High Performance Work Practices, Hierarchical Ordering of Competencies and Educational Mismatch: Creation and Destruction of Competencies

With focus on expressed competencies, the objective of this study is to test the hypotheses of whether a worker’s level of competencies is affected by modern work practices, whether owning key competencies affects the acquisition of technical competencies, and finally, whether the presence of educational mismatch has some consequences on expressed competencies. Using a large survey of Italian employees drawn from a government constructed database, the authors find that i) key competencies increase - even controlling for endogeneity - when the employee is involved in new work practices, ii) over-education has a dissipative effect on both types of expressed competencies and iii) under-education (which implies having a challenging job) has a strong positive effect.