Les pôles de compétitivité, laboratoires d'innovation en ressources humaines ?

Officially labelled in France during the summer of 2005, the poles of competitiveness bring together, in more than 30 geographical territories of the French national territory, corporations, universities, research institutes and local collectivities around a local innovation dynamic at both the national and international levels. Presented as a new form of industrial organisation, are these poles already producing new types of practices to facilitate working together? Will they necessitate or contribute to the development of new human resources management techniques while, at the same time, constituting social innovation laboratories? First, an overview of the current situation will compare the poles of competitiveness to the clusters, already well analysed in the literature, in order to induce potential human resource management (HRM) issues. A review of an inter-corporation cooperation experience, which served as a reference in the emergence of the poles of competitiveness, will then reveal the tensions existent in the existing HRM practices, and pleads for the development of new practices. An exploratory study of the actors of a pole of competitiveness currently under construction will show the differing perceptions of the HR issues, and also the need for social innovations.