Il mito delle competenze tra Procuste e Prometeo

Work changes initated with the post-Fordist transition found in competencies a conceptual apparatus and a methodology useful to explain, classify and govern job differentiation and, at the same time, capable to manage the new needs of training, evaluation, selection and flexibility of human resources. Farthermore, competencies have begun to be used as a symbol, as a flagship of contemporary society and the imperatives of efficiency, transparency, mobility, productivity and, above all, subjectivity which are foundamental featuers of that society. The aim of this (theoretical) paper is to explain the reasons behind the success of the methodology of competencies but also to highlight the critical issues related to a prescriptive use of it. In this way the paper intend to show the relevance of the sociological perspective to fully understand the importance, the determinants and the social implications of the centrality given to the notion of competency.