Abstract
The article aims to be a reflective paper on the interconnected concepts of training, development and innovation and the potential they have in dealing with change in organizations. We call change both the process through which something becomes different and the result of that process. Change management is the expression used to define the complex of activities, functions, and tools (such as training courses) through which an organization deals with the introduction of something new that is relevant for both its survival and growth. Training and development are labels used to define those educational activities implemented in organizations to empower the competences of workers, employees and managers in the lifelong learning perspective of improving their performance. Consequently, we define competences as those personal characteristics that allow people to be effective in the changing contexts of both workplace and everyday life. They are also necessary in organizational innovation, which is the process of transforming ideas or inventions into goods or services that generate value and for which customers will pay. Training, development, and innovation are three different but interconnected functions by which organizations manage change. What is the state of the art of the literature dealing with these topics? Here, is a critical review on the matter.
Highlights
The focus of the article is organizational innovation as a way by which companies, businesses, firms and enterprises, in one word organizations, manage change in the multidimensional perspective of survival, competitiveness, growth, and development (Sartori et al, 2013, 2017a; Sartori and Scalco, 2014; Ceschi et al, 2017b).In its narrowest meaning, organizational innovation is the process of transforming ideas or inventions into goods or services that generate value and for which customers will pay
All these studies presume that the learning processes are the underlying mechanisms that account for the effects of training on innovative performance (Laursen and Foss, 2003; Chen and Huang, 2009), strongly underline the importance of human resources training in developing the characteristics that literature has shown to be in relation to creativity and innovation processes (Sartori and Scalco, 2014), but they do not arrive to a clear training and development model to be delivered to people involved in such processes (Sartori et al, 2017a)
Most of the consulting books and dissemination publications emphasize the importance of the so-called human factor in innovation processes that really want to keep up with a world that changes so quickly, little research on the implications of training people has been carried out in order to understand how to properly develop them in the perspective of organizational innovation
Summary
The focus of the article is organizational innovation as a way by which companies, businesses, firms and enterprises, in one word organizations, manage change in the multidimensional perspective of survival, competitiveness, growth, and development (Sartori et al, 2013, 2017a; Sartori and Scalco, 2014; Ceschi et al, 2017b). Another element that should be taken into consideration consists in delivering training activities that allow the workforce to update and empower their personal and professional characteristics, so that workers, employees, managers and, in general, members of the organization become more and more able to generate and develop ideas for innovation Another one is the cooperation and the collaboration between people (Pedrazza et al, 2016), both working in the same organization (closed innovation) and belonging to different organizations (open innovation), which requires trust and, in general, those relational and communication skills whose existence in the workforce is not always possible to take for granted. What does literature say about the relationships between these concepts, that is to say, training, development, change, and innovation in organizations?
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