Towards new challenges for innovative management ... - Erima - Estia

2. Behaviour skills and learning
From now on, possibilities of acquisition of behavioural skills through relevant situations of
training must be considered. Thus, individual learning can be defined as the process by which a
person acquires new skills.
This learning is carried out in a various way by the experiment, the formation or information. To
include/understand the methods of realization of these learning appears essential then to support
the transfer of behavioural skills.
According to Grundstein and Rosenthal Sabroux, (Grundstein and Rosenthal Sabroux, 2001),
skills are a mixture of knowledge, capacities to act and goal oriented behaviours in any given
situation. Therefore, the definition comprehends the capacity to gather knowledge and to put
them in action in a context. Similarly, during the research with the European group of temporary
job, we noted that the behavioural skills and the situations of work are closely intertwined. Indeed,
some skills will be particularly essential in certain situations of work (for example empathy skills
will be more essential in situation of work in relation to the customer).
In a learning situation, the three skills of knowledge, know-how and knowing to be cannot be
completely dissociated. They are in permanent interaction and cannot exist independently.
Indeed, skills of knowing-to be are useless if they are not mobilized within a background where
knowledge permits the comprehension of the stakes, the strategies and authorizes a process of
actions (know-how). Reciprocally, knowledge remains useless if it is not associated to know-how
and to knowing how to be.
Within the framework of the study evoked previously, eight generic situations of work were
defined: individual work, work of precision, work of output, repetitive work, work in relation to the
customer, work in relation to thirds, work in a hard environment, seasonal work. It then appears
links clearly marked between situations of work and the behavioural skills more precisely
mobilized in these situations. As example, the study showed that individual work rather mobilized
capacity of initiative, reactivity and versatility whereas the work of precision rather mobilizes
capacity of concentration and sense of observation. Each behavioural skill thus could be
identified like particularly mobilized in quite precise situations of work. It then appeared necessary
to identify methods of acquisition of these behavioural competences.
Several studies focus on the process of transfer of skills (Szulanski, 1996; Galbraith, 1990). It is
defined by Argote et al. (2000) in the following way: “Knowledge transfer in organizations
manifests itself through exchanges in the knowledge or performance in the recipient unit”.
Initially analyzed in the intra-organisational context in terms of creations of knowledge (Nonaka,
1994), or of development of the productivity (Epple et al., 1996), the transfer of skills was then
studied within the framework of sharing knowledge between organizations (Powell et al., 1996;
Simonin, 1997,…). This transfer of knowledge was not studied within the framework of the
transfer of behavioural skills inside the organization.
Analyzed in an economic outlook this work presents the process of transfer of competences like a
linear process composed of five phases allowing a transfer of knowledge between an identified
source and a receiver (individuals, groups or organizations) (Berthon, 2005).
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