Innovativeness as potential benefit of workplace learning in enterprises Innovativeness as potential benefit of workplace learning in enterprises An overview of existing Czech research Petr Novotný Masaryk University, Faculty of Arts, Department of Educational Sciences Brno, Czech Republic

The aim of this paper is to provide a brief overview of the discussions on the innovativeness of enterprises with special emphasis on human resource development and workplace learning in the Czech Republic.

Innovativeness as potential benefit of workplace learning in enterprises Interconnection of workplace learning and innovativeness has not been systematically reflected until now in the Czech Republic. A particular picture may be drawn on the basis of reflection of innovativeness of the Czech economy and of discussions of the role of human resource development in Czech enterprises.

Reflections of workplace learning Workplace learning has not been a priority topic for major Czech institutions working in the fields of lifelong learning and human resource development. Nor has it been dealt with in any detail in any important study or conceptual document. Furthermore, employee development is only rarely defined in terms of learning and development.

Innovativeness of the Czech economy as assessed for instance by the European Innovation Scoreboard The main weaknesses: –low number of patent applications per capita; very small number of innovation companies; low volume of seed capital, i.e. support for the first phase of establishing spin-offs. (Besides the facts mentioned here) In addition, there are other relevent (another very important) factors: spirit or culture of enterprise, knowledge management etc.

WPL – What´s in it? interplay Many documents as well as researches and analyses declare an interplay between innovativeness, and continuing education and training in enterprises. competing priorities Nečadová, Breňová and Průcha (2006) concluded that innovations, work organization and HRD are in reality competing priorities.

Innovation versus standard enterprises Innovation companies bet on continuing education and training in companies. Standard enterprises –give priority to education and training as a tool for performance improvement –prefer traditional ways of training provided by external provider

Mainstream in company training three-fifths of czech companies prefer to use external education and training providers for their employees, 30% provide in-company training (National, 2003a); 80% of Czech companies co-operate with education and training provider (National: 2003b) most of institutions, agencies and companies providing education and training are very small and offer a limited range of services – 45% offer at most 5 courses (National, 2003a: 102).

Innovation companies Search for their own ways how to guarantee employees’ learning. Workplace learning is considered to be a very promising alternative. that workplace learning is frequently associated with discourse of learning organization, organizational innovation and flexibility, transformation environment and innovations ____________ This discussion draws on a total of 78 texts that have been identified as relevant for the topic of workplace learning, but very little of this literature provides solid empirical evidence. …much relevant information is missing, for example, the extent and the nature of the resources invested in education and training by companies

SMEs – a specific case? SMEs are considered “the backbone of the Czech economy” with 61.38% of employees, 55.41% of wages and 51.45% of production. It is expected that SMEs are more flexible and more innovative than large companies. SMEs have fewer resources to invest into separated innovative activities and therefore SMEs have to involve employees in the innovation processes.

The innovativeness of SMEs SMEs managers prefer technical aspects of innovation to managerial aspects Innovative attempts focus on “ad hoc” product innovations. innovative process in SMEs are “non- managed” and reactive ones with no use of synergy and open communication (which is usually named as the main advantage of SMEs). Source: Peterka, 2006

Innovative potential of the SMEs The research found out fundamental misunderstanding of the “innovative culture” concept. Managers of SMEs impossible –believe that it is impossible to support creativity and production of innovative ideas. –fail in communicating the strategic concepts within the company –fail in understanding causes of employees’ passive attitude. Source: Horňáková and Zaušková, 2006 (SK)

Considerable development in the field…? In recent years researchers have seen new approaches to knowledge management in organizations using combination of top-down and bottom-up knowledge transfer to support innovations in enterprise. Source: Mládková, 2005

Conclusions Positive intercorelation of innovations and workplace learning in enterprises in the Czech Republic is obviously under-researched probably underestimated by practitioners too. Further research is needed.

Questions are very welcome!