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COMPETENCE IS NOT ENOUGH: META-COMPETENCE AND

ACCOUNTING EDUCATION

by

REVA BERMAN BROWN

and

SEAN McCARTNEY

Correspondence to either author.


Address: University of Essex, Department of Accounting and
Financial Management, Wivenhoe House, Colchester, Essex CO4 3SQ
Tel: Reva Brown (0206) 872375 Fax: (0206) 873598 E-mail:
Reva@essex.ac.uk
Sean McCartney (0206) 872373
Mccas@essex.ac.uk
 

COMPETENCE IS NOT ENOUGH: Meta-competence and accounting

education

ABSTRACT

The Management Charter Initiative (MCI) movement towards


competence-based education is an indication of the growing
attention being paid to the notion of the competent professional.
There are already developments by the accounting bodies to
develop detailed programmes to introduce competence-based
education to accounting students.

Competences have been defined in various ways - a behavioural


description of workplace performance; doing rather than knowing; a
focus on output (what a person can do) rather than input (what he or
she has been taught). The underlying notion is to provide specific
skills that are relevant to professional practice.

The paper suggests that competences are not enough, and that
what is required - meta-competence - can be learned but cannot be
taught. Meta-competence is the overarching ability under which
competence shelters. They are the higher order abilities which have
to do with being able to learn, adapt, anticipate and create. Meta-
competences are a pre-requisite for the development of capacities
such as judgement, intuition and acumen upon which competences
are based and without which competences cannot flourish.

The authors suggest that before syllabuses are created for the
teaching of competence-based learning to accounting students,
issue should be taken to confront the problematic nature of such
teaching, should the existence of meta-competence be ignored.
 

COMPETENCE IS NOT ENOUGH: Meta-competence and accounting

education

The clever men at Oxford


Know all that there is to be knowed
But they none of them know one half as much
As intelligent Mr Toad!
(The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame)

INTRODUCTION

The Management Charter Initiative (MCI) movement towards

competence-based education is an indication of the growing

attention being paid to the notion of the competent professional. A

number of the accounting bodies are in the process of initiating and


developing detailed programmes to introduce competence-based

education to accounting students. What is intended is to create

specifications of skills that are relevant to newly-qualified

accountants.

The schemes concerned with the specification of competences

being looked at, and worked on, by the ACCA, CIPFA and CIMA are

being designed, developed and carried out largely in conjunction

with practitioners, although there is obviously input from university

lecturers. Nevertheless, it would seem that the process of the

introduction of competences into accounting education is intended

to work outwards from the professional bodies into syllabuses that

can be applied by lecturers at academic institutions.

It is suggested here, however, that before syllabuses are created for

the teaching of competence-based learning to accounting students,

both those at university and those undertaking professional

qualifications, issue should be taken to confront the problematic


 

nature of such teaching. There is still time to question the

apparently taken-for-granted assumption that accounting students

will benefit from a competence-based approach to their accounting

education. It would seem sensible, before boarding the train, to

consider whether we wish to arrive at its destination.

The paper takes the following form: Firstly, competences are

defined and discussed and their relevance to accounting education

is considered. In the second section, the concept of meta-

competence is introduced, and its relevance to competence is


debated. In the final section, conclusions are drawn about the

issues of competence, meta-competence and the accounting

student.

COMPETENCES

To begin at the beginning, at least in the UK, competence as an

educational concept by means of which to accredit ability is linked

with the Management Charter Initiative (MCI), a body which

emerged in 1988. The MCI wished to address deep-rooted problems

in UK management training which, over the years, had been

identified in a series of National Economic Development Office

(NEDO) and British Institute of Management (BIM) reports,

culminating in the Handy Report (1987) and the Constable and

McCormack Report (1987).

The MCI competence approach is based on the view that it is

possible to define standards which have universal validity and to

create tests of those standards. This view is itself based on the


 

assumption there is a common core of skills and knowledge which

all managers or professionals share, which they require in order to

perform their roles effectively, and which are capable of fair and

impartial assessment.

Franks (1991) suggests that the central principle of assessment is

that the onus for providing evidence of competence lies with the

candidate, that this will come from more than one source, and that

it should adequately reflect his or her unique experience.

Competences therefore provide the mechanism to assess whether a


particular individual has the ability to fulfil a particular role at work.

A organizational role is a pattern of behaviour by means of which

the job is performed. The MCI believes that it is possible to design

tests which will allow an individual to demonstrate that he or she is

competent - that is, that he or she has sufficient skill and knowledge

and is capable (Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English, 1987,

pp 191-192).

Definitions of competence vary - and this itself is part of the

problem surrounding the competence movement. Competence

appears to be many things, depending on the dictionary or authority

being consulted. It can be, inter alia:

* a condition of being capable

* an ability to do

* a behavioural description of workplace performance

* doing rather than knowing or being taught

In embryology, competence is the ability of embryonic tissues to

react to external conditions in a way that influences subsequent


 

development. It seems to be this interpretation which guides the

ACCA publication Competences for Registered Auditors (1990). This

document states:

The elements of competence shown on the following


pages define what work a practicing accountant should
be able to undertake satisfactorily. They are written in a
format consistent with definitions of standards of
performance in other professions eg engineers, doctors
and architects. (ACCA, 1990, p 1)

For ACCA then, 'competence' and 'occupational standard' are

synonymous. An occupational standard specifies occupational

excellence in a particular employment sector or profession. In the

booklet, these standards are expressed at different levels of

generalisation, moving from the general to the specific. Firstly, a

key role is stated, which gives in general terms, the purposes of the

whole occupational area. Let us take 'Accounting' from the booklet

as our example:

KEY ROLE: * Prepare and advise on financial information

required by a client for management, or

external reporting, purposes.

The key roles are then divided into units which describe the major

functions associated with the occupation, for example:

UNIT: * Develop and monitor accounting systems

to produce management information and to

meet relevant statutory or other obligations

* Prepare accounts to meet internal needs and

external obligations

Finally, the units are broken down into elements of competence,

which define what an individual should be able to do, for example:


 

ELEMENTS * Collect and structure the requisite

financial data to

OF meet internal needs and external obligations

COMPETENCE * Analyse and appraise financial information

and data

* Produce financial statements and report to

client

The elements of competence are further broken down. For example,

in the case of the element 'Collect and structure the requisite

financial data to meet internal needs and external obligations', the


document states:

this element covers:

non-incorporated financial agreements

company non-audit engagements

small company audit and accountancy

engagements.

financial data - both internal and external

The element of competence contains the performance criteria which

are descriptions of employment expectations and the standards of

performance required, for example:

performance criteria - to be met on each

occasion:

a. The client is informed in an appropriate

manner of the requisite financial data

which must be provided for the

compilation of the accounts.


 

b. The financial data collected for inclusion

in the accounts is as complete as far as

it is possible to establish from the

available evidence, and a signed

certificate to this effect is obtained from

the client.

c. The financial data is [sic] structured in a

manner which enables the compilation of

financial statements to be carried out

efficiently and effectively.


performance criteria - brought into use on

every occasion:

d. Where the practitioner has doubts about

the completeness, accuracy or validity of

the data which is [sic] presented, a

covering letter which identifies the areas

of doubt is sent to the client

It is these performance criteria which allow the individual to deduce

whether he or she is competent or not.

The ACCA booklet goes on to explain (1990, p 1):

These occupational standards are fully comprehensive


and define all those competences you will need to
become a practising accountant - none is optional.
Accordingly, they have to cover more than just routine,
task-based work. They also focus on your ability to
manage a number of things at once, cope with
contingencies, and deal with other aspects of the work
environment such as relating to clients and colleagues.
Competence is not restricted to one workplace, but
covers other environments and alternative ways of doing
things. It therefore includes the ability to transfer to
other situations and changing practice as the need
arises. (Emphasis added)
 

Where this paper is concerned, the ACCA example is just that - a

good example of a well-thought-out competence approach. As the

ACCA booklet states, one can find this kind of detailed description of

competences and occupational standards wherever the MCI notion

of competence has been accepted as a good route to follow for the

provision of professional competence. The underlying assumption is

that of the MCI - that competences, while work-based, are common

to a variety of work situations and work practices. What is eyebrow-

raising, however, is that the ACCA booklet asserts with total

confidence that it has managed to capture, once and for all, all
those competences any individual will need to become a practising

accountant.

The complex and very detailed scheme developed by ACCA would

suggest that the standards being described, and which are to be

tested and assessed, are founded upon a solid base of knowledge.

There appears to be nothing whatever problematic about what 'an

accountant' might be, what 'a 'professional accountant' might be, or

what 'a competent accountant' might be - and whether or not these

attributes and abilities can be stripped down to basic skills which

can be, and need to be, demonstrated.

The concept of what constitutes accounting knowledge is

seemingly more complex than either practising or academic

accountants appear to acknowledge. Where accounting's sister-

discipline of management is concerned, Hughes (1988) suggests

that management knowledge largely consists of an accumulation of

empirical evidence and literature from management and related

disciplines. This is a partial definition at best, and an indication of


 

the uncertainties surrounding the pinning-down of the elusive

concept. This view can be said to apply equally to accounting

knowledge.

Another assumption which appears to permeate the competence

view is that managers and professionals continuously act in a

rational, logical, planning, and goal-seeking manner. The

management literature abounds with criticisms and demolitions of

this view - for instance, Alvesson, 1992, Schön 1987, Starbuck, 1985

- and with researchers putting forward the view that the study of
management and its related disciplines is very different from the

study of natural sciences - for example, Glaser and Strauss, 1967,

Mintzberg, 1979; Van Maanen 1979.

The problem where competences are concerned is that unlike the

natural sciences, social science provides evidence and argument,

not fact and proof (Lindblom and Cohen, 1979). But competences

are being viewed as fact and proof and the ACCA and the other

accounting bodies who are about to go down the competence route,

seem to consider that its method of assessing the demonstration of

'elements of competence' provides valid, external facts against

which accounting competence can be compared.

The limitations of competences have been discussed by a great

number of researchers - for example, Baker, 1991; Brown, 1993 and

1994; Burgoyne, 1987 and 1989; Jacobs, 1989; Thomson, 1991. A

major criticism is whether the static nature of competences makes

them an appropriate measure for professional or managerial ability.

The idea that to certificate competence is to certificate ability is


 

problematic. Pressures from the dynamic environment in which the

accounting professional or manager operates might require the

adjustment of 'elements of competence' or the linkages between

certain 'facts and proof' and the creation of others. Does an

accountant who has been assessed as competent today stay just as

competent over the next five years, increase in competence, or

decrease? Is ability, therefore, a static skill which can be assessed

once and for all by a static tool?

What this paper suggests is that competences are not necessarily a


matter of one level of knowledge and that, in addition, there exist

levels which the MCI and the professional accounting bodies appear

to disregard - one of which is the level of meta-competence.

META-COMPETENCE

Meta-competence is deeply embedded in learning, in that it is innate

and natural to human beings, and can be drawn out of an individual,

but cannot, in any traditional sense, be taught Briefly defined,

meta-competences are the higher order skills and abilities upon

which competences are based and which have to do with being able

to learn, adapt, anticipate and create, rather than with being able to

demonstrate that one has the ability to do. Meta-competences

encompass skills such as

statement, assertion, argument, proof, application and


communication. (Hills, 1990, p 19)
and represent the range of perceptions that exist about an

individual professional's performance, encompassing also the

irrationality and unpredictability of personal feelings. The term


 

'meta-competences` has been deliberately chosen because the

prefix 'meta' means 'above', and meta-competences are those

abilities, skills, and capacities which exist above and beyond any

competence which an individual may develop, guiding and

sustaining them, and from which they originate. Professional and

managerial capacities such as judgement, intuition, and acumen are

an essential prerequisite if professionals and managers are to

undertake their professional and managerial tasks competently. But

such capacities, because they are dynamic and interactive are not

competences. If they are anything, they are meta-competences. In


brief, meta-competences are knowledge in all its multi-layered

strands and competences are skills, which are knowledge-based.

Bethell-Fox (1992) lists what he calls 'generic competencies', which

are what Boyatzis (1982) calls a 'competency' - any personal trait,

characteristic or skill which can be shown to be directly linked to

effective or outstanding job performance - and what has been

defined here as meta-competences. These are illustrated in Table 1.

TABLE 1 META-COMPETENCES
Cognitive: * analytical thinking
* pattern recognition (ability to identify
patterns
and key issues in data or information)
* technical expertise
* use of concepts (ability to use abstract
concepts)
Influencing: * interpersonal sensitivity
* concern with personal impact
* use of influence strategies
* relationship building
* organizational awareness (understanding
the
power relationships within organizations)
 

Managing: * group management


* directing others (relating to use of
unilateral
authority
* developing others
* concern for order (a concern for
minimising
errors and maintaining high quality in
one's own
or others' work)
Personal: * initiative
* tenacity
* flexibility
* self-confidence
* self-control
* achievement drive
Source: Bethell-Fox (1992)

Kanugo and Misra (1992) in an article considering management


skills, suggest that it is possible to distinguish between managerial

skills and competences. In terms of this paper's approach, what

they define as 'skills' are competences and their definition of

'competences' are meta-competences:

These attributes include general or specialized


knowledge, physical and intellectual abilities, personality
traits, motives and self-images. (Kanugo and Misra,
1992, p 1318)

If their explanation of the differences between skills and

competences were redefined as the differences between

competences and meta-competences, the argument put forward in

this paper is strengthened. Kanugo and Misra provide five areas

where distinctions can be made between competences (skills) and

meta-competences (knowledge). This is illustrated in Table 2.

TABLE 2 COMPARISON OF COMPETENCE AND META-COMPETENCE


COMPETENCE META-COMPETENCE
 

Ability to engage in an overt Ability to engage in


activities
behavioural system or sequence using functional
intelligence

Required to handle routine and Ability to engage in non-


programmed tasks with routine and
unprogrammed
established procedures tasks

Utilized to cope with the demands of Necessary to cope with


the
the stable aspects of the environment complex and volatile
aspects
which managers face in their day-to- of the environment
day organizational life

More specific to particular tasks More generalisable or


and situations transferable to variety of
tasks
eg. the competence to operate a and situations
personal computer eg. the ability to think
analytically or
synthetically

Capacities to engage in behaviours Capacities which are


that are triggered, elicited, or non-specific and person-
controlled by the demands of specific dependent
tasks and are highly task-dependent
Source: Kanugo and Misra, 1992

The point is that a professional or manager may acquire a number of

competences - task-specific skills - all of which can be learned on

the job or from participating in professional or management

education, but the appropriate or efficient utilization of these

competences is dependent on meta-competences, which cannot be

so taught.
 

COMPETENCE, META-COMPETENCE AND THE ACCOUNTING

STUDENT

The guidelines defining competences put forward by the MCI include

the following. Competence is:

1. the ability to perform the activities within an occupational

area to the level of performance expected in employment. This

embodies the ability to transfer skills and knowledge to new

situations, and includes personal effectiveness.

2. an action, behaviour or outcome that can be demonstrated,

observed and validly, reliably and objectively assessed, or the


demonstrable possession of underpinning knowledge or

understanding.

As a result of the above definitions, standards - which form the

prime focus of training and the basis of vocational qualifications -

are based on:

1. the needs of employment

2. the concept of competence

3. the skills, knowledge and levels of performance relevant to the

work activity.

And the factors of point 3 above must be assessable and endorsed

by the relevant employment sector or profession.

A point to be considered is that the competence view is concerned

to provide accreditation of experience and is not able to evaluate

expertise. An effective demonstration of a managerial or

professional skill does not simultaneously demonstrate that the

manager or practising accountant has the necessary expertise to

judge when and if the use of that competence/skill is appropriate in

another situation (King, 1992).


 

In the majority of situations, the complex nature of management and

professional knowledge precludes the measuring, in the manner

provided by the standards of the MCI, of professional or managerial

competence in terms of practical, reliable and objective criteria.

Setting aside the extent to which standards focus on the lowest

common denominator of a competence, rather than the pursuit of

excellence, there tends to be inadequate recognition of the part

played by knowledge and understanding. The carrying out of the

requirements of the profession of accountancy is a many-layered


activity, and while the lower levels may be open to measurement of

competences, top management of the profession is more a process

of knowledge-realisation than the practice of measurable and

practical skills. The competent accounting student who qualifies as

a practising accountant and aims to become a finance director or a

partner will find that competence is not enough.

This becomes clearer if we examine the actual function of qualified

accountants. Let us take them in their role as auditors. The key

task of the auditor of a company is to form an opinion as to whether

the financial statements prepared by the directors show "a true and

fair view". The auditor will plan the audit in the light of prior

knowledge of the client, gather evidence, assess the client's system

of internal control and so on, in order to arrive at an opinion. Then

the opinion is formally communicated in the audit report.

The crucial meta-competences of the competent auditor are those

which enable the formation of the opinion. These then inform the

other tasks, for example, the nature and quantity of the evidence to
 

be accumulated. Yet a competence-based approach cannot directly

capture and assess these meta-competences. For example, in

relation to the accumulation of audit evidence, a competence-based

approach may specify that "The auditor must collect relevant and

reliable audit evidence, sufficient to enable him or her to form the

audit opinion." This is no doubt true. The competent auditor will not

collect insufficient, unreliable or irrelevant evidence. But that is not

the essence of the matter. The essence of the matter is the

formation of the (subjective by definition) opinion itself.

An example from another discipline may be helpful here. The

Cambridge historian, E. H. Carr (1961) rejected the idea that history

could be purely factual. Carr suggests that competent historians

must do more than get their facts right, because to praise historians

for accuracy is like praising architects for using properly mixed

concrete in their buildings. It is a necessary condition of their work,

but not their essential function.

Similarly, competent professional auditors must "collect relevant

and reliable audit evidence" but that is a "necessary condition" not

an "essential function". The problem with the competence-based

approach is that, because it cannot capture the "essential function",

it must, of necessity, concentrate on the "necessary conditions".

A general conclusion from this is that, while competences may be

adequate to capture certain functions, they are inadequate for

professional and managerial roles. Further, not only are

competences "not enough", a competence-based approach may be

positively damaging in that the concentration on what can be

defined and explicated ("necessary conditions") under this approach


 

may tend to obscure what cannot. The idea, inherent in the

competences movement, that competences are all-encompassing,

and contain "... all that there is to be knowed ..." in order for an

individual to become a qualified professional, may actually obscure

the real problem, rather then making it explicit.

In the professions, the tradition has been to avoid any explication of

competence. Rather, those who had qualified were assumed to be

competent. While nobody in, for example, the accountancy

profession would have argued that passing the professional


examinations somehow makes one competent, it was thought that

the factual knowledge so demonstrated, together with exposure to

good practice during one's training contract, would imbue the

aspirant accountant with professional competence, which was then

assumed, unless pretty strong evidence to the contrary was

forthcoming. Similarly, to take another example which may be more

familiar to some readers, teaching has always been a major part of

the function of university academics. Yet they were seldom given

any training, and never assessed. Their competence was simply

assumed. This too has changed, and appraisals and assessments

by "line managers" and "customers" are all the rage, consuming

vast quantities of time, effort and paper, with little observable

benefit to anyone. But the object of the exercise is perhaps not to

achieve some benefit such as raising the level of professional

competence. On the contrary, it would seem that the object of the

exercise is achieved by the act of carrying it out, legitimating that

action whose legitimacy was once taken for granted. The attempt

to reduce professions whose essence is informed judgement to a


 

list of documented competences is out of the same stable and is

likely to have as little effect.

The users of competence-based assessment are aware that it

provides a partial view of performance. Increasingly, the soft

qualities, like sensitivity and creativity, are now seen as critical to

an organization's continued survival. The more rigid and inflexible

competence-based route cannot provide assistance here (Jacobs,

1989).

A distinction can be drawn between accounting education and

accounting training, and competences and meta-competences.

Accounting education will incorporate the process of learning the

ideas and theories of accounting, and accounting training will

provide the knowledge, abilities and skills to perform the various

jobs that accountants may be called upon to perform. While it is

competences which are being developed during accounting training,

meta-competences are not synonymous with accounting education.

Instead, they are the higher order intellectual, cognitive, and

emotional capacities without which both accounting education and

accounting training are likely to prove ineffectual. Meta-

competences exist 'above' both education and training and are

called upon during both processes in order for these to contribute to

the development of the individual being educated or trained.

It is the meta-competences which come into their own when

managers and professionals deal with the complexity of managerial

and professional work. Meta-competences represent the range of

perceptions that exist about an individual's performance, as well as


 

focusing on the irrationality and unpredictability of personal

feelings. Burgoyne (1989, p 61) points out that the qualitative nature

of managerial abilities (meta-competence) requires some other

'certification' which is more effective than

some spurious claim to the achievement of some


absolute and universal standards.

Evaluating and developing the performance of managers and

professionals is always going to be a difficult and challenging

business (Mangham, 1986). And indeed, management development

for managers and professionals in the UK has probably benefited

from the introduction of the structure and discipline that

competence-based assessment can provide (Jacobs, 1989).

Nevertheless, managers and accountants deserve more than the

counting and measuring of only those of their abilities that can be

narrowly defined into units and elements of competence in order to

be demonstrated, observed, and objectively assessed.

When it comes to learning, competences are part of the level where

information is received, retained and reproduced as required, and

meta-competence is involved in the transformation of information by

means of the development of understanding, judgement and

creativity.

It is suggested here that the train bearing the competence

viewpoint is heading for a destination that is barren and

unproductive terrain, and it might benefit the accounting student if

the professional bodies left their carriage before the train is

travelling too fast for them to jump off and abandon the journey

without damage to themselves and their students.


 
 

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