education systems according to Bologna principles. It also represents a significant contribution to the existing research in competency-based education. Practical implications – This paper may help higher education institutions to identify improvement areas in their study programmes. Besides, the proposed scale may offer crucial information in the determination of which Bologna principles have been successfully implemented. Social implications – Organisations may use these findings to design formal or informal training for new graduates hired by the organisation. Originality/value – Despite the recent increasing research in the field of competency-based learning and competences required in graduates’ workplaces, this is the first paper that aims to present a validated scale designed to measure graduate self-assessed competences.