Massive open online courses (MOOCs) as an enabler for competent employees and innovation in industry

Abstract

The industrial domain is increasingly depending on the rapid technological advances, and to utilize it, new competencies will need to be acquired by the employees in order to strive towards innovation and business success. In this new context, under also the prism of globalization, the rules of competition are redefined, and competent labor is the deciding factor. Especially in fast-paced knowledge-based economies, there is greater dependence on knowledge, information and high employee competency levels, which also play a key role in innovation. It is therefore in the interest of both corporations and individual employees to not only retain existing knowledge, but continuously enhance it, by expanding it and utilizing it more efficiently. Competent people are the key to future success and offer organizations their only sustainable competitive advantage. Among the plethora of available tools to enhance employee competencies, massive open online courses (MOOCs) are an emerging phenomenon. They have taken the world by storm and recently they also started penetrating the corporate environments. This work focuses exactly on this white-spot area i.e., the relationship of MOOC-empowered employee competencies and innovation. A model is proposed, empirical data is collected via a survey, and is statistically analyzed. Initial results indicate a positive contribution of MOOC related factors such as culture, knowledge, communication, technology, and cost to innovation in modern enterprises.