Purpose: Sustainable development requires multiple stakeholders to work and learn across practices, in other words, it requires boundary crossing competence. To prepare students for their future sustainability professions, higher education should facilitate the development of boundary crossing competence in its curricula. This study aims to…

Purpose: Enhancing the relevance of rural extension services requires aligning extension education to the roles, tasks, activities and competencies of smallholder farmers. The objective of this study is to follow up on previous competence studies and to construct a validated competence framework. Design/Methodology/Approach: Competence frameworks…

For a sustainable future, equipping sustainability change agents with relevant sustainability competencies is crucial. Among these competencies is system thinking competence -- the understanding of complex interrelationships among the dimensions of sustainable development and the impacts of the interrelationships. Learning approaches relevant to…

Developing and assessing individuals' competence to identify business opportunities is of increasing importance in the current widespread introduction of entrepreneurship programmes in higher education worldwide. However, performance tests to assess opportunity identification competence (OIC) are scarce in the entrepreneurship education…

In today's knowledge society, there is a demand for professionals who are able to create knowledge across boundaries of disciplines, professions and perspectives. Traditional universities, universities of applied sciences and institutions for vocational education are all challenged to educate these knowledge workers. Accordingly, these…

A study was conducted to determine general professional development activities perceived to be important in enhancing university teaching staff's job performance, and the extent to which teaching staff participate in these activities in Uganda. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with faculty deans and department heads (n = 20),…

Present-day students are expected to be lifelong learners throughout their working life. Higher education must therefore prepare students to self-direct their learning beyond formal education, in real-life working settings. This can be achieved in so-called hybrid learning configurations in which working and learning are integrated. In such a…

Inquiry-based science education is an important innovation. Researchers and teachers consider it to be stimulating for pupils' application of research skills, construction of meaning and acquiring scientific knowledge. However, there is ambiguity as to what competencies are required to teach inquiry-based science. Our purpose is to develop a…

An important assumption of entrepreneurial competence is that (at least part of) it can be learned and developed. However, human resources development (HRD) practices aimed at further strengthening and developing small-business owner-managers' entrepreneurial competence are complex and underdeveloped. A multisource assessment of owner-managers'…

Learning to argue is prerequisite to solving complex problems in groups, especially when they are multidisciplinary and collaborate online. Environments for Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) can be designed to facilitate argumentative knowledge construction. This study investigates how argumentative knowledge construction in…

In open innovation teams, people from different organizations work together to develop new products, services, or markets. This organizational diversity can positively influence collaborative knowledge creation but can frustrate and obstruct the process as well. To increase the success rates of open innovation, it is vital to learn how individuals…

While inter-organizational learning in open innovation teams has received much attention lately, research into its human dimension is lacking. This paper, therefore, explores the competencies professionals need for this process. Three studies were executed: a theoretical study, explorative interviews and focus groups. A competence profile was…

Competence-based education is becoming increasingly popular. Competencies are used more and more as the starting point for designing curricula and instructional methods, especially in vocational education and training, to realize authentic and self-steering study programmes. Despite its popularity in both research and educational settings, there…

The impact of HIV/AIDS on food security and rural livelihoods is still insufficiently understood. It is evident, however, that rural development professionals need to respond to the changes that have taken place in rural areas due to the pandemic. This article explores competencies that they need in order to deal with the complex HIV/AIDS issues…

Creating competence has become a major issue in organizations. Various authors contend that competency management has the potential of integrating organizational strategy, human-resource instruments, and human-resource development; that competency development can lead to performance improvement; and that it can help Human Resource Development…