An Empirical Research On Competency Model Of Division Chief In Central Government Agencies

With the developing policy of"Harmonious Society"presented, it needs more competencies of the leading cadre of the Party and the government. It is the calling of the entirely society. The competencies of the leading cadre are the basement and conditions of the leading action. It basically decided the success or failure of the leading action, can impact the performance of the leading cadre directly or indirectly, and can also change the fate and the interest of the group and the organization. The competencies of the leading cadre directly impact the understanding of the policy of the Party, and decide the future of the modernization of the socialism. Furthermore, the research of the competencies of the leading cadre will directly improve the improvement of the leading theory and the optimization of the leading fulfillment.The research of leading cadre competency model is going to summarize the competencies which are needed to get high achievements by the research on excellent persons in a special job group. Without the distinguishing of the leading cadre levels, we cannot abstract the competency models of leading cadres at all levels. However the literatures of this aspect are rare. Most of the research studied the leading cadre in its entirety, short of the rank subdividing. And the concepts of the leading cadre competency were abstract, lack of operational definitions. Furthermore, most of the researches in this field stay at the level of theories and lack of empirical methods.The department leading cadre is certain degree decision-maker and certain degree executive. They are not only the policy-makers, but also the executors of policies. To a great extent, the effect of the Party and government work depends on the cadre's ability and performance, also the perfection of the stimulating and superintending system on these cadres. The research of the competency model is the urgent task of the researcher of human resource practically, and the basic problem in theory. This study is to do some explores through the empirical study. It aims to seek the dimensions and the items of the competency model of the division chief in central government agencies. Obviously, the competency model shows the requirement of the job of the division chief, and also shows the necessary competencies of the job. In addition, the competency model makes the performance appraisal more scientific and more standard. It will be the solid basement for all the decisions of the human resource management about the division chief in central government agencies, such as the choosing, the promotion, the performance management, the training etc.On this occasion, this research aims at the division chiefs of the central government agencies. In the foundation of literature analysis, this study uses the research methods of BEI (Behavior Event Interview), Delphi Technique and the focus-group discussions to collect much information to form the questionnaire. First we made the interviews with 20 division chiefs, bureau heads and staff members who knew well about the work of division chief by BEI, and withdrew the characteristic and instances of the excellent division chief. After merger, classification and induction, the competencies and instances are correspondent one to one, which provided a basis of abstracting competency definitions. Then we required some experts to refine universal competencies through the instances by Delphi Technique. After two feedbacks, the preliminary competency names and definitions were formed. Finally, we got the items of the questionnaire by retrenching the preliminary competency names and definitions through focus-group discussion.The questionnaire contained 32 items. Then 180 persons of six Ministries and Commissions Directly under the State Council were taken as the sample. 172 responses (95.6%) were received among 180 copies of our questionnaire. 168 of the responses were valid. Valid percentage was 97.7%.Then the construct validity of the results was checked by factor analysis. It extracted 5 factors which contained 24 items. The 5 factors were named according to the factor naming rule. It indicated that the questionnaire has good construct validity. The content validity was evaluated with the focus-group discussions, which proved good. The internal consistency reliability was evaluated with Cronbach's Alpha coefficient. The Cronbach's Alpha coefficients of the 5 factors were all over 0.7, which demonstrated that the instrument had good internal consistency reliability. There are some similar competencies mentioned between this study and the past researches, also some diversity. The past studies about leading cadre include political competency, knowledge competency, ability, psychological quality and physical constitution .And definitions are mostly comparatively broad. However, this study is specifically for the division chief, so the model is closer to the working position of them. The definitions are also more concise and concrete, which reflect the real situation of the division chief.Since the special location of the division chief, there should be some differences from the competency model of the section chief, of the bureau head and of the minister. We guess that there are overlaps among them and characteristic property of each other. Even the same name may contain the different demands. This inference can be verified by follow-up research.After series of research procedures, the results demonstrate that the competency model including 5 dimensions 24 items. That is the politics traits, the interpersonal capability, the, the handling capability, and business traits. There are 8 items in the dimension of the politics traits (including: political stand, Theoretical level, Incorruptibility, legal consciousness, personal traits, sense of responsibility, positive spirit, sense of service); 4 items in the dimension of the interpersonal capability (including: communicating ability, interpersonal sensitivity, relation-built, coordinating ability), 5 items in the dimension of the team leading capability (including: instructing ability, authorizating ability, controlling ability, labor developing ability, sense of democracy), 4 items in the dimension of the handling capability (including: decision-making capability, organizational capability, survey-and-study capability, emergency-handling capability), 3 items in the business traits(including: professional knowledge, learning ability, basic knowledge).