In Search for Flexible Expertise as a Source for Firm Viability

Loek F.M. Nieuwenhuis; Alan Brown

Growth, employment and competitiveness are major challenges for Europe and are central elements of the Lisbon strategy. Global economic, technological and societal changes imply a further emphasis on the capacity of organisations to innovate if they want to survive.

Current knowledge on the learning organisation assumes a direct relationship between organisational measures and the innovative capacity of these organisations, but largely ignores individual learning aspects. In rapidly changing working environments, flexible experts will be able to adapt their expertise rapidly and smoothly to different tasks, functions and/or environments. The concept of flexible expertise was developed by Feltovich et al. (1996) and is related to a dynamic view of the world (in contrast to fixed expertise, which goes along with a static view of the world). Innovative entrepreneurs are characterised by flexible expertise (cf. Gielen, Hoeve and Nieuwenhuis, 2003). Investing in flexible expertise of the workforce increases the innovative capacity of firms and labour organisations. To investigate the concept of flexible expertise, we elaborate on the Nelson and Winter (1982) concept of collective routines in the enterprise or, more specifically, in communities of practice within the enterprise. Routines are adaptive procedures, robust to small changes in external and internal production contexts. Innovation can be conceptualised as a sustainable change of collective routines (Hoeve, & Nieuwenhuis, 2006). Changing collective routines for innovation requires learning processes on the individual and collective level (the worker within the community of practice: Wenger, 1998): cognition, practice and culture are all at stake. It requires strategic interventions at the level of the enterprise in order to facilitate innovation and learning processes on the collective and individual level. Understanding the relation between flexible expertise of the workforce and continuous innovation is needed for targeted investments in human resources (Nooteboom, 2000).

Four labour organisations were studied in the Netherlands (Gielen, Nijman, & Nieuwenhuis, 2007) in order to get insight into the relations between innovation and knowledge management on the one hand and into learning on the shop floor on the other. Two houses for elderly care and two industrial enterprises (making plastics and copying machines) were studied by interviewing management and some employees and by studying documents and organisational reports (annual reports, internal policy documents, etc.). The result is a global impression of the organisation of proactive learning processes in the organisations.

In the UK participants from a number of small ICT and engineering companies, some of whom were also in supply chain networks, were interviewed about their organisations’ approach to learning and development. Brown (2005) highlights how the success of small companies could partly depend on the way they handled, either explicitly or implicitly, the gradual development of ‘skilled incompetence’ (Argyris, 1990). For some companies the current way of doing things, including the constant search for and focus upon technical development, meant they neglected more strategic considerations, including plans for the professional growth of staff and opportunities to reflect systematically on their ways of interacting externally. Several effects of the accumulation of ‘skilled incompetence’ (Argyris, 1990) might be expected in an organisation that does not develop specific plans for professional growth. A company’s small-size allows fast knowledge sharing among people, ensuring less dependence on a single resource and improves role flexibility. Yet the company’s model of investment on human resources should be developed in order to comply with conditions of both keeping key human resources and achieving long-term objectives.

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In Search for Flexible Expertise as a Source for Firm Viability

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VET Boost: Towards a Theory of Professional Competencies

Essays in Honor of Frank Achtenhagen

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In Search for Flexible Expertise as a Source for Firm Viability

Zitierungsangaben

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VET Boost: Towards a Theory of Professional Competencies

Essays in Honor of Frank Achtenhagen

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