Machine-Competence and Human Capital: A Critical Analysis of Competency-Based Management in the Neoliberal Era

Abstract

This theoretical essay offers a critical analysis of competency-based management through the lens of the human capital theory, situating these organizational practices within broader neoliberal rationalities. The study begins with the recognition that the discourse of competencies, widely disseminated in the field of human resource management, is grounded in economic assumptions that equate individual value withi the capacity to produce results based on knowledge, skills, and attitudes. Within this framework, the essay examines how competency-based management functions not merely as a development technique, but as a technology of power that shapes subjectivities aligned with the demands for performance, productivity, and self-responsibility. Drawing on Michel Foucault's contributions on discourse, biopolitics, and governmentality, the article argues that the contemporary worker is interpellated as an enterprise-self, a subject who must continuously investing in their human capital and optimise their competencies. This process ultimately transforms individuals into “machine-competence”, normalizing self-exploitation and shiffing the costs of training and the risks of the economic system onto workers themselves. At the same time, it naturalizes social exclusion by framing unemployment or marginalization as personal “incompetence.” By highlighting the subjective and social consequences of such managerial practices, this essay contributes to a critical understanding of human resource management and call for reflection on the ethical and political limits of performance centered discurse in contemporary organizational.