Abstract:

This paper aims to analyse the competence profile of professional purchasers to enhance the development process of the curriculum design for professional purchasers in higher education in Austria. The curriculum should integrate subjects that teach the skills which are missing in the area of professional purchasers. A literature review was done against the background of the competence atlas of Heyse and Erpenbeck. Literature show that the 16 most frequently mentioned competencies (out of 790 detected competencies) are divided in the four basic competences according to Heyse and Erpenbeck as follows: (S) socio-communicative competence: 8 sub-competences, (M) methods and professional competence: 5 sub-competences and (A) activity and action competence: 3 sub-competences; In the literature analysis, “specialist knowledge” and “multidisciplinary” are considered separately and have not been integrated into the above evaluation. These two competences reflect operational competencies. From this first analysis of the scientific literature, it emerges that the socio-communicative competences for professional purchasers are the most important competences (with exception of “specialist knowledge” and “multidisciplinary”). According to literature “talent for planning” and “proceed in a systematic-methodic manner” are the most important sub-competences for professional purchaser. Based on the literature analysis, competence profiles were queried by professional purchaser. An online questionnaire was sent out to purchasing professionals to evaluate the competence profiles. Data from 82 responses is collected and used to analyse the competence profiles of professional purchasers. Results show, that the three most important competences (with exception of “specialist knowledge” and “multidisciplinary”) are “ability to communicate” (x̅=1,32; σ=0,56), “ability to solve problems” (x̅=1,33; σ=0,50) and “proactive” (x̅=1,52; σ=0,50) on a likert-scale from 1 (very important) to 5 (not important). To compare the dependent samples, the wilcoxon test was used based on absolute value difference rankings. For example, further results show that the competence “market knowledge” (p = 0.005, 2-sided) shows the difference that professional purchasers do not have the desired market knowledge, as the importance would require. In the competence “joy of experimentation” it can be seen that professional purchasers are more adventurous than it is important in terms of importance. To conclude, this research shows important competencies for professional purchasers to design a higher education curriculum for professional purchasers.

Keywords:

Professional purchasers, competence profile, curriculum design.