In spite of the expectations that exist regarding efforts to develop competence and in spite of the large amounts
of resources devoted to it, there is a marked lack of empirically-based research on competence development in
companies and other organizations. The purpose of this article is to present a review of research on strategies
for competence development in organizations, their prerequisites and effects. More specifically, the following
three questions will be addressed: (i) Why do organizations invest in competence development? (ii) What
effects can realistically be achieved through competence development? (iii) What characterizes successful
strategies for competence development in organizations? Before these questions are dealt with, different views
of the meaning of the concepts of competence and competence development are presented and discussed.
Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to increase understanding of the relationships among the workplace as a learning environment, strategies for competence development used by SMEs and
learning outcomes. Specifically, there is a focus on a distinction between formal and integrated strategies for competence development, the conditions under which these strategies are likely to be used, and their effects in terms of individual learning outcomes.