Competency Domain Model and the Perception of Engineering Managers in the United Arab Emirates

Because of the multidimensional nature of their job, defining the Engineering Manager (EM) competencies is of particular interest. Today's global business environment and increasingly changing workplace dictate that the EM must cultivate a wider range of competencies. In this paper, a comprehensive competency model is presented. The model combines the views of previous researches and views of EM academicians and experienced practitioners. The paper also presents the results of surveying EMs in the UAE and reports their perception of the relative importance of EM competencies using the AHP methodology. The results indicate that practicing EMs in the UAE perceive the Leadership and Interpersonal competencies to be the most important among all other competencies in the developed model.