“The study resulted in a model of competence, not merely a laundry list of characteristics.”

“We were clever enough to turn a laundry list into poetry.”

“The result of a job element analysis is a weighted list of characteristics that managers perceive as important in distinguishing superior from average performers, and those characteristics required by anyone in the job.”

“The Competent Manager: A Model for Effective Performance offers an empirical, total system approach that determines which characteristics of managers enable them to be effective in various management jobs.”

“Models of management sometimes come from task and function analyses of management jobs. Someone studies what managers do, or what duties and responsibilities they are expected to perform, and then develops a model or image of what competent management is (Mintzberg, 1973). Typically, task and function analyses result in detailed descriptions of what activities must be performed in the job. Often these are not arrayed in any order of importance or relevance to the particular job or to the desired output from someone performing the job. Such models have been tested, in that systematic research is conducted to determine if the dentified activities are part of the job. Unfortunately, models based on task or function analysis focus on the job and do not address the person in the job. In doing so, the models include many specific and detailed descriptions of activities, but no mention is made of the characteristics that enable or increase the likelihood of a person performing those activities. These models do not establish a casual link between characteristics of people and performance in a job.”

“A competency is an underlying characteristic of the person that leads to or causes effective or superior performance.”

“Understanding the concept of competency is a prerequisite to understanding his integrated model of management.”

“A job competency is an underlying characteristic of a person in that it may be a motive, trait, skill, aspect of one’s self-image or social role, or a body of knowledge which he/she uses. The existence and possession of these characteristics may or not be known to the person. In this sense, the characteristics may be unconscious aspects of the person. Because job competencies are underlying characteristics, they can be said to be generic. A generic characteristic may be apparent in many forms of behaviour, or a wide variety of different actions.”

“In defining a microeconomic system two distinct component elements will be identified: an environment and an institution. The environment consists of a list of N economic agents {l,…, N}, a list of K + 1 commodities (including resources) {O, l,…, K}, and certain characteristics of each agent … Hence, a microeconomic environment is defined by the collection of characteristics e”

“It is a characteristic of the weak and criminal to attribute to others the misfortunes that are the result of their own wickedness.”