Competencies displayed by multinational corporation senior managers in critical business situations

Purpose This research investigates the types of critical business situations worked on by multinational corporations' senior managers and the competencies they employ to achieve desired outcomes. Design/methodology/approach The research is based on a database of N = 440 critical success incidents obtained from semi-structured interviews with a sample of 143 senior managers during competency-based consulting projects over a 25-year period from 1995 to 2019. Content analysis was used to categorise critical success incidents, by similarity of business intent, into groups labelled as critical business situations. Behavioural coding was used to identify competencies. Findings Nine critical business situations were found, and 10 competencies identified, accounting for 79% of behaviours displayed by the senior managers. Five competencies were found to be used more universally and five were more dependent on the specific critical business situation. Research limitations/implications This research provides an overview of the initial stage of this topic. Further empirical validation including applicability in contemporary business contexts, testing of competency relationships with critical business situation criterion-referenced outcomes, and temporal and geographic usage will be presented in an accompanying study. Practical implications Knowledge of the specific competencies and their relative frequencies when displayed in different critical business situations provide the potential to give more targeted development suggestions to senior managers facing similar situations. Originality/value This study examines concurrently, both the business situations and associated competencies of senior managers, a group for whom extant research is significantly limited.