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Overview
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| Title |
SMES
TRAINING
Small
business training and competitiveness: Building case studies in different
European cultural contexts |
| Synopsis |
A
major objective of this project is to identify those learning processes
that lead to increased competitiveness of the small and medium sized companies
analysed. Learning is broadly conceived as the process of making meaning
of experience. This includes the common cognitive stages of information
acquisition, elaboration, dissemination and storage, but it also adds a
more contextualised and social view of the learning process since ‘data
have no significance in their own right until people determine what they
mean’ (Easterby-Smith and Araujo, 1999).
Therefore, learning processes have to be described in their own contexts.
Context
is defined in the model as the antecedents that are the basis for the learning
process. They represent both the triggers and the settings for organisational
learning processes. Learning can be motivated by a wide range of contextual
factors, including a change in legal regulations, an economic downturn,
changes in the industry due to the entry of a new competitor or a new technology,
or even internal changes in the structure or the culture of the organisation.
At the same time, learning has to do not only with knowledge but also with
attitudes and emotions. Moreover, learning is very much social, being influenced
by and influencing itself the culture of the organisation or the subculture
of a specific group within the company (Sauquet
2002, p. 5, 23). |
| Reference |
The
conceptual framework of the project, in particular the learning process,
has been outlined in the final report (Sauquet
2002, pp. 23-25).
See
also project info on SMES TRAINING. |
|