Learning organisations
Nathalie Greenan
Centre d’Etudes de l’Emploi and TEPP-CNRS
Edward Lorenz
University of Nice-CNRS
OECD/France workshop on
Human resources, education and innovation, 7-8
December 2009
Outline
 What is a learning organisation?
 A quantitative assessment at the
European level based on the EWCS
→The spread of learning organisations
→The trend in work complexity
 Policy issues
What is a learning
organisation? (1)
 An organisation able to adapt and compete
at low cost through learning
 Common definitional ground
→ multi-level concept: individual-teamorganisation
→ role of learning cultures: beliefs, norms
and values supportive of employee learning
→ specific HRM policies supportive of
learning culture
What is a learning
organisation? (2)
 Tradeoffs in organisational design
→ stimulate dynamic properties / provide stability in the
organisational structure
→ standardisation/routine versus mutual
adjustement/innovation
 Scientific and technical skills
 deal with an employee participation contraint to
innovation in order to avoid conflicts between vested
interest in the organisation
→ characteristics of the innovative idea
→ socio-demographic characteristics of the workforce
→ soft skills
→ group processes
→ customer focus
→ transparency and fairness
The spread of learning
organisations in the EU-15 (1)
Percent of employees by cluster reporting each variable
Variables
Learning new things in work
Problem solving activities
Complexity of tasks
Discretion in fixing work methods
Discretionary
Lean
Taylorism
learning
production
93.9
81.7
42.0
95.4
98.0
5.7
79.8
64.7
23.8
89.1
51.8
17.7
Traditional
organisation
29.7
68.7
19.2
46.5
Average
71.4
79.3
56.7
61.7
Discretion in setting work rate
Horizontal constraints on work rate
87.5
43.6
52.2
80.3
27.3
66.1
52.7
27.8
63.6
53.1
Hierarchical constraints on work rate
19.6
64.4
66.5
26.7
38.9
Norm-based constraints on work rate
21.2
75.5
56.3
14.7
38.7
5.4
59.8
56.9
7.2
26.7
Team work
Job rotation
Quality norms
Responsibility for quality control
64.3
44.0
78.1
86.4
84.2
70.5
94.0
88.7
70.1
53.2
81.1
46.7
33.4
27.5
36.1
38.9
64.2
48.9
74.4
72.6
Monotony of tasks
Repetitiveness of tasks
19.5
12.8
65.8
41.9
65.6
37.1
43.9
19.2
42.4
24.9
Automatic constraints on work rate
Source: EWCS 2000
The spread of learning
organisations in the EU-15 (2)
Percent of employees by country in each
organisational class
Discretionary
Lean
Taylorist
Traditional
Total
learning
production organisation organisation
EU-15
39.1
28.2
13.6
19.1
100.0
Scandinavian countries
Denmark
60.0
21.9
6.8
11.3
100.0
Finland
47.8
27.6
12.5
12.1
100.0
Sweden
52.6
18.5
7.1
21.7
100.0
British Isles
Ireland
24.0
37.8
20.7
17.6
100.0
UK
34.8
40.6
10.9
13.7
100.0
Western Europe
Austria
47.5
21.5
13.1
18.0
100.0
Belgium
38.9
25.1
13.9
22.1
100.0
Germany
44.3
19.6
14.3
21.9
100.0
France
38.0
33.3
11.1
17.7
100.0
Luxembourg
42.8
25.4
11.9
20.0
100.0
Netherlands
64.0
17.2
5.3
13.5
100.0
Mediterranean countries
Greece
18.7
25.6
28.0
27.7
100.0
Italy
30.0
23.6
20.9
25.4
100.0
Spain
20.1
38.8
18.5
22.5
100.0
Portugal
26.1
28.1
23.0
22.8
100.0
Source: EWCS 2000
Learning organisations and
innovation mode(1)
 Countries with a high proportion of learning
forms of work organistion have more lead
innovators: higher in-house creative
capacity
 Countries where lean and taylorist forms of
work organisation dominate have more
non-innovators and technology adopters:
more reliance on outside suppliers of new
technology
Learning organisations and
innovation mode (2)
Learning organisations, HRM
and organisational culture
Further training
Payment system
Piece rate
Pay based on group performance
Pay based on enterprise performance
Consultation and assessment
Frank discussions with employer over performance
Consultation over changes in working conditions
Regular formal performance assessment
Assistance
Assistance from employer
External assistance
Learning culture measures
Apply one’s own ideas in work
Intellectually demanding job
Opportunities to learn and grow at work
Source: EWCS 2005
Model 1
Discretionary
Learning
.27***
Model 2 Model 3
Lean
Taylorist
Model 4
Simple
.04
-.25***
-.44***
-.28***
-.29***
.29***
.42***
.31***
-.01
.21***
-.09
-.42***
-.50***
-.09
-.20*
.06
.15***
-.17***
.11**
.25***
.42***
-.00
-.21***
.11*
-.18***
-.27***
-.46***
.09*
.03
-.01
.15***
.00
-.39***
-.03
-.11
.64***
.25***
.28***
.12**
.49***
.21***
-.99***
-.53***
-.36***
-.36***
-.55***
-.53***
Learning organisations in public
and private sectors in EU-27
Private Sector
Autonomy Methods of work
in work
Speed or rate of work
Manufacturing
construction Services
and utilities
56.4
64.3
Public Sector
Total
60.6
Health
Public
Education and social Total
administration
work
68.1
85.8
68.1
74.3
59.9
67.0
63.6
70.5
78.7
65.5
71.9
Cognitive Learning new things
dimensions Problem solving activities
of work
Complexity of tasks
Self assessment
Quality
Quality norms
69.2
67.5
68.3
80.7
86.5
83.8
83.7
75.6
81.8
78.9
84.7
86.6
86.5
85.9
64.5
58.6
61.4
71.7
65.2
70.9
69.2
73.1
84.6
67.1
71.7
69.9
77.7
65.5
65.9
78.9
69.6
74.8
78.7
73.4
71.1
Task rotation
with decision on task
division
Teamwork
without decision on task
division
Monotony of tasks
49.2
47.9
48.5
56.6
45.4
65.5
55.3
29.4
32.4
31.0
32.9
39.9
46.1
40.3
34.8
28.5
31.4
36.1
17.3
27.1
26.8
48.9
40.6
44.5
41.1
30.8
38.8
36.8
Repetitiveness of tasks
28.0
22.8
25.3
20.0
14.8
25.5
23.8
36.6
15.3
25.8
11.1
3.5
8.9
7.8
62.8
42.8
52.2
31.8
35.1
31.4
32.8
49.1
40.7
44.6
39.3
27.6
29.0
32.1
57.1
47.6
52.0
46.9
31.1
51.4
42.6
Automatic
Work pace Norm-based
constraints Hierarchical
Horizontal
Source: EWCS 2005
The complexity paradox (1)
4 core characteristics
of complex work:
 Complex tasks
 Learn new things
 Choose or change
the order or tasks
 Choose or change
the methods of
work
Source: EWCS 1995, 2000 and 2005
Degree of work
complexity
Rank
Trend
2005
95-05
EU-15
(-)
Scandinavian countries
Denmark
1
(+)
Finland
4
0
Sweden
2
0
British Isles
Ireland
9
(+)
UK
10
(-)
Western Europe
Austria
5
(+)
Belgium
7
0
Germany
13
(-)
France
8
0
Luxembourg
6
(+)
Netherlands
3
0
Mediterranean countries
Greece
14
(+)
Italy
11
(-)
Portugal
12
0
Spain
15
(-)
The complexity paradox (2)
Trend
analysis
Individual
level
Country
level
Random
component
Source: EWCS 1995, 2000 and 2005
Degree of work complexity
1995-2000 : -0,089***
1995-2005 : -0,079***
Female :
(-)
Age :
min (15-24)
max (35-44)
Computer use :
(+)
Self employed :
(+)
Fixed term contract : (-)
Supervisory role :
(+)
Secteur : min (manufacturing)
max (construction)
Occupation : min (elementary)
max (professionals)
Number of patents :
(+)
% of tertiary attainment: +
% of trade in GDP :
(+)
% of aged 50 and more: Unemployment rate :
+
% part time:
(-)
% females:
(+)
Intra country correlation in % :
5,94%
The complexity paradox (3)
 Work complexity has all the more decreased that
forces are present that should contribute to its
development: ICT diffusion, growing experience and
education, development of the service sector
 Increasing heterogeneity across EU-15: evidence of a
country effect in this trend
 Objective reasons
→ standardisation
→ polarisation
 Subjective reasons
→ overqualification
→ organisational changes
Policy issues: Innovation
 The bottleneck to improving the innovative
capabilities of European firms might not be low
levels of R&D expenditures, which are strongly
determined by industry structures and
consequently difficult to change, but the
widespread presence of working environments that
are unable to provide a fertile environment for
innovation.
 If this is the case, then the next step for European
policy is to encourage the adoption of ‘proinnovation’ organisational practice, particularly in
countries with poor innovative performance.
Policy issue: Training
 At the individual level, further training is positively
correlated with learning and lean forms of
organisation
 Institutional set-up matters: a mobile workforce and
labour market policies emphasising expenditures in
further training favour learning types of jobs
 Could a lack of intermediate skills acquired in
vocational education and further training create a
learning bottleneck and favour more standardised
organisations?
 Need to target further training policies on part time
and precarious workers
Policy issue: HRM practices
 evaluation practices, employment security
and pay system based on collective
performance are positively correlated with
learning and lean types of jobs
 Learning cultures mediates the impact of
HRM variables on the likelihood of
employee learning
 HRM policies probably play a role in
mitigating conflicts in change situation
 Need to identify best HRM practices
conditional on innovation patterns and
institutional settings
Conclusion: measurement issue
 Indicators for innovation need to do more than capture
material inputs such as R&D expenditures and the
available pool of technical and scientific skills. Indicators
also need to capture how these material and human
resources are used and whether or not the work
environment promotes the further development of the
knowledge and skills of employees.
 Need for more data to inform evidence based policy
taking into account the interaction between institutions,
learning models of organisation and innovation patterns.
 A survey instrument linking information from employers
with information from employees would allow to build a
rich set of indicators for scoreboards as well as
conducting research giving analytical insights to set hard
facts into context.