Managing competence development and acquisition in small manufacturing firms differences between firms by organisational market performance

Sammanfattning: This thesis addresses how small manufacturing firms develop in-house competencies and acquire external expertise. It also relates in-house development and external aquisition to contextual factors. An important purpose of the study is to investigate whether there are any differences between firms revealing a favourable versus les favourable market performance. Utilising a multi-methodological approach, the results reveal that small manufacturing firms do invest significantly in different methods for competence development. Acquisition of external competencies preferably involve the firms' vertical partners. Regarding both utilisation of different methods for competence development, as well as co-operation with external expertise, small manufacturing firms ar characterised by a sharp division of labour between blue-collars and white-collars. Firms exposing a more favourable sales performance generally invest more time and money in competence development, address both broader fields of topics and broader categories of staff while employing a broader repertoire of methods for developing competence in the firm.