شرایط یادگیری کارکنان و خلاقیت: فعالیت های صلح آمیز برای توسعه محل کار یا فعالیت های کاری در SME ها Conditions for Employee Learning and Innovation – Interweaving Competence Development Activities Provided by a Workplace Development Programme with Everyday Work Activities in SMEs

Introduction In recent years, a growing number of workplace development programmes (WPDPs), funded by the EU, national governments or regional authorities, have provided competence-building activities to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to boost production capabilities and/or promote innovation (Alasoini 2009, 2016). In Sweden, one such initiative is the national WPDP, the Production Leap, which was created to increase Swedish SMEs’ global competitiveness. More than 200 manufacturing enterprises have participated in the programme’s key competence development components, which include university courses in Lean Production and coaching for employees in single enterprises. However, research shows that skills and competence development is a resource-intensive activity, and SMEs find it difficult to assess what activities they need to engage in to build employee competences; therefore, any public investment in SME skills development and competence building should Boffer SMEs a way to systematise their training practices^ (OECD 2013:13). Previous research provides strong evidence that competence development in SMEs takes on different forms, and its conditions for competence development are different from those in larger enterprises (Matlay 2004). SMEs often find it difficult to upgrade workers’skills and competences because vocational education or training is seldom demand driven or customised for SME contexts. In addition, the ability of regional universities to support innovative processes in SMEs has been questioned (OECD 2013). Consequently, this article argues that competence development efforts in SMEs must be integrated into everyday work activities and be supported by management (Ellström 2010b, 2011; Evans 2015). The strategy for competence development is thus connected to the learning environment within the organisation, which suggests that Blearning at work is a matter of design^ (Ellström 2011:107). A large number of studies on workplace learning show that a variety of organisational conditions and individual prerequisites intertwine to create learning environments that either support or limit learning and competence development within the workplace (Billett 2001; Ellström 2006; Evans et al. 2006; Felstead et al. 2009; Gustavsson 2009).