Between the vocation and the competence of an organization there is a complexand a subtle relation. If the vocation it means searching and finding the need or the need typethat will be covered, the competence means to know, to want and to be capable to deliver theservices that can produce the user satisfaction in efficiency conditions for the firm.competences, vocation, capability, knowledge

Malina Cordos

English

Research Papers in Economics

ORGANIZATIONAL COMPETENCES FOR THE ROMANIAN TOURISTIC 
FIRM AND WAYS TO CONCEIVE THEM 
 
 
Lecturer PhD Student Mălina Cordoş, “1 Decembrie 1918” University of Alba Iulia, e-mail: 
malina_cordos@yahoo.com  
 
 
ABSTRACT: Between the vocation and the competence of an organization there is a complex and a 
subtle relation. If the vocation it means searching and finding the need or the need type that will be 
covered, the competence means to know, to want and to be capable to deliver the services that can 
produce the user satisfaction in efficiency conditions for the firm.  
 
Keywords: competences, vocation, capability, knowledge 
 
JEL Codes: D21, D83, L21 
 
 
The implication of the vocation presumes not only the presence but the use of the 
organizational learning too. A traveling firm which is identifying to be an unsatisfied need the 
assurance of some complementary services for a trip (baby-sitter, toilet services and watching the 
pets etc.) doesn’t mean that it automatic disposes of the knowledge potential and of the abilities 
potential that will allow to make a good cover of the respective needs. On the other hand, in practice 
we can see frequent the situation in which the firm disposes of some competences that are acquired 
through the organizational learning but which are not corresponding with the vocation but which are 
corresponding only to the products making, to the services, to the standards works that assure the 
survival of the respective firm. 
The organizational competence term is relegating to the knowledge potential and to the 
action potential in report with the established targets, in a given medium, as a result of the 
capitalization of the individual knowledge and abilities and that belongs to that organization. 
Starting from the information, knowledge and creativity importance in a society that is underlining 
to be a informational society (the main object of the multiples studies from the last years, people 
saying of a revolution to the society, respective of an economy that is based on knowledge
1, of an 
firm based on knowledge
2, and associate to these, of an management based on knowledge
3), 
many specialists say that the organization identity is given especially by the action that is displayed 
by the respective organization in a certain moment and by it’s competences, the things that it can do 
in conditions of efficiency and of effectiveness. 
It is obvious to anybody that is working in a firm or is leading a department that the 
products, the services, the information delivered at a certain moment do not produce a complete 
capitalization of the intellectual, professional and emotive potential of the personal and, also, do not 
produce a complete capitalization of the organizational potential of the firm, as an ensemble.  
                                                 
1 The economy based on knowledge
1 – a new economy characterized by: the primary  knowledge in all the spheres of the economic activities, the 
intellectual property detain a noticeable  percent in the national patrimony; the concentration of the economic activities, not on the good creation, but 
on the information treatment, on the good accumulation and the production of the good-knowledge, the knowledge capital; the main content of the 
intellectual content is a special capital, intangible, fluid, of which the exclusive possession is difficult to be assured; proliferation of the equipments 
and of the symbolic products, concomitant with the relative diminution of the physical products, etc. (O.N. page49) 
2 The firm based on knowledge
2, defined to be that enterprise which, on the base of an balanced approach from the economic, ecologic and social  
points of view capitalize at a superior level the knowledge and other resources which belong to a firm and who attract them generating for long 
periods , multidimensional efficiency and performances which are validated on the market and approved by the society (ON,106) 
3 as sciences, the management based on knowledge, consist in studying the processes and the managerial relations based on knowledge, in 
discovering  the  legitimate actions managed by these and in conceiving the new systems, methods, technical, etc., to prospect the increase of the 
organizations functionality and performances, capitalizing the big valences of the knowledge. Important reserves of creativity and/or efficacy remain unused because of some obstacles 
that are created by the managers, employees, clients, providers, etc. The organizational 
competences are based on the individual knowledge, abilities, aptitudes, but there are not reducing 
to their sample total. 
The correct management of the components that are available to employees and their 
transformation in real organizational competences is relegating to ability, to the management art, to 
a certain type of interest for success, performance, and competition. 
Beyond the fact that the competences management created, for more than a decade, multiple 
attitudes and theoretical opinions, in practice the competences management was implicit manifested 
with the appearance of the organizations. Intuitive, some organizations known how to decode what 
today are called a paradox of the modern firms: organizations that dispose of a personal with a 
higher qualification and who make the proof of a modest performances. 
A succinct characterization of the organizational competences notices the fact that they are: 
- acknowledge capacities of an employee or of a group to obtain useful results and 
performances that are expected to be obtained as a result of the development of some 
activities 
  - result of a certain process of organizational learning 
  -specialized, belonging to a certain domain and oriented to a certain purpose 
  - perfect through the application 
  - obtained by grouping the competences detained by the employees of the organization 
The volume, the structure and the quality of the organizational competences give the 
strategic capability of a firm. In the measure in which the firm dispose of rare competences, that are 
difficult to reproduce, that bring prestige for the respective organization and, implicit, that bring 
profit for the organization, the firm is assuring a privileged place in it’s competitive medium. This 
presumes that the firm has key competences C.H.Prahalad, G.Hamel (The core competence of the 
organization, Harvard Business Review, May/June, 1990), unique characteristics that allow to the 
holder enterprise to realize new products and to extend its competitive capacity in a rapid rhythm. 
Characterizing the key competences it can be noticed that these: 
-assure the enterprise identity that shows what it can do best 
- create or contribute in a decisive manner to the obtaining of a long term competitive 
advantage  
- are impossible or very difficult to be imitated by the competitors 
- offer some advantages to the clients as a result of the quality, of the price, of the 
distribution manner, etc. 
- prove elasticity and they can be applied to other products then the products that were used 
in the first place. 
Appealing some different kinds of classifications that we can find in the specialized 
literature, the competences types that can be found in a tourism firm can be presented as it follows:  
 
1. The inclusion sphere  
 
Type 1: Individuals 
Contain: Knowledge, abilities, the behavior of the people that are hired that allow them to realize 
the tasks at the level of the standards  
Expression mode: The communication capacity, the empathy capacity, the promptitude and the 
fairness of the services 
 
 Type 2: Organizational 
Contain: The capacity of the organization to initiate, to display and to develop certain activities at a 
level of performance that is similar or superior with the level of the rivals Expression mode: The elaboration and the implementation of some strategies that will allow the 
forming of a favorable and solid image, the attraction and the fidelity of the clients  
 
2. The differentiation capacity of the firm  
 
Type 1: Generics 
Contain: The minimum competences set that allow the running of an organization in a competitive 
medium  
Expression mode: The capacity of organizing and coordinating the typical activities of the tourism 
firm ensemble, the   decisional capacity to suit to the environment  
 
Type 2: Specifics 
Contain: The set of the competences that are detained by some organizations, which are generated 
by the particularities of the activity and by the firm individuality  
Expression mode: for the tourism agency: mobility and flexibility in proportion with the seasons, 
the request changes; for the  hotel: hospitality, comfort, safety; for the restoration: the food 
preparation and serving  
 
3. The contribution to the obtaining of a competitive advantage  
 
Type 1: Hackneyed 
Contain: Competences set with a common character detained by any firm from a branch which will 
allow to exist in normal conditions of working  
Expression mode:Reception, accommodation, transport, public alimentation, amusement  
 
Type 2: Distinctive 
Contain: Competences detained only by certain firms which allow them differentiation from other 
firm very similar as type with them  
Expression mode: Unique food proposals; programs packages that are special conceived for certain 
tourists categories; supplementary services comparative with the rivals  
 
Type 3: Emergent 
Contain: Competences that are just licking into a shape and which assure to their holders a certain 
development potential, in perspective  
Expression mode: The tourism agency: educative, scientific, religious tourism; hotel: banking, 
amusement; public alimentation: vegetarian diets  
 
By the size and by the complexity of the displayed activities the organisations can have one 
or more vocations, being that what many people are calling the “firm competences base”. An 
analysis model of the firm vocation can be like the following one: 
 
Table no. 1  
The analysis of the vocation of the tourism firm 
Nr. 
 
Vocation  The identified need  Products/services 
that are offered 
Distinctive 
competences 
1  Hotel  Repose, comfort, safety  Accommodation 
Supplementary 
services 
Specialized 
services 
2  Public alimentation  Food, hygiene, comfort  Various  food  and 
drinks 
Unique recipes 
in the country  
The competences analysis also imposes other points of view, like “the V.R.I.O. analysis” 
according to which a competence is more important if it has good responses to the following 
requirements: 
V – Value, when the respective competence is capable to generate a supplementary 
profit 
R – Rarity, if we can find it in the same shape and with the same intensity in a 
restricted number of organizations 
I – Inimitable, if the possibility to reproduce it and imitate it by the new come on the 
specific market is reduce 
O – Organization, if the organization disposes of the strategic capability to exploit it 
in an effective manner.  
An analysis model of the functional competences of the tourism organization and of its 
influences on the market situation of the firm is represented in the following mode: 
 
Table no. 2 
The VRIO analysis of the functional competences of the firm 
Domain/ 
competence 
The 
inclusio
n sphere 
Different
iation 
The 
contributi
on to the 
competitiv
e 
advantage 
Dispersal  V R I  O 
The 
enterprise 
situation 
I. Searching-
development: 
1.1. The 
capacity to 
renew the 
tourism 
services 
 
Organiza
tional 
 
 
 
 
 
Specifics 
 
 
 
 
 
Distinctive 
 
 
 
 
 
Transvers
e, 
inter-
organizati
on 
 
X
 
X
 
- 
 
X 
 
Excellency 
1.2. The 
elaboration of 
some market 
strategies with an 
accent on the 
partner image 
Individu
als 
Specifics Emergency 
 
Located  X X X  -  Tapping 
II. Public 
alimentation 
2.1. Alimentation 
technologies 
Organiza
tional 
Generic Hackneyed  Located    X -  -  -  Survival  
2.2. Prescription 
for products – 
warm and cold 
kitchen 
Organiza
tional  
Generic Hackneyed  Located X -  -  -  Survival  
 
The importance of the identification of the key competences assure the firm vocation and 
so assure to that firm a sure and a durable advantage in the competition with the similar firms.  References 
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The quality of services- a premise of the rural tourism development

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Unele consideraţii privind noile tendinţe în turismul românesc –

ORGANIZATIONAL COMPETENCES FOR THE ROMANIAN TOURISTIC FIRM AND WAYS TO CONCEIVE THEM

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ORGANIZATIONAL COMPETENCES FOR THE ROMANIAN TOURISTIC FIRM AND WAYS TO CONCEIVE THEM

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