The concept of competence has haunted many scholars during the last half century. The etymological roots of the concept date back to the 17th century BCE (Mulder, 2007). Since it origins the concept of competence is seen as a homonym for legal authority and the capability to perform. The juridical meaning of the concept still exists in phrases like ‘the competence of a court’, ‘a competent witness’, ‘competent supervisors’, and ‘competent organizations’. All these mean that the respective organizations or persons have the right to act, such as to take legal decisions, testify or perform occupational tasks. They are authorized to do so by national, institutional or organizational regulation. The capability meaning has become popular since the fifties of the last century. In the early years of the fifties, White (1959) saw competence as a kind of purposeful drive or motivation to master activities, like when healthy young children have the will to learn to crawl, walk and speak. Since this time, the concept of competence has seen a great proliferation in various professional fields, such as education, human resource management and development, and organizational strategy. The objective of this symposium is to analyze the roots, views and applications regarding the concept of competence. This is done from a European and Australian perspective. The research question is: is there sufficient convergence possible in the discussions about competence, and can use of the concept effectively support learning and performance improvement? The first paper (Mulder) will go into the roots and the various fields of application of the concept of competence. It will distinguish conceptual developments in occupational, educational, human resources and organizational research. The variety of critiques given on the concept (such as by Hyland, 2006) will also synthesized. The second paper (Eraut) will go into the mediating function of competence as artefacts in learning, development and performance improvement, and maintains that competence is a social construct. The third paper (will revisit the debate on competence-based workplace learning in Australia where the alternative concept of ‘capability’ was introduced. The paper looks back at about one and a half decade of use of the concept of competence in Australia and ask themselves the question what the added value of this has been.

The studies presented are based on intensive theoretical analyses combined with experience in series of research and development projects in the field of competence development. All authors studied the field of competence development extensively, in various programmes and projects. They contributed to the literature, policy and practice.

An essential question for discussion with the audience in the symposium is whether the concept of competence can and does play both a conceptual and instrumental role in the support of learning. The tentative conclusion of the symposium papers is it indeed can and does play these roles simultaneously.