Organizational Influences Upon the Development of Professional Expertise in Smes in the Netherlands

Abstract

The present study describes the relationship between four organizational predictor variables and the degree of professional expertise of middle and higher level employees in three different career stages, working in small and medium-sized enterprises. Professional expertise is operationalized by means of five dimensions, i.e. knowledge, meta-cognitive knowledge, skills, social recognition and growth and flexibility. The predictors in question are: the amount of social support from one's immediate supervisor, the amount of social support from one's near colleagues, organizational facilities and attention from the direct supervisor to the employee's further career development. Hypotheses have been tested with original survey data from 233 employees and 217 direct supervisors.