The expert within organizations: Definition and theoretical framework

Abstract

Experts have become an essential figure within organizations. In particular, the advent of the knowledge-based economy has propelled this actor to the center of concerns insofar as they play a key role in the innovation process. Processes aimed at developing and enhancing experts are thus multiplying. In practice, the qualification of expert is often associated with the number of years of experience, or envisaged in connection with technical skills, so that a generalized confusion appears between expert and experience and between expert and specialist. Our contribution proposes a definitional model of the expert within organizations. We characterize the expert by a dimension that is both cognitive and social, grouped here in a single framework. The expert is thus understood as an individual who has the competence to analyze and resolve diverse and non-trivial situations by relying on an ability to quickly combine and mobilize scientific and experiential knowledge. They also have social legitimacy, which is based either on strong signals (belonging to a formal institutional structure) or on weak signals (within self-organized networks).