Creating Knowledge in a High-Tech French SME

This paper deals with organizational learning and knowledge creation in Allcapt, a high-tech French SME, through two different experiences : A technological innovation, dealing with the design of temperature sensors for Ariane V launcher, and an organizational innovation, dealing with human resource management. The paper results from a field research conducted in Allcapt’s plant between 1996-2000. The various stages and steps of the technological and organizational dimensions of problem solving are presented in order to add to existing case studies on organizational learning and knowledge creation, as they are useful to make comparative studies. The same data is also used to propose a deconstruction of the concept of organizational learning and knowledge creation in its different components according to the case in hand. For Allcapt, the proposed relevant deconstruction is the “technological” and the “organizational” aspects of learning and knowledge creation. Allcapt succeeded in the technological innovation challenge, but has been less successful in the organizational aspects, as demonstrated by attempts at innovative experiences in human resource management. This supports the notion that the success in one aspect will not guarantee success in the second aspect, and some of the reasons explaining this divergence are presented in the paper.