Innovation and competence through the change in industrial organization structures

Abstract

"The paper analyses the specific contribution of competence within the context of industrial innovation processes, based essentially on findings from an empirical study carried out in large-scale enterprises of the pharmaceutical industry. According to the thesis, the organizational context of product and technology development changed profoundly in the nineties, and as a result, created new demands and room for development for the employees' competence in the fields of research, development and production. The development of competence demands and competence profiles can only be understood in connection with the setting up of a new innovation organization within a firm. It is characterised by organizational structures which are process-oriented and cooperative as well as by a market-like way of controlling cost, time and risk. At the level of the utilisation and application of competence, this restructuring corresponds to job contents that are technically more heterogeneous and more closely process-related. In this context, communicative and cooperative competence has gained considerable importance. The trend of the competence change in the field of industrial work does not run uniformly: depending on the type of activity, operating department and hierarchical level, there is a difference in the content and complexity of the innovation task as well as in the possibilities of participating in innovation activities. It becomes obvious that innovation action has in the meantime become an official job order, even for the workers in production. In addition, employees in research and development no longer act within the strict frameworks of traditional structures of departments and division of labour. However, the organizational change does not suspend the previous functional, technical and hierarchical commitments either for the research or for the producing industrial work. It is true that the competence profiles are changing, but the traditional activity characteristics of various groups of employees are not disintegrating completely. Depending on the type of activity, specific job contents, qualifications and last but not least links to the occupation remain, or become concrete in a new way." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

Cite article

Kurz, C. (2002): Innovation und Kompetenzen im Wandel industrieller Organisationsstrukturen. In: Mitteilungen aus der Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung, Vol. 35, No. 4, p. 601-615.