Employee competence at continuous learning is becoming
increasingly important in organizations. In a study of human
resource executives from 400 organizations (AARP 2000),
respondents judged the importance of 29 employee qualities
for their organizations. Ranking in the top 15 were ‘‘flexible
in doing different tasks,’’ ‘‘will participate in training programs,’’
‘‘try new approaches,’’ ‘‘up to date skills,’’ and
‘‘learn new technology.’’ Not surprisingly, the ability to
learn and develop one’s skills is quickly becoming a core
career competency (Hall and Mirvis 1995). Individuals are
increasingly responsible for their own career paths, often
spanning several different career lines and organizations
(Hall and Mirvis 1995). This shift means that the ability to
continuously gain new skills and develop professionally is
essential to career success. Continuous learning has benefits
in the short term, such as knowledge acquisition, selfawareness
building, and perspective change, as well as in the
long term, such as skill development and behavior change.
These ideally will lead to increased productivity and enhanced ability to meet organizational goals (Van Velsor
1998). Further, having an organization in which learning,
development, and growth are parts of existing jobs can help
in retention of employees (Kaye and Jordan-Evans 2000), a
key issue given the current labor market.Given that competence at continuous learning is
increasingly a key part of successful careers and effective
organizations, this raises important questions. What aspects
of work are associated with a need for competence at
continuous learning and development? Do some dimensions
of work demand competence at continuous learning
while others do not? Might characteristics of workers such
as age or experience make a difference in whether continuous
learning competence is considered necessary for
effective performance on the work dimensions? The current
study employed a job analytic approach to examine
managerial job content dimensions (cf. Borman and Brush
1993) that are associated with the need for competency at
continuous learning. It also examined age and experience
in relation to these issues.