The Istanbul CBSM conference is an initiative organized by the newly merged research communities formerly holding separate conferences under the banners of "International Conference on Competence-Based Management" (ICCBM) and "Strategisches Kompetenz-Management" (SKM). Between them, these two communities have held 17 prior international conferences and have published over 400 research papers in two peer-reviewed journals and several series of research periodicals. Following the first joint SKM-ICCBM conference in Linz, Austria, in September 2011, researchers from these two communities decided to merge their institutional processes into one movement under the banner of "Competence-Based Strategic Management". The Istanbul CBSM conference will be the third international conference to be held by the newly merged entity of the same name.

Competence-based management is an approach to management that emerged in the 1990s and has become a leading perspective in strategic management and general management theory, research, practice, and education. The competence perspective encourages and adopts an explicitly dynamic, systemic, cognitive, and holistic view of management processes in today’s complex and rapidly changing world. The competence view leads to a strong emphasis within management on designing and implementing processes for building and leveraging individual skills and competencies, team capabilities, and organizational competences.