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ISBN : 978-0-9830452-1-2
ABSTRACT
The purpose of this paper is to measure the depth of learning in an academic organization
primarily called “Learning Organization”. To analyze what are the characteristics of a
learning organization? And how the atmosphere should be of a learning organization? What
should be the culture of a learning organization?
The concepts presented are mainly built and analyzed on a pre-built standard questionnaire
(David A Garvin, Amy C Edmondson, and Francesca Gino) across the three building blocks
(Supporting Learning Environment, Concrete Learning processes and practices and
Leadership that reinforce learning). The concepts given in the book “The Art and Practice of
the Learning Organization’ and in the literature review are supported or contrasted by the end results
of this analysis.
Learning organization, as the. concept given in classic book (Peter Senge's, 1990, The Fifth
Discipline) is flourishing rapidly from the last decade .And the author tried to measure its depth in an
Academic Institute of Pakistan. The findings are very much healthy and surprising that the academic
institute is a learning organization with a strong culture to continuously acquire knowledge, share it
with others so somehow giving employees empowerment. And there are some areas need to be
improved in order to go for a hundred percent learning organization.
The value is to see the learning organizations in terms of its three building blocks that serve
as a foundation.
Keywords: Learning organizations, Academic Institute, Pakistan
Paper type: Empirical paper
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AN ACADEMIC LEARNING ORGANIZATION
A CASE STUDY FROM PAKISTAN
Sadaf Ashraf, MS-Scholar (Batch-VIII)
Contact No:0300-7504189,E-Mail:sadafzuhrakk@hotmail.com
Dr. Ahmed F Siddiqi, Associate Professor
Contact No: 0300-8416362, E-Mail: afs.ahmedsiddiqi@gmail.com
School of Business and Economics, University of Management and Technology, Lahore
(Pakistan)
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AN ACADEMIC LEARNING ORGANIZATION
A CASE STUDY FROM PAKISTAN
Sadaf Ashraf, MS-Scholar (Batch-VIII)
Contact No:0300-7504189,E-Mail:sadafzuhrakk@hotmail.com
Dr. Ahmed F Siddiqi, Associate Professor
Contact No: 0300-8416362, E-Mail: afs.ahmedsiddiqi@gmail.com
School of Business and Economics, University of Management and Technology, Lahore
(Pakistan)
Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to measure the depth of learning in an academic organization
primarily called “Learning Organization”. To analyze what are the characteristics of a
learning organization? And how the atmosphere should be of a learning organization? What
should be the culture of a learning organization?
The concepts presented are mainly built and analyzed on a pre-built standard questionnaire
(David A Garvin, Amy C Edmondson, and Francesca Gino) across the three building blocks
(Supporting Learning Environment, Concrete Learning processes and practices and
Leadership that reinforce learning). The concepts given in the book “The Art and Practice of
the Learning Organization’ and in the literature review are supported or contrasted by the end results
of this analysis.
Learning organization, as the. concept given in classic book (Peter Senge's, 1990, The Fifth
Discipline) is flourishing rapidly from the last decade .And the author tried to measure its depth in an
Academic Institute of Pakistan. The findings are very much healthy and surprising that the academic
institute is a learning organization with a strong culture to continuously acquire knowledge, share it
with others so somehow giving employees empowerment. And there are some areas need to be
improved in order to go for a hundred percent learning organization.
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The value is to see the learning organizations in terms of its three building blocks that serve
as a foundation.
Keywords: Learning organizations, Academic Institute, Pakistan
Paper type: Empirical paper
INTRODUCTION & LITERATURE REVIEW
In the nearly two decades since the publication of The Fifth Discipline: (Peter Senge’s, 1990)
classic book, “The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization”, a revolution issue (Ching-wen
Cheng, 2009) of "learning organization" become a significant trend for the academic area of
organization development. The management of all areas among the business leaders is
concerned to adopt such strategy to improve their organization. According to (Drucker, 1998),
the concept of "learning organization" also includes education organizations; because
education organizations have an increasing need to be more effectively in an ever-changing
environment. To get along with this fast pace, competitive era around the globe, learning is
the only tool for one’s survival ability and so as for the education world. There is no doubt
that the educational institutes should focus on learning organization theme and transform
themselves into learning organization to provide a continuum for the improvement process to
meet the future challenges and needs.
The idea of a learning organization in the Pakistan context is quite new and emerging. It is
taken from the west still establishing its roots and the author is very much interested to know
that whether the Academia has any concept and culture as a learning organization. The scope
of the study is focusing on a academic institute in Pakistan.
As it is said that there is still no well worn path to becoming a learning organization (Steven A.
Cavaleri, 2008) to serve as a template for others. This often reflects that a wide variety of
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approaches are in use - based on differing understandings of what it means to be a learning
organization. Learning organization defined as a one structure (Emery, 1993)
in such a
way that its members can learn and continue to learn within it. The organizational structure
itself is an environment for continuing education. Organization learning is a very popular
term but still it is felt that the topic have little consensus in terms of definition, perspective,
conceptualization and methodology. While examining the dichotomy (Eric W.K.Tsang,
1997) between the two main streams of theorizing in the field and tried to integrate the two
streams of research. The first stream, prescriptive writings is concerned with the question
“How should an organization learn”? Targeting practitioners based on the consulting
experience and seldom follow rigorous research methodologies. Descriptive research on
organizational learning fall into the second stream which tackles the question “How does an
organization learn?”The second stream basically deals with academic studies striving for
scientific rigor. If we take the normative perspective of the learning organization (Swee C.
Goh, 1998), it suggests that a set of internal conditions is required for an organization to
become a learning organization. In this paper the author tried to describe the set of
managerial practices or strategic building blocks of a learning organization. He also
discussed the supportive organization design needed and the required competencies of
employees as key foundation building blocks of a learning organization.
The theoretical possibilities for assuming (James G. March &Johan P. Olsen, 1975) that
individuals in organizations modify their understanding in a way that is intendedly adaptive
even though faced with ambiguity about what happened, why it happened, and whether it is
good. And to develop a theory of learning under such conditions, we probably require ideas
about information exposure, memory, and retrieval; learning incentives; belief structures; and
the micro development of belief in organizations. The concept of the ‘Learning organization’
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with its roots in self development and action learning has recently caught the imagination of
many organizations and researchers. Emerging definitions (Alan M. Jones & Chris Hendry,
1994) are creating ambiguity. There is, therefore, a need to add substance to them, and widen
our understanding of what the concept means, by concentrating on what is meant by
'learning', and focusing on exactly how adults learn. In particular, learning and skills need to
be linked to the questioning of purpose and value in an organization.
If we look the organization learning in a joint venture (JVs) perspective (Andrew C. Inkpen
& Mary M. Crossan, 1992) to develop the conceptual framework for the study of
organization learning. It presents a multilevel view of the phenomenon and suggesting that
learning in organization occurs at the individual, group and organization level. The
framework integrates behavioral and cognitive perspectives of organization learning and
delineates both learning processes and outcomes. The fundamental position is that a rigid set
of managerial beliefs associated with an unwillingness to cast off or unlearn past practices
can severely limit the effectiveness of organization learning. A framework is developed
(Robin Snell, 1998) to access the organization learning and the depth, breadth and spread of
members’ involvement. The study compared the perspectives of top management, reflected in
popular and professional publications, with grass-roots accounts from Hong Kong
subsidiaries. While developing the benchmark of the learning capability (Swee Goh, Gregory
Richards, 1997), it is proposed to develop the benchmark of learning capability through
identifying and measuring the essential organizational characteristic and management
practices which are required to promote organizational learning. It would help managers to
design interventions to overcome specific barriers in building a learning organization.
An attempt is being made (Huysman M, 2000) to bridge the conceptual gap between the
literature on the learning organization and that of organization learning. By developing
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understandings how an organization learns provide ideas on how this could be improved and
thus could contribute to a more theoretical foundation of the learning organization. The three
critique points to the concept of learning organization (John Coopey, 1995), first it is argued
that the concept is badly flawed because of its proponents’ political assumptions. This lead to
neglect the political activity likely to be encountered in a learning organization, activity
which will tend to frustrate the learning aims. Second, learning organization model allows for
greater employee empowerment the amount will probably be relatively modest in real terms.
On the other hand, the power of managers, especially those at the apex of the organization, is
likely to be enhanced by their privileged access to any extra informational and symbolic
resources that are created by individual and collective learning processes. The third, and
potentially the most damning, criticism is that the concept of the 'learning organization' is
expressed in ways that provide raw material for managerial ideology, potentially constraining
the meanings and actions of other employees so that they support the interests of the dominant
coalition.
In this study I tried to measure the learning proficiencies of the organization in Pakistani
Context in detail. The environment that support learning, have concrete learning processes
and practices and blessed with the leadership that reinforce the learning is truly a learning
organization. I also try to explore the learning organization specially in Pakistani Context and
to compare them on those lines as proposed by the western scholars This study established
the result on the basis of a thorough survey to investigate that how much the organization is a
learning organization in Pakistani context across its three building blocks(Supporting
Learning Environment, Concrete Learning processes and practices and Leadership that
reinforce learning) and is there any relationship between the management policies that affects
employees learning process.
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THE HYPOTHESIS
To analyze this statement “learning organization in Pakistan” is quite a general statement.
And to reduce the scope and, I took only one Academic Institute of Lahore from Private
Sector, based in Gulberg(shifted to Khayabane Jinah Road) , given the name XYZ for further
interpretation. Now the quantifiable statement is “Is XYZ University a learning
Organization”.
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
For the empirical testing of the hypothesis, a survey is conducted. The scope of the
hypothesis demands the accuracy, coverage soliciting intelligent sample. A simple random
sample of 26 people has been taken from the two departments; faculty of Management
Studies and Faculty of Information Technology. All of them are full time employees of the
university. This sample consists of both male and female. All of them are from the same
ethnic(South Asian Region). Average experience of the employees is 13 to 14 years.
Questionnaire defined on 7-point Likert Scale is used for two building block; Supporting
Learning Environment and Concrete Learning processes and practices; (1=Highly Inaccurate,
2=Moderately
Inaccurate,3=Slightly
Inaccurate,4=Neither
Accurate
Nor
Inaccurate,5=slightly Accurate,6=Moderately Accurate and 7=Highly Accurate).For the third
block; Leadership that reinforce learning, Questionnaire is defined on 5-point Likert
Scale(1=Never,2=Infrequently,3=Sometimes,4=Often
and
5=Always).Annexure-A
is
attached for questionnaire. SPSS version 17 and 16 are used for the statistical analysis.
System specification are Windows 7 original, Intel Pentium processor T4300 (2.1 GHz, 800
MHz FSB) and 250 GB Hard Disk and 2GB memory. Microsoft office 7 Word is used for
documentation purposes, MS-Excel for Table and calculation presentation.
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ANALYSIS
To identify the characteristics of the XYZ University, items are loaded using Factor Analysis
Principle Component Technique) to find the required results. In the output, three tables
named Communalities, Total Variance Explained and Component Matrix were obtained
respectively (Annexure-B). Total Variance Explained table loaded 13 components by default
explaining 91.305% of the dataset. A Scree Plot (Fig-1) below is also reflecting on the same
result. We found a curve from 1to 13 on it and afterward it became straight line.
Scree Plot
Component Matrix was extracted further, keeping the higher value and deleting the lower
ones across the thirteen components. The final extracted matrix obtained, had left with 7
components on board . After profiling they were given the names “Vital Characteristic of a
learning organization”, Employee Empowerment, Communication, Process and Experiment,
and Organizational Work Efficiency, Management Support and Organizational Pressure.
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First component “Vital characteristic of a learning organization” comprehend only 4 to 5%
of the first building block, supporting learning environment in XYZ University. It clearly
shows that the university’s employees psychologically do not feel comfortable while
discussing their ideas or sharing new ones. The results suggest that the university
environment is not supportive for learning through employees’ contribution into the system.
Employees do not believe that their suggestion would be taken care of, by the management.
They believe that minority is involved in decision making. Although ,this university has a
strong and continuous learning process as the component has the value of 40 to 45% .That the
employees believe, university tries prototype before the actual idea, has strong information
collection and analysis system. Information is continually collected on different parameters
(e.g.; customer, technological trends etc) and further utilized for the betterment of the
organization and employees. Results show that the leadership of the university is very
affirmative to reinforce learning in its environment. And 45 to 50% respondents of the total
from” Vital characteristic of a learning organization” component believe so. Management
used to take input from all channels, acknowledge its limitations, ask probing question while
encouraging multiple views and like to identify previous performance problems and method
of improvement.
Second component “Employee Empowerment” basically explains only the supporting
learning environment. In these component respondents, identifies the problematic areas
which need management attention. It describe that employees should be given some liberty to
admit their mistakes openly. Because it is believed that if you will not commit mistake, you
are not able to learn new things. Employees are overly stressed and find no time to review
their work and it forces them to resist against management.
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In third, fourth and five components, Communication, Process and Experiment and
Organizational Work Efficiency respectively, results show few numbers of responses
focusing on the three blocks. In communication employee perceive that management will
listen to them but in actual they are loaded and receive unnecessary schedule pressure. There
experience is that management does not listen to them and do not like to be criticized.
Communication between the employees should be friendly and straightforward.
Process and Experiment focused only on second block and Organizational Work efficiency,
circle around the first two building blocks but only few respondents are of the same point of
view. In fourth place employees believe that university frequently experiments new ideas and
it has certain process and procedure. And fifth describes that some employees may think that
employees of the organization support learning by sharing information, they defined their
own ways of working and university management support them in solving issues.
Six and Seventh, Management support and organization pressure, former with only one
observation supports the leadership that the management support and listen employees. Later
with limited observation lying only in supportive environment and concrete learning process
and practices explains that people in the university are willing to share information,
management is supportive and employees explore and experiment with new ways of getting
work done. But university management never revisits its established policies.
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
Learning, being an intrinsic attribute of individuals, is present in any organization due to its
human system, so it is an inevitable element of organizational life. Furthermore, learning is
nowadays a topic of recognized importance in successful organizations, and managers know
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through practice that it is a key feature in a global and speedily changing world. My analysis
result clearly shown that the XYZ University have a culture of learning through its
employees, have formal processes and equipped with a visionary leadership. Across the
three building blocks defined by other authors (David A Garvin, Amy C Edmondson, and
Francesca Gino) and used by myself in the research, it is clearly proven that;
Supportive Learning Environment: University does not have a very friendly and
supportive environment for the employees. Psychologically employees are not satisfied that
their mistakes will be ignored and difference of opinions will be welcomed during
discussion. There contribution in suggesting new ideas might not be appreciated and lastly
they feel that their routine and work pressure hardly allows them to think analytically or do
some research work. University has no as such culture for the research activities.
Concrete Learning Process and Activities: But we can say that university has concrete
learning process and activities. The environment is open for the knowledge sharing; it found
on individual level, between the employees groups and with the outside market as well. It is
believed that the university frequently experiments new ideas, collect information from the
customers, competitors on social and technological basis. It compares the performance with
the rivals and also takes input from the university participants. It reflects that organization
has a tendency to
take its performance measure to upgrade according to market and
technological needs. University management takes views during the discussion and also
takes notice of the difference in opinion. University employees are given proper guidance
on the time of induction and make them comfortable to adjust in the new system. For the
grooming of participants and employees, university conducts seminars, workshops.
University valued the experienced professionals and invites them to train the employees and
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participants according to the demand of the market. These results are very much in support
of the (Emery, 1993) description of learning organization.
The result also suggested that the organization Leadership is very promising and believe in
group discussion. Management likes to be in contact with the employees and periodically
arranges meetings to take employees input on certain issues, encourages participation from
all channels even if difference of opinion exists. Management listens to each individual
attentively and respects their views. As literature (Eric W.K.Tsang, 1997) described the
dichotomy, this is exactly the answer of the question “how does an organization learn”.
When the organization has formal set of processes and procedures, management believes in
group participation then we can say that the university is a learning organization with one
weaker area but it is still in the process of learning. It learns through employees, competitors,
socio-economic trends and technologically. Literature focusing on
(Swee C. Goh,
1998)imposing a set of internal conditions are required, this is supported by our research that
when the management is very much focused with the university goal and there is a system
running on the back then employees will automatically know their areas of the work. Hence
having a clear picture ahead, they will enjoy their work and their productivity will improve.
A recent research in a private organization on the same topic (unpublished work) with the
same questionnaire has proven the same results that organizations in Pakistani Context are
learning organizations. But they lack of supportive learning environment. They are partially
practicing this thing but are not fully realizing the importance of supportive environment.
They are emphasizing more on the concrete processes and procedures along with enthusiastic
leadership.
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Contrary to this result another research (Unpublished work) in the private sector university
with a different tool, has end result that the university environment is very supportive but
other two are the weaker areas. University is practicing the learning organization culture but
still need improvement by formalizing the processes and having a passionate leadership.
SUGGESTIONS
XYZ University should more focus on the environment. Research culture should be promoted
inside so that employees engage in analytical work and this will not only improve the quality
education but also participants and employees knowledge level. Employees should
psychologically feel satisfied and they should not be given unrealistic time lines. Practicing
as a learning organization is a great achievement in Pakistan Context. But the process should
be continuum and positively contributing its shares to the society.
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Dervitsiotis K. N (1998). The Challenge of Managing Organizational Change: Exploring the
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