Psychosemantic Analysis of the Concept of Manager’s Competence

Abstract

The article deals with the psychosemantic reconstruction of the concept of manager’s competence. The study is based on free word association test (WAT) held with the managers of public administration (n=38) from Volyn Oblast (Ukraine) and master candidates of the public administration program (n=38) who studied at Eastern European National University in Lutsk (Ukraine). Nuclear zones, single frequency responses, and associative field structure of the investigated concept in the two samples were analyzed. The most frequent nuclear associations confirmed the lexicographic meaning of the concept “competence” and revealed that the leader’s expertise is closely related to their professional knowledge and skills. Next, factor analysis of data obtained from the Semantic Differential (SD) test established common and distinctive features of the semantic field structure of the concept of manager’s competence. The research results showed that the managers from the sample emphasized the importance of experience and effectiveness, the development of their professionally relevant job skills and ability to influence their subordinates. By contrast, master candidates, along with experience and job skills, indicated a set of characteristics that demonstrate the need for a general intellectual level of the managers, their moral and ethical personality traits, and their ability to maintain effective interpersonal interaction.

Keywords

• psychosemantic analysis
• manager’s competence
• concept
• public administration
• free word association test
• semantic differential