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Introduction

Competent health services managers (HSM) are essential for effective and efficient health services and systems. Competent managers display certain knowledge, behaviour, skills, attitudes and values, known collectively as competencies, which are associated with performance on the job (Calhoun et al., 2002). Yet there is little empirical evidence of the required competencies and appropriate level of attainment among HSM. The literature reveals many lists of competencies, largely based on the opinions of practitioners and identified experts (e.g. Honoré and Costich 2009; Hudak et al., 1999; MacKinnon et al., 2004; Mohd‐Shamsudin and Chuttipattana 2012; Shewchuk et al., 2005; Wenzel et al., 1994). While these competency lists (also known as models or frameworks) may have face validity based on the development processes, few have been subject to further tests of validity and reliability.

Despite this lack of validation of the underlying competencies, competency assessment tools have been developed to measure the identified competencies. To date, there are no fully validated management competency assessment tools that account for a set of authenticated health services management competencies. This paper aims to address this gap by presenting the validation of the management competency assessment tool (MCAP Tool) designed to measure the competence of HSM comprehensively. MCAP Tool was developed to support the previously validated health services management competency framework developed in Australia (reference removed for peer review).

Background

The accepted definition of competencies stresses that competencies are a bundle of related knowledge, skills, attitudes and behaviours that:

  1. affect a major part of one’s job;

  2. correlate with performance on the job;

  3. can be measured against well-accepted standards; and

  4. can be improved by training and development (Lucia and Lesinger, 1999 p. 82).

The general management literature confirms the importance of management competence to support high performance organisations and systems (Cappelli, 2008), with understanding that management competencies are effective in recruitment (McClelland, 1973), training and education, performance appraisal and development, and succession planning (Calhoun et al., 2002).

Most of the existing HSM competency frameworks have been proposed by professional organisations. These include the US-based National Center for Healthcare Leadership (Calhoun et al., 2008) and the Healthcare Leadership Alliance (Stefl and Bontempo, 2008), the UK’s Leadership Academy (NHS Leadership Academy, 2013) and the International Hospital Federation (IHF)...

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