The Challenge of Learning for Networked SMEs to Increase Competitiveness in Virtual Enterprises

Collaborative Networked Organisations (CNO) face the same if not even harder problems when trying to transform towards a learning organisation. Small and medium sized organisations which still represent the motor for job creation in Europe often respond to market turbulence by engaging in nonhierarchical CNOs such as Virtual Enterprises. A proven method to support learning in distributed set-ups is Serious Gaming, but the question remains whether the application of such tools is equally effective in SMEs compared with monolithic large organisations. In SMEs and networks of SMEs learning needs to move towards contextualised learning and a serious gaming based transformative environments such as TARGET can be used to achieve learning goals and competence development in distributed set-ups. This paper introduces such a transformative environment and highlights the background, its usage, benefits and limitations.