The Success of Apprenticeships

4The Leader-Entrepreneur in an Apprenticeship Position

4.1. Introduction

It is customary to present leaders as being on the side of apprenticeship managers, i.e. those who teach and transfer knowledge, rather than those who learn new things. But these leaders can themselves prove to be formidable apprentices in the first sense of the term, especially when it comes to approaches to competences in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), or even very small enterprises (VSEs). Of great importance in these organizations, competence approaches are the subject of a continuous learning process, which guides the leaders concerned to discover levels of competence that have never before been suspected, particularly through its collective, strategic and interorganizational dimensions.

4.2. Realities of competence approaches in SMEs and VSEs

Managerial literature agrees that “competence approaches” are management practices, whether formal or informal, that aim to acquire, stimulate and/or adapt the competences of employees (Defélix et al. 2006), of teams (Retour and Krohmer 2006) or of the company as a whole (Rouby and Thomas 2004; Dietrich et al. 2006).

In very small enterprises (VSEs) and SMEs, the analysis of competence approaches began in the 1990s. Multiple identifications of these realities have been made at different levels. Competence was first identified as a key concern for Human Resource Management (HRM), particularly through the difficulties and challenges faced by managers ...