Genealogy of “Competence” in Project Management: Investigation of the State of Competence Elements with a Focus on Iran Water and Power Resources Development Company

A common approach followed in the field of project management is the so-called competence-oriented approach.In many of sophisticated industries, where a vast array of equipment have been developed, coping with the variable challenges of today and unique circumstances encountered in projects is a person-oriented task. Operating the most complicated megaprojects across the country, Iran’s hydropower industry has not been an exception to this rule, for which management the development of “individual’s competence” has long been seen as a necessity. In this respect, the very first step is to undertake a genealogical study to understand the concept thoroughly. Accordingly, the relevant literature was reviewed and analyzed to deeply investigate the definitions and then explain the concept of competence. Subsequently, the main components of competence were explored to study the link between the competence and the concept of “behavior” in an attempt to introduce a behavior modification cycle. Finally, different views to the codification of competence standards were revisited through deontologism/consequentialism followed by an analytical review of previous works on competence in the project management across Iran Water and Power Resources Development Company, to obtain the theoretical foundations for the development of project competence model based on all of the performed analyses.