Build, share and transfer new skills in transnational enterprises: issues and constraints

Abstract

Following working evolutions of the last decades (delocalization, implantation, globalization), the companies are trying to adapt themselves and develop more and more innovating products. They are trying to anticipate the effects of those mutations in order to develop new organizational models, based on flexibility and structural transversality (Bobillier-Chaumon, 2003). This study determines the way Romanian and French employees construct, gain and transfer new abilities and, most importantly, how they are employing their work and abilities in order to maintain the organization (Engestrom & Middleton, 1998; Rabardel & Samurcay, 2006; Wisner, 1985). We conducted 24 interviews (with Romanian and French employees of a French multinational company) and 2 half-days of workshops in order to understand the nature of the activity in place (processus, vocabulary, working rules, instructions). Our first results focus on the link between the collective and the knowledge transfer, as well as the adjustment of their actions and interventions.