According to Three Organizational Variables

assistants on this study. The purpose of this article is to test the validity of a list of 14 competencies for public managers and develop a series of hypotheses concerning their preva-lence, in relation to three basic organizational variables: the executive’s reporting level, the location of his or her position, and the type of activity performed by the administrative unit for which he or she is responsible. Twelve executives (selected on the basis of their management experience) were given information about each of the 14 competencies identified in a previous study through a grounded inductive research process. They were then asked to rate the importance of these competencies in relation to each of the 3 variables and explain the reasons for their scores. They were also asked to take part in a 3-hour group meeting a week later in order to discuss their ratings with the other respondents. Executives consider the list of competencies to be valid although not the competencies are equally important for executives to develop to the same level. Our hypothesis, that the prevalence of the competencies is affecte