Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Learning organisation'
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Rossiter, P. G. "Organisational improvement through learning organisation theory." Thesis, University of Salford, 2007. http://usir.salford.ac.uk/2256/.
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A research study was conducted of the management theories and quality philosophies that have been expounded throughout the twentieth century. This study included the modem thinking for quality improvement and business excellence to include the modem concept of Learning Organisations. This research project was undertaken with the aim of producing a framework based on the culture of Learning Organisation Theory and including within it the external influences on such a culture. The framework consisted on a core of human values, divided into five areas that are deemed important to learning organisations. These were surrounded by the basic values of Trust, Honesty and Openness thus protecting the core from outside influence. Elements from traditional management systems theory provided the outer casing for the framework, these elements influencing the core for both good and bad. The contents of the framework were then studied in three organisations of differing background with a view to firmly establishing the elements and areas within the framework for validity in these three organisations. The common theme between all the organisations chosen was that they had all in the recent past been involved in major management and internal change. One study involved the development of a questionnaire and supporting matrices in order to identify the areas and elements of the framework, thus establishing their existence. Active research techniques were used in the other studies in order to establish both 'why' the elements are important and any interrelationship between the areas. As a result of these studies suggestions for modification to the framework were established in order to strengthen the thinking and these were encompassed in to the framework. Probably the most significant of these changes was the inclusion of 'Leadership' as being a major factor in the filtering of undesirable elements. The outcome from the research is that the aim was achieved and a framework was developed that, for the first time, was drawn up in such a way that the elements and areas can easily be recognised and an understanding of what they represent is clearly shown. The reasons as to why these elements are important are also established. This is regarded as an advancement in this field of study.
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Hagnestad, Jonathan, and Anna Rex. "Lärande organisationer i praktiken : En fallstudie om en lärande organisation." Thesis, Mittuniversitetet, Institutionen för utbildningsvetenskap, 2021. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:miun:diva-43292.
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Lärande organisationer har sedan slutet av 80-talet kommit att få mycket plats inomorganisationsforskning och begreppet har blivit synonymt med hur företag anpassar sig efter denomvärld de verkar i. Forskningen har visat hur givande lärandet kan vara för företag både i termer avvinst och välmående hos medarbetarna, men empiriska undersökningar har samtidigt visat att lärandeorganisationer inte fått fäste i praktiken. Parallellt med detta finns vissa rön som stödjer det traditionellasynsättet att vissa individer är mer kapabla att fatta strategiska beslut, medan andra är mer lämpadesom enbart utförare, och därmed är i behov av styrning. Vårt syfte var att i detta arbete undersöka hurlärande inom en organisation kan förstås genom en grupp chefers upplevelser. Studien designades somen fallstudie inom ett företag och empirin inhämtades från sex kvalitativa intervjuer. Genomklassificering av resultaten i enlighet med Senges discipliner, visade studien att intervjupersonernasupplevelser till stor del sammanföll med det aktuella företagets profilering som lärande organisation,då arbetssättet beskrevs som adaptivt, både inom den egna organisationen och gentemot omvärlden. Imaterialet kunde vi skönja en bakomliggande människosyn, vilket kunde möjliggöra en diskussion påett aggregerat plan. Vilka implikationer detta har för lärandet kan inte identifieras utifrån studiensresultat, utan kräver vidare undersökningar, förslagsvis innehållande både observationer ochintervjuer med fler medarbetare.Since the end of the 1980s, learning organizations have gained a lot of space in organizational researchand have become synonymous with how companies adapt to the world in which they operate. Researchhas shown how rewarding learning can be for companies both in terms of profit and well-being of theiremployees, but empirical studies also show that learning organizations have not gained foothold inactual practice. In parallel with this, some evidence supports the traditional view that some individualsare more capable of making strategic decisions, while others are more suited to following orders andtherefore need to be controlled. The present study was designed as a case study within a company andthe empirical evidence was obtained from six qualitative interviews. By categorizing the results inaccordance with Senge's disciplines, the results showed that the interviewees' experiences by and largewere consistent with the company's profile as a learning organization, as the work methods weredescribed as adaptive, both within the organization and vis-à-vis the outside world. The materialshowed an underlying attitude towards colleagues, which made a discussion on an aggregated levelpossible. The implications of this relationship for learning could not be identified on the basis of theresults of the present study, and would require further investigations, including both observations andinterviews with more employees.
2021-06-07
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Tarrini, Mauro G. "The Development and application of a bespoke organisational learning competency framework in a global organisation." Thesis, Cranfield University, 2004. http://hdl.handle.net/1826/113.
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Organisational Learning has been conceptualised and measured in various ways. The two studies reported in this thesis sought to take a new, bespoke approach to Organisational Learning in a global air transport company undergoing substantial organisational and strategic change. The research sought to develop a bespoke competency framework of Organisational Learning and apply it within the organisation to investigate employees' perceptions of the Organisational Learning climate. The research applied both qualitative and qualitative methods: semi-structured interviews and a 68-item self-completion questionnaire survey. Factor Analysis yielded a clear, conceptually sound six-factor solution. Organisational Learning climate perceptions were compared across occupational, departmental and geographical subgroups. The results indicated that there were no statistically significant occupational or geographical differences in perceptions of the Organisational Learning climate although some departmental differences were observed. The relationaship between perceived Organisational Learning climate and organisational commitment was explored and a clear link between them was found.
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Elegba, T. H. O. "Improving organisation learning in engineering design." Thesis, University of Liverpool, 2018. http://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/3028556/.
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The local content drive in the oil and gas industry by the Nigerian government has compelled organizations in the industry, including the companies in its engineering design sector, to focus on means of increasing their organizational learning capacity. But there are no sound practices in these companies to increase organizational learning. The problem studied was how to increase organizational learning in the design sector of the Nigerian oil and gas industry. Most organisations nowadays have organizational learning as an important constituent of their strategic plans. In line with their espoused values, they have established learning departments headed by senior managers. Yet, the outcomes of learning activities are not encouraging, no thanks to the fact that not only are learning efforts inappropriate, they also often ignore the human socio-cognitive aspect that is essential for organization learning, alluding to the thinking that the process of how organisations learns is still unclear to them. The purpose of this research was to examine in detail the organizational learning experience of the engineers working in the engineering design sector of the Nigerian oil and gas industry through a phenomenological diagnostic study and apply the implications from the findings in an action research to increase organizational learning capacity in the sector. The study explored and identified strategies that lead to increased organizational learning capacity. The findings revealed sub-optimum practices in the companies in the sector with regards to organizational learning-influencing constructs. Suggestions were made for improvement and some of these are being implemented and results are being assessed, too. For the phenomenological study, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 12 participants, 10 of whom were employee engineers and the other 2 executives who were also engineers in their own right. Five themes emerged from the data: (1) The way we are, (2) You are on your own, (3) Facing one's business, (4) Coming together and (5) Lull in the industry. The vehicle for the action research intervention was a joint inter-organisational engineering design project. The recommendations for further research are in the areas of impact of company's age on organisational learning and similar study in the construction and power industries to advance the literature on organisational learning in Nigeria.
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Blackman, Deborah. "How learning organisation practices close knowledge creation." Thesis, Southampton Solent University, 2002. http://ssudl.solent.ac.uk/617/.
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Clancy, Annette. "The organisation of disappointment." Thesis, University of Bath, 2012. https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.558882.
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The aim of this study is to explore the emotion of disappointment in organisations and to develop a new line of theorising inspired by psychodynamic theory. The current literature casts disappointment as a negative emotion undermining morale, depressing expectations and justifying inaction and inertia. This only captures part of the complexity of disappointment and leaves unexplored both its impact on the organisation and its potential creativity. The study presents a theoretical framework derived from research that depicts disappointment as unfolding in three positions; I am disappointing, I am disappointed and I disappoint. It asserts the importance of disappointment as an integrative emotion. The study identifies a contradiction: that at the same time as being seen as ‘of little concern’ to individuals, there is fear within organisations that disappointment will undermine stability and destroy positive feelings. The study shows how disappointment is connected to, and may help to transform, the dynamics of blame in organisations. Such transformation can be based on an ability to integrate failure and on a development of the relationship between disappointment and learning. Disappointment represents the loss of the fantasy of stability. When reconceptualised in this way, disappointment results in a reimagining of possibility. Fantasy and reality are brought into conscious awareness and tolerated rather than extruded. The imaginary ideal organisation can be seen for what it is: a fantasy that can never be realised. The imaginary ideal is mourned and replaced by a more realistic entity. Organisation members’ previous efforts to organise disappointment through blame, shame and extrusion is now recognised as a disappointing strategy. Understood thus, disappointment is at the very heart of organising as it invites consideration of the relationship between fantasy and reality. This differentiates it from other types of social defences which, by their nature defend against thinking and learning.
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Patel, M. P. "Optimisation and self-organisation in adaptive learning networks." Thesis, Brunel University, 1987. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.375834.
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Dron, Jonathan Nicholas. "Achieving self-organisation in network-based learning environments." Thesis, University of Brighton, 2002. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.392862.
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Van, Rheede Van Oudtshoorn Lynette Moira. "Conversational structures in organisation learning: A self-organised learning approach to counselling." Thesis, Brunel University, 1997. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.488673.
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This study is concerned with the development of a conversational system for promoting the emotional health of employees in organisations. It is also concerned with improving the health of the organisation as a whole, by enabling the organisation to learn from the experience of its individual members.
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Knox-Davies, Barrie. "The extent to which a learning organisation culture influences employee engagement in two service based organisations in the property sector of South Africa." Diss., University of Pretoria, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/2263/23452.
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Increasingly the competitiveness of organisations will depend on the level of service and quality of experience offered by the employees of the organisation. In short, it is the employees within an organisation that define how successful the organisation can be to the market. The opportunity to outperform competitors lies in the ability to innovate quicker, respond faster and better understand the needs of the consumer, in so doing, becoming the organisation that creates the next trend rather than follow it. The key to achieving outstanding performance, driving both bottom-line revenue and sustained growth in the long term is in harnessing the collective knowledge latent within the organisation and freely available just beyond the organisation in the external context. This can only be done through developing a strong Learning Organisational Culture. The impact this has on the organisation is in improving employee engagement providing the catalyst in which employees perform at an optimum, minimising the unproductive cycles of the organisation resulting from employee turnover, lost intellectual capital and general employee apathy. The study provides evidence that Learning Organisation Culture is positively correlated with Employee Engagement. Copyright 2010, University of Pretoria. All rights reserved. The copyright in this work vests in the University of Pretoria. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the University of Pretoria. Please cite as follows: Knox-Davies, B 2010, The extent to which a learning organisation culture influences employee engagement in two service based organisations in the property sector of South Africa, MBA dissertation, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, viewed yymmdd < http://upetd.up.ac.za/thesis/available/etd-03242012-174550 / > F12/4/208/zwDissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2010.
Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS)
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Kieser, Heinrich. "The influence of digital leadership, innovation and organisational learning on the digital maturity of an organisation." Diss., University of Pretoria, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/2263/64861.
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Digital disruption constantly threatens organisations due to the exponential evolution of digital technologies and increased rates of digitisation across all facets of organisations through the adoption of digital capabilities. This digital evolution has increased the necessity for managers to incorporate digital capabilities into their digital strategies. Managers need to have a clear understanding of their organisationÕs digital maturity and how to effectively leverage leadership, innovation and organisational learning in efforts to enhance digital maturity.
The research approach was deductive, and the philosophy employed was positivism. Comparative and multivariate data analysis was conducted on 136 responses from organisations utilising and evolving digital capabilities.
Research findings indicate that digital innovation and managing performance metrics strongly influenced digital maturity. Leadership and learning culture was found to significantly influence the digital organisation and culture aspects of digital maturity. Finally, the knowledge sharing was shown to influence the digital competencies aspect of digital maturity. The findings provide managers with further insights to successfully leverage leadership, innovation and organisational learning to influence digital maturity.
Future research could replicate the results using alternative measurement instruments identified for digital maturity or conduct a longitudinal study to consider how digital maturity changes over time by manipulating the factors identified.Mini Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2017.
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Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS)
MBA
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Juslin, Petersen Annastina. "Den viktiga dialogen : En studie om kommunikationens betydelse för lärande i en organisation." Thesis, Linköpings universitet, Pedagogik och vuxnas lärande, 2015. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:liu:diva-119752.
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Sammanfattning Syftet med studien är att beskriva och analysera, samt bidra med ökad kunskap om, hur olika kommunikationsfaktorer inom en organisation kan främja lärande. Mer precist är syftet att studera hur chef och medarbetare uppfattar vilka faktorer som påverkar digital och verbal kommunikation. Samt hur dessa faktorer kan påverka lärandet i organisationen. Studien är kvalitativ med en induktiv ingång och för att få empiri har intervjuer utförts på ett företag, med såväl chefer som medarbetare. Resultatet visar på att följande faktorer visade sig ha betydelse för kommunikation i organisationen; kombination och alternativ av kommunikationskanal; tydlighet; ansvar; riktlinjer och socialt samspel. I studien framkom även att det fanns en del störningsmoment gällande kommunikation. Vidare framkom under analysarbetet att följande kategorier inverkar på lärandet i organisationen; synen på att utvecklas; uppfattningen om att lära sig i arbetet; möjlighet att diskutera alternativa lösningar; att lära sig av sina kollegor; återkoppling; att lösa uppgifter i grupp; att lära av och med sina kollegor och socialt samspel.Studien finner att genom att beakta faktorerna som påverkar kommunikationen, kan många störningsmoment avvärjas och därmed kan tid frigöras. Denna tid är värdefull och kan användas på ett mer kreativt sätt, exempelvis till innovation och lärande. I studien visas också att organisationer behöver fokusera mer på socialt samspel och se till att medarbetarna kan mötas ofta och på ett otvunget sätt. När motiverade medarbetare möts i dialog kan de finna innovativa lösningar på problem, vilket kan leda till ett utvecklingsinriktat lärande i organisationen. Studien föreslår team eller förändringsarbete som lärstrategi.
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Ojstersek, Nadine. "Betreuungskonzepte beim blended learning : Gestaltung und Organisation tutorieller Betreuung /." Münster ; New York, NY ; München ; Berlin : Waxmann, 2009. http://deposit.d-nb.de/cgi-bin/dokserv?id=3372665&prov=M&dokv̲ar=1&doke̲xt=htm.
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Ojstersek, Nadine. "Betreuungskonzepte beim blended learning Gestaltung und Organisation tutorieller Betreuung." Münster New York München Berlin Waxmann, 2006. http://www.waxmann.com/kat/1814.html.
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Kerin, Michael A. "Self-organisation and autonomous learning in logical neural networks." Thesis, Brunel University, 1991. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.303172.
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Chakpitak, Nopasit. "Learning organisation based intelligent tutoring system for power utilities." Thesis, University of Strathclyde, 2003. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.273781.
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Chan, Mun Kitt. "Towards being a 'learning organisation' : a business excellence approach." Thesis, Durham University, 2008. http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/1925/.
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The literature on the Learning Organisation (LO) falls into two broad categories. First, that which treats the LO as a variable and something that can be designed into an organisation and which has significant influence on other organisational outcomes (eg. Watkins and Marsick, 1993; Cullen, 1999). Second, that which treats the LO as a metaphor to describe an organisation (eg. Garvin, 1993; \Vest, 1994). It basically views the organisation as a cultural phenomenon and sees the LO as a particular variant of culture. This research focuses on the first category and attempts to find out whether moving towards being a LO leads to enhanced organisational performance. The ideas that surfaced represent a shift to organisational development and growth by using the Malcolm Baldrige Quality Award strategic determinants as a proxy to move towards being a LO, namely (i) leadership, (ii) strategic planning, (iii) customer and market focus, (iv) measurement, analysis, and knowledge management' (v) workforce focus; (vi) process management, an~ (vii) business results. The case study company in this research is NIUe LeamingHub Pte Ltd (LHub), a newly incorporated small and medium size entity which decided to embark on ISO 9000 and other Singapore Quality Award (Singapore's equivalent of Malcolm Baldrige Quality Award) related initiatives. It is an account ofproblem situations and events that took place in the organisation over a period of one year from July 2005 to July 2006. Questionnaire survey and evidentiary documents were used as primary and secondary sources of data collection to gather detailed information about the entity over a period ofone year, with a view to obtaining in-depth knowledge. From the findings on whether LHub has moved towards being a LO by adopting the Singapore Quality Award (SQA) business excellence approach, there is a seemingly positive show of results in the 6 strategic determinants of (i) Leadership, (ii) Planning, (iii) Information, (iv) People, (v) Processes and (vi) Customers in LHub from year 2005 to 2006 although dissatisfaction index has mcreased slightly. It appears that although LHub could not claim to 'be' a La, it might have moved towards becoming one in some respects. On whether there is an improvement in LHub's business results, the findings only partially support the hypothesis that there is an improvement in the areas of (i) sales revenue and profitability, (ii) customers' satisfaction, and (iii) employees' satisfaction after adopting the SQA business excellence approach. This is because only (i) and (iii) show signs of improvement and (ii) has a dropped in desired outcome. Moreover, for (i), the improvement is not statistically significant. Finally, the reader may wish to note that while the Malcolm Baldrige approach is being used as a proxy to move towards being a La, this research does not devise rules for managers to transform their companies into Las. There are no neat models or rules for implementation which can be applied easily in a wide range of contexts and settings. However, it is hoped that this research will strike a chord with practising managers as well as with acaqemics - purely because it conforms more closely with their own tacit understanding oforganisational realities.
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Clement-Okooboh, Mercy K. "Transitioning towards a learning organisation : an action research approach." Thesis, University of Bolton, 2016. http://ubir.bolton.ac.uk/1145/.
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As a journey of continuous improvement, my research focused on supporting and enabling my organisation to become a learning organisation. This is set out in six action research cycles that describe the processes and changes as they occurred. This thesis presents the interplay between developments in the organisation and several strands of systems thinking. At the outset, learning within the organisation was considered to be what happened in the training room, and it started out from evaluating existing training provision. The research found this to be inadequate on its own, and it was followed up by provision of transfer and performance support and a change of emphasis towards mentoring, coaching and informal learning. This was accompanied by the development of a holistic goals-learning-evaluation review process that then integrated all forms of learning into the daily practice of the workplace. Evaluation was embedded as a key feedback loop of both formal and informal learning and a higher tier evaluation of the basic learning/evaluation loop was then introduced. In the light of any continuing unsatisfactory outcomes, this double loop learning questioned assumptions regarding both internal and external conditions and sought new learning solutions as part of wider strategic planning. However this final step was interrupted by significant organisational changes that integrated the UK and Irish branches and. within the Irish branch, my Energy division was integrated with the Water and Waste divisions. After a pause, my focus was then shifted from the Energy division to bringing the Water and Waste divisions up to the level reached by the Energy division. While this effectively brought my PhD programme to an end before reaching the goal of fully establishing the Energy division as a learning organisation, much had been achieved and it presented the opportunity to test the framework and accompanying practices in two different organisations. This has now (two years later) been achieved, hence providing some degree of validation of the framework and processes, and some degree of confidence that they can be successfully applied elsewhere and many of the research approaches and evaluation techniques that I provided are now embedded as part of the work practices across all the units in the Irish branch. The remaining steps to be undertaken within Veolia Ireland would be the completion of those outlined in Action Research Cycle 6, but now across all the subdivisions of the Ireland branch. This would involve the full implementation of the 2nd order review process that integrated the goals-learning-evaluation processes that have been developed and are now fully embedded, with the existing environmental scanning, innovation and strategy formation processes within the Irish branch to create a fully responsive and adaptive learning organisation. Many, if not most organisations are currently at the stage of seeing learning as training room based, which other research has shown to be similarly inadequate. However there is a need for organisations to be more responsive to a rapidly changing operating environment, which can be met through the transition to an organisation that continuously learns and adapts. The approach taken in this work therefore has the potential for wider use. To that end this thesis proposes a generic framework to guide others seeking to become a learning organisation. It provides a concrete illustration of its use and development for users to consider and adapt as needed to their specific circumstances. This study adopts both qualitative and quantitative approaches, using both questionnaires and semi-structured interviews from delegates who participated in three different training programs. The contribution of this study, the Learning Organisation Transition Framework and the practical steps taken from which it both emerged and in turn directed, will be of greatest use to other organisations that have the strategic intent of becoming a learning organisation, but seek guidance on implementation. The studies value offers a concrete contribution to knowledge, by applying a systems thinking approach to the creation of a learning organisation, a task often found to be difficult in practice. Systems thinking principles were used to create feedback loops from internal and external conditions, to enhance performance and adaptivity, thereby, increasing the scope for more generative learning. This involved all employees in their and their organisations future development.
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Taherkhani, Aboozar. "Learning and self-organisation in biologically plausible neural networks." Thesis, Ulster University, 2016. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.703447.
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Spikes are an important part of information transmission between neurons in the brain. There is biological evidence (such as rapid information processing in the electro sensory system of electric fish, the auditory system of echo-locating bats, and the visual system of flies) to prove the use of the precise timing of spikes for information coding, rather than only the firing rate. Recent research has shown the potential capability of spiking neural networks to model complex information processing in the brain. However, the exact learning mechanism in which the neuron is trained to fire at precise times remains an open problem. The aim of this project is to design novel biologically plausible learning algorithms for spiking neuron models at the neuron and the network levels. The first learning algorithm proposed is called BPSL (Biologically Plausible Supervised Learning algorithm), and it uses Spike Timing Dependent Plasticity (STOP) to adjust the weights. Additionally, the method sets strong teacher inputs to drive the neuron response and to prevent the silent neuron problem. Furthermore, local dendritic depolarization impacts the STOP in BPSL. A second approach called DL-ReSuMe, Delay Learning based Remote Supervised Method, is then proposed to merge weight adjustment and a delay shift approach to enhance learning performance and its biological plausibility. The weights are adjusted by LTP, Long-Term Potentiation, characteristic of BPSL and LTD, Long-Term Depression, of anti-STOP. The delay learning property helps DL-ReSuMe to solve the silent window problem. Then a third approach called EDL, Extended DL-ReSuMe, is proposed. Delays of appropriate groups of excitatory and inhibitory inputs are adjusted multiple times to find more accurate values for the delays. The delays and weights are adjusted cooperatively to construct a stable learning method. Subsequently, an approach termed Multi-DL-ReSuMe is proposed to extend DL-ReSuMe to a learning algorithm for a layer of spiking neurons for classification of spatiotemporal input patterns. The number of neurons in Multi-DL-ReSuMe is also increased to the number of the classes to improve its accuracy compared to a single neuron. Finally, a supervised learning algorithm for multilayer SNNs to train precisely the timing of multiple spikes is proposed. Weights of hidden and output neurons are adjusted in parallel to train the output neurons to fire at desired times. The delays of the output neurons are also adjusted in cooperation with the weight adjustments. EDL is used in the learning procedure of the multilayer network. Interactions between different layers of the network are governed through a biofeedback signal sent back by the output neurons. It uses another training procedure to prevent misclassification. During a misclassification, the learning algorithm adjusts the network parameters to train it to not fire close to the spikes that causes the misclassifications. The classification learning enables the proposed method to overcome the difficulty of learning of real world data. Simulation results are presented for all the proposed approaches to validate the propositions and benchmark against the current state of the art methods.
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Brumme, Janet Kathleen. "The role of organisational behaviour in establishing a corporate academy in the construction industry." Thesis, University of Pretoria, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/2263/39927.
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The purpose of the study was to explore the role of organisational behaviour in establishing a corporate university in a large corporate in the construction industry. Studies have been conducted regarding the process steps in establishing a corporate university but a gap exists in the cohesive presentation of the various relationships and the behaviours that drive the successful implementation and sustained operation of a learning academy. An understanding of organisational behaviour at three levels (individual, group and organisational) is a critical success factor that provides the superstructure to the firm foundation provided by the right process steps.
An in-depth, single case study research design was used by the researcher taking a qualitative approach from a complete member researcher perspective with an analytic autoethnographic orientation. Data collection comprised archival document review and semi-structured, in-depth interviews with senior executives and leadership on other levels in the organisation. Analysis was conducted with the assistance of a qualitative data analysis computer software package as well as through iterative coding and memo writing to surface patterns and themes.
The study resulted in a framework reflecting a complex web of relationships and roles that included: context as a catalyst; leadership as a critical role player; academy structure as a key driver of learning; individuals as recipients and beneficiaries; key stakeholders and internal role players in the implementation of learning; and finally, organisational culture as the normative domain. The study concludes with propositions that encapsulate these relationships.
The framework presenting a complex web of relationships and roles has expanded the existing theory of organisational learning by integrating and incorporating organisational behaviour theory to understand the role that behaviour on individual, group and organisational levels plays when establishing a corporate university. In addition, the framework provides insight into the role of an academy in promoting a culture of learning.
Organisations can benefit from an insight into the behaviours which underpin the establishment of a corporate academy because such insight will more readily lead to successful implementation and the avoidance of costly mistakes. A corporate academy plays a key role in assisting organisations to build essential skills and capabilities particularly in times of increasing demand for competent and capable employees to execute strategy. The single ‘revelatory’ case study approach was conducted due to the unique opportunity presented when the researcher was tasked with establishing a corporate university in a large corporate in the construction industry.Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2013.
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Human Resource Management
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Brahmasubha, Ariya. "BOR WORN home, temple and school (HTS) organisation : the learning organisation in the communities of Thailand." Thesis, University of Hull, 2012. http://hydra.hull.ac.uk/resources/hull:6058.
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This study investigates BOR WORN-HTS Organisation as a learning organisation which is the way to provide knowledge, education and learning to the community and also transfer Thai local knowledge and culture to the next generations to achieve the goals for learning and strengthening the community with knowledge and morality. This study is a qualitative research in cultural anthropology. An ethnographic research method with unstructured interviewing and participant observation were used to gather qualitative data from four communities in rural areas across Thailand where HTS organisation has been operating and is still alive. The gathered information is presented in four main themes (BOR WORN-HTS Organisation, OL/LO, LIC, and TLK&CT. The community of practice was the research concept used to analyse data, together with qualitative document analysis. The findings of the study revealed that the HTS Organisation has been in Thailand for many years. It is an ideal organisation that represents the collaboration between people from three main institutions in the community; home, temple and school. HTS Organisation occurs automatically in the social context when the members of the community come to take part in the activities created by three mains institutions (H-T-S). The people participate in community activities for two reasons: because they respect their religion so try to sustain and carry its values on to the future generation and because they trust and believe in an individual person such as a monk or community leader. HTS Organisation is a learning organisation (LO). The learning process, both individual and social learning, as well as global knowledge and local knowledge (OL), happens when members of an organisation join together in community activity. Theory of learning and social practice in communities of practice is the fundamental process of HTS. Thus, HTS Organisation acts as a community of practice in a unique combination of three fundamental elements: the domain, the community and the practice. HTS Organisation encourages people of all ages to communicate, participate and create learning processes within the social context and apply the concept of communities of practice as a management tool to explore and help people to achieve the expected outcomes of the community, that is, learning and strengthening community and maintain the national heritage in Thai society and transmitting it to the further generations. As a result, application of the concept of HTS Organisation brings many benefits while needing little investment. The advantages of the HTS Organisation are not only the benefit for the community (knowledge based society, well-being, strengthening, sufficiency economy and sustainable community) but it is also good for people, especially the country’s children and youths, who have great potential in the future to be skilled, talented, proficient people and be filled with knowledge and morality or Kwam Roo Koo Kun-Na-Tham.
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Jimes, Cynthia. "Communication as structuration : viewing learning through the lens of communication /." Uppsala : Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis : Uppsala University Library [distributör], 2005. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-4759.
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Leitch, Claire M. "Executive education in the learning company." Thesis, University of Ulster, 1998. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.342413.
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Strandli, Portfelt I. "The University; A Learning Organization? : An Illuminative Review Based on System Theory." Doctoral thesis, Karlstad University, Faculty of Arts and Education, 2006. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kau:diva-780.
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There are voices in the research field suggesting that universities should become learning organisations in order to be more competitive and efficient. However, the proposal is mainly based on theoretical and normative discussions rather than on empirical research. Therefore, this study has explored and reviewed in what way a university organisation has organised its inner life and illuminate in what way its local organisation matches the characteristics of a constructed theoretical model of a learning organisation. The study has furthermore explored in what way the organisational characteristics interact with one another in order to find out whether they support or hinder organisational learning.
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Givel, Yves Pascal. "What are the right skills? : an investigation of an organisation's journey towards becoming a learning organisation, and the skills that help leaders to create the conditions and structures characteristic of a learning organisation." Thesis, University of Leicester, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/2381/31434.
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The concepts of organisational learning and the learning organisation have been discussed and debated extensively in the literature, with some writers arguing that many organisations are not relying on continuous learning and development, and react with different strategies to external change, and with others defending the point of view that organisational learning or becoming a learning organisation is key to keeping up with the changes happening in the world, such as globalisation, increased competition and rapid technological advances. This study addresses the above concepts within the context of the hospitality industry, in particular the international hotel industry, and aims to provide some measures and clarity to the question of what the right skills are that help leaders creating the conditions and structures characteristic of a learning organisation, as well as to address the potential gap in the literature around the limited availability of research about the learning organisation and organisational learning in the hospitality industry. The research follows a two-phase case study design, using an organisation in the international hotel industry that had recently introduced a ‘designthinking’ programme, the vehicle through which learning organisation reforms were introduced into the case study organisation with the stated objective to foster innovation and to differentiate the organisation from its competitors, as a research setting. The findings of this study suggest that organisations in the hospitality industry embarking on this journey of becoming a learning organisation should consider the leadership skills and mind-sets as identified in this research for the design of their leadership models, such as the ability to encourage experimentation, reward and foster failure and demonstrating a commitment to learning. This will assist them in the creation of a learning-supportive culture where employees are involved and participate, are empowered to make their own decisions and have trust in leadership to take risks and foster innovation. The study contributes to foster a better understanding by practitioners of the interaction between leadership skills and organisational learning, thus highlighting the importance of those skills and mind-sets in the creation of a learning organisation, and also reveals some interesting findings around the value and applicability of the learning organisation concept in the hotel industry.
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Nübel, Ilke. "Integration von E-Learning und Wissensmanagement : Wege zur lernenden Organisation /." Aachen : Shaker, 2005. http://bvbr.bib-bvb.de:8991/F?func=service&doc_library=BVB01&doc_number=014595626&line_number=0001&func_code=DB_RECORDS&service_type=MEDIA.
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De, Wet Ben. "Knowledge management and the learning organisation in the new economy." Thesis, Stellenbosch : University of Stellenbosch, 2006. http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/17348.
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Thesis (MPhil)--University of Stellenbosch, 2006.ENGLISH ABSTRACT: In the literature on organisational learning and specifically the concept of a learning organisation, an integrated approach towards the learning organisation appears to be lacking. The thesis is an effort to correct this by integrating the organisational aspects namely strategy, structure and processes into a coherent model of the learning organisation. For this purpose, the thesis is divided into two parts. The first part is a theoretical evaluation of Peter Senge’s concept of the learning organisation, and Nonaka and Takeuchi’s model of the Knowledge Creating Company. These models were evaluated to determine the degree to which these models incorporate strategy, structure and processes. In an effort to make sense of the learning organisation concept within the framework of the knowledge era, other influences such as Peter Drucker on the Post-Capitalist Society and Thomas A Stewart on how to manage Intellectual Capital in the new economy, were incorporated. In addition, the basic building blocks of existing theories of the learning organisation were considered in order to develop appreciation for their contribution and influence towards a model of the learning organisation. The second part of this thesis endeavoured to build a notional model for the learning organisation. This notional model is considered necessary in order to develop an appreciation for how matters such as structure, strategy and processes can interact and cooperate towards an integrated model of the learning organisation. In conclusion, a number of factors of organisation were identified as probable principles of organisation in the knowledge economy.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: In die literatuur rondom organisasie leer, en meer spesifiek die konsep van die lerende organisasie, blyk daar ‘n behoefte aan ‘n geïntegreerde benadering tot die lerende organisasie te wees. Die tesis is ‘n poging om die invloede van strategie, struktuur en prosesse te integreer in ‘n geïntegreerde model van die lerende organisasie konsep te verkry. Vir hierdie doel is die tesis in twee dele verdeel. Die eerste deel sentreer rondom Peter Senge se siening van die lerende organisasie, asook Nonaka & Takeuchi se model van kennisskepping. Die evaluasie bepaal tot watter mate die implikasies van struktuur, strategie en prosesse in hierdie modelle geïnkorporeer is. In 'n poging om sin te maak van die begrip van die lerende organisasie in die konteks van die kennis era, is Peter Drucker se teorie van die post-kapitalistiese era, asook Thomas Stewart rondom die bestuur van intellektuele kapitaal in die kennis ekonomie, in ag geneem. Vervolgens is die basiese boublokke van die bestaande teorieë van die lerende organisasie besoek om waardering te ontwikkel vir hul bydrae en invloede op ‘n model van die lerende organisasie. Die tweede helfte van die tesis is gebasseer op kennis en insigte ontwikkel in die eerste helfte en stel ‘n spekulatiewe model van die lerende organisasie. Hierdie spekulatiewe model is nodig om waardering te kry vir die verwantskap tussen organisasie struktuur, strategie en prosesse, en wyses waarop hierdie komponente geïntegreer kan word ter wille van ‘n geïntegreerde model van die lerende organisasie. Ter afsluiting word ‘n aantal aspekte van organisering geïdentifiseer as waarskynlike beginsels van organisering in die kennis ekonomie.
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Snyders, Hendrik. "A learning organisation perception survey of the Saldanha Bay Municipality." Thesis, Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2008. http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11838/975.
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Thesis (MTech (Business Administration))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2008The merger of South African municipalities in the year 2000, and the dawn of the era of developmental local government, has confronted local authorities with a range of new challenges. In addition to the need to develop a new organisational culture and mutual trust, or the introduction of soft management actions, municipalities have to aetualise the concepts and processes of co-operative governance, integrated development planning, public participation and developmental local government. In addition, the White Paper on Local Government (WPLG, 1998) implores municipalities to lead and learn while they search for local solutions. An inability to learn and manage in a changed context and circumstances will inevitably lead to public displays of dissatisfaction, such as public demonstrations, that undermine municipalities' legitimacy. To overcome legitimacy dilemmas, municipalities need to strengthen their learning capabilities to enable them to operate effectively within changed circumstances and to become learning organisations. Such organisations, according to Senge (1990), have succeeded in formulating a shared vision, displayed a high level of personal mastery and team learning, as well as practising systems thinking. Together with these elements municipalities must identify and improve potentially constraining mental models. However, transforming any organisation into a learning organisation according to Dilworth (1996) requires a particular set of leadership qualities, such as commitment to the improvement of the quality of work life, democratic leadership and the promotion of human dignity. In this thesis, a learning organisation survey of the Saldanha Bay municipality's leadership cadre, consisting of Municipal Councillors, Executive Directors and Departmental Managers and Division Heads is undertaken with a view to determine whether these key functionaries practise the key learning disciplines of team leaming, shared vision, systems thinking, mental models and personal mastery. The results of this study indicated that the municipality in question has not yet succeeded in becoming a learning municipality. It has at best succeeded in laying a foundation for both councillors and officials to build on in order to achieve the desired result.
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Mosiane-Lentsoe, Elizabeth Queen. "Effecting organisation change in Eskom by creating a learning environment." Thesis, University of Pretoria, 2001. http://hdl.handle.net/2263/26678.
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The current social, economic and technological climate requires the management of change, which is sustainable. One sustainable corporate quality will be the ability to learn as an organisation. Individuals have traditionally equated learning with the acquisition of knowledge, during early age. The understanding of learning changes as individuals learn as a group within an organisation. Often organisations fail to make the connection between learning and training. To become learning environment there should be an existence of three critical issues, namely, individual, team and organisational learning. The five requirements of learning organisation, namely, systems thinking, personal mastery shared vision, team learning and mental models should be mastered to build a learning environment. A learning environment seeks to create its own future, which assumes that learning is an ongoing and creative process for its members. The concept believes that organisations, which learn develops, adapts and transform itself in response to the needs and aspirations of the people. One of the reasons to fail this connection would be the absence of immediate tangible benefits that organisational learning can provide. The other difficulty could be in translating the theory into practice in the absence of explaining the process sequentially. Organisations are experiencing the need to develop capabilities to handle challenges irrespective of the barriers. The learning organisation constitutes a new perspective on learning which emphasise a shift in organisational management with respect to education, training and development. One way of adopting such capabilities is through adopting the precepts of the learning organisation. The academics, management and practitioners have joined hands in unravelling the concepts and processes of the learning organisation and change management. The study attempts to examine and explain the thinking and synergise various approaches to provide the relationship between the organisation change in Eskom by creating a learning environment. This is not a prescriptive document or critique on the current philosophy, but to create a learning environment model for Eskom within which change will be effected. The information will assist Eskom to accelerate its learning rate to sustain competitive advantage. The organisation needs to embrace change rather than to react to solutions.Thesis (D Admin (Public Administration))--University of Pretoria, 2006.
School of Public Management and Administration (SPMA)
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Moffett, Sandra. "Knowledge management : issues, preparation and implementation." Thesis, University of Ulster, 2001. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.370090.
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Erenmalm, Leo, and Kim Runesson. "Kunskapsfabrikens rötter." Thesis, Halmstad University, School of Social and Health Sciences (HOS), 2007. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:hh:diva-682.
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The purpose of this study was to investigate, through a qualitative survey, the need of knowledge and strategy in organisations today and tomorrow. The empirical investigation is built on a semi structured interview that was conducted on nine different companies in Gislaveds community. The companies were from three different branches namely: tree, metal and polymer. Three interviews were conducted in each branch.
The result from the interviews showed that the globalisation had put the companies under hard competition which had made the need for rationalisation and effectivness more apparent. Having said this, the demands on the organisation and the individuals within it will constantly increase. In order to enhance the individuals and the organisation there are an increased need for flexibility and openness and the responsibility and authority must be with in the individuals in the organisation. Our work show that the individuals with in the organisation shall be some kind of “superhuman” that can perform most of the tasks in the organisation, he or she should be flexible and open minded.
Our findings shows the way an organisation can create this “superhuman” and what an organisation needs to do to become a learning organisation.
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Laenen, Inneke. "What are the enablers of and barriers to the creation of Organisations with an enhanced learning capacity? A systematic Review of learning organisation interventions." Master's thesis, Faculty of Health Sciences, 2020. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/32384.
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Health systems, like commercial enterprises, face wide-ranging challenges and need to develop an adaptive capacity in order to remain effective. There is increasing recognition in the health sector that the concept of the learning organisation, which has long been popular in the business management field, could be a key strategy to develop this adaptive capacity in health systems. Although examples exist of the application of learning organisation principles to health care facilities, there is little guidance for how units or groups responsible for health policy and strategies can apply them more widely. In order to provide some initial guidance to the Western Cape Department of Health, which has expressed an interest in developing into a learning organisation, this project sought to identify the enablers of, and barriers to learning organisation creation by conducting a systematic review of learning organisation interventions across multiple sectors. As multiple definitions and models of a learning organisation exist in the literature, this systematic review was complemented by an initial review of conceptual literature which synthesised the existing definitions and models of a learning organisation and identified a core set of learning organisation dimensions. Findings indicate that a foundation of good organisational software such as a shared understanding of, and commitment to a learning organisation vision, a culture which is conducive to learning organisation creation, and a secure, supportive and interpersonally non-threatening environment, is essential for learning organisation creation. Building on this foundation it is then important to invest in staff time (i.e. that staff are officially allowed, and incentivised, to spend time on learning during work hours), and the infrastructure and processes necessary to support knowledge transfer, such as physical meeting spaces, online learning databases, mentorship programmes, and feedback mechanisms.
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Moore, Benjamin Luke. "Unravelling higher order chromatin organisation through statistical analysis." Thesis, University of Edinburgh, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/1842/22906.
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Recent technological advances underpinned by high throughput sequencing have given new insights into the three-dimensional structure of mammalian genomes. Chromatin conformation assays have been the critical development in this area, particularly the Hi-C method which ascertains genome-wide patterns of intra and inter-chromosomal contacts. However many open questions remain concerning the functional relevance of such higher order structure, the extent to which it varies, and how it relates to other features of the genomic and epigenomic landscape. Current knowledge of nuclear architecture describes a hierarchical organisation ranging from small loops between individual loci, to megabase-sized self-interacting topological domains (TADs), encompassed within large multimegabase chromosome compartments. In parallel with the discovery of these strata, the ENCODE project has generated vast amounts of data through ChIP-seq, RNA-seq and other assays applied to a wide variety of cell types, forming a comprehensive bioinformatics resource. In this work we combine Hi-C datasets describing physical genomic contacts with a large and diverse array of chromatin features derived at a much finer scale in the same mammalian cell types. These features include levels of bound transcription factors, histone modifications and expression data. These data are then integrated in a statistically rigorous way, through a predictive modelling framework from the machine learning field. These studies were extended, within a collaborative project, to encompass a dataset of matched Hi-C and expression data collected over a murine neural differentiation timecourse. We compare higher order chromatin organisation across a variety of human cell types and find pervasive conservation of chromatin organisation at multiple scales. We also identify structurally variable regions between cell types, that are rich in active enhancers and contain loci of known cell-type specific function. We show that broad aspects of higher order chromatin organisation, such as nuclear compartment domains, can be accurately predicted in a variety of human cell types, using models based upon underlying chromatin features. We dissect these quantitative models and find them to be generalisable to novel cell types, presumably reflecting fundamental biological rules linking compartments with key activating and repressive signals. These models describe the strong interconnectedness between locus-level patterns of local histone modifications and bound factors, on the order of hundreds or thousands of basepairs, with much broader compartmentalisation of large, multi-megabase chromosomal regions. Finally, boundary regions are investigated in terms of chromatin features and co-localisation with other known nuclear structures, such as association with the nuclear lamina. We find boundary complexity to vary between cell types and link TAD aggregations to previously described lamina-associated domains, as well as exploring the concept of meta-boundaries that span multiple levels of organisation. Together these analyses lend quantitative evidence to a model of higher order genome organisation that is largely stable between cell types, but can selectively vary locally, based on the activation or repression of key loci.
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Taylor, Graham R. "Anytime anywhere learning : a paradigm shift in the management and organisation of learning and teaching." Thesis, University of Lincoln, 2002. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.269785.
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George, Munique. "A study of investigating organisational justice perceptions and experiences of affirmative action in a learning and development organisation." Thesis, University of the Western Cape, 2011. http://etd.uwc.ac.za/index.php?module=etd&action=viewtitle&id=gen8Srv25Nme4_5783_1320150285.
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There have been good arguments made for the development of aggressive affirmative action policies with the end goal of quickly moving black South Africans into corporate and high ranks within management of organisations. One of the central arguments in favour of aggressive AA policies is the risk of racial polarization post-apartheid should a quick fix not be initiated. It makes good business and economic sense for AA policies to be implemented as black consumers coupled with black managers will have the eventual end point of lower unemployment and crime, through job creation and security of the representative majority.
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Smith, Bize Simon Cristobal. "Self-organisation of internal models in autonomous robots." Thesis, University of Edinburgh, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/1842/20981.
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Internal Models (IMs) play a significant role in autonomous robotics. They are mechanisms able to represent the input-output characteristics of the sensorimotor loop. In developmental robotics, open-ended learning of skills and knowledge serves the purpose of reaction to unexpected inputs, to explore the environment and to acquire new behaviours. The development of the robot includes self-exploration of the state-action space and learning of the environmental dynamics. In this dissertation, we explore the properties and benefits of the self-organisation of robot behaviour based on the homeokinetic learning paradigm. A homeokinetic robot explores the environment in a coherent way without prior knowledge of its configuration or the environment itself. First, we propose a novel approach to self-organisation of behaviour by artificial curiosity in the sensorimotor loop. Second, we study how different forward models settings alter the behaviour of both exploratory and goal-oriented robots. Diverse complexity, size and learning rules are compared to assess the importance in the robot’s exploratory behaviour. We define the self-organised behaviour performance in terms of simultaneous environment coverage and best prediction of future sensori inputs. Among the findings, we have encountered that models with a fast response and a minimisation of the prediction error by local gradients achieve the best performance. Third, we study how self-organisation of behaviour can be exploited to learn IMs for goal-oriented tasks. An IM acquires coherent self-organised behaviours that are then used to achieve high-level goals by reinforcement learning (RL). Our results demonstrate that learning of an inverse model in this context yields faster reward maximisation and a higher final reward. We show that an initial exploration of the environment in a goal-less yet coherent way improves learning. In the same context, we analyse the self-organisation of central pattern generators (CPG) by reward maximisation. Our results show that CPGs can learn favourable reward behaviour on high-dimensional robots using the self-organised interaction between degrees of freedom. Finally, we examine an on-line dual control architecture where we combine an Actor-Critic RL and the homeokinetic controller. With this configuration, the probing signal is generated by the exertion of the embodied robot experience with the environment. This set-up solves the problem of designing task-dependant probing signals by the emergence of intrinsically motivated comprehensible behaviour. Faster improvement of the reward signal compared to classic RL is achievable with this configuration.
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Stöger, Eduard A. "Integrating apprenticeship training in learning organisations /." Wien [u.a.] : LIT, 2007. http://www.gbv.de/dms/zbw/529519984.pdf.
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Bergare, Ingela, and Andrea Nilsson. "Lärande i projektintensiva verksamheter : När projekten är större än organisationen." Thesis, Karlstad University, Faculty of Economic Sciences, Communication and IT, 2006. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kau:diva-500.
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Det blir allt vanligare att människor byter arbetsgivare flera gånger under sitt yrkesverksamma liv och den gamla synen på anställningen som ett livslångt åtagande håller på att försvinna. Organisationer knyter till sig temporära medarbetare, bland annat till sina olika projekt, för att dessa ska tillföra sådan kompetens som inte finns i den ordinarie organisationen. Detta syns tydligt i statistiken från SCB som visar att andelen temporärt anställda ökar i Sverige och nu är nästan 16 % av arbetskraften.
Uppsatsen behandlar lärandeprocesser i organisationer med höga E/A-tal, det vill säga organisationer där andelen temporärt anställda överstiger andelen tillsvidareanställda medarbetare. Den inriktar sig på lärandet i och mellan projekt, samt hur huvudorganisationen tar del av lärandet i projekten, när individerna med specialkompetens bara är temporärt anställda.
Respondentorganisationernas syn på kunskap stannar vid individuell kompetens. De har som strategi att till varje nytt projekt anställa personer med rätt kompetens temporärt. När projektet är avslutat, slutar även de som är anställda för projektet. Om organisationen behöver personer med samma kompetens för andra projekt, återanställs personerna temporärt för att arbeta i dem.
Studien visar att de undersökta organisationerna har en fungerande lärprocess trots att de inte medvetet strävar efter detta. Inom projekten sker hela tiden ett kunskapsutbyte mellan teammedlemmarna, och mycket utav denna kunskap sprids inom organisationen genom småprat och formella möten. En viktig kunskapskälla är de chefer som fungerar som länk mellan huvudorganisationen och projektgrupperna.
It is getting increasingly common for people to change employer several times during their professional life. The old way to look at employment as a one single lifelong commitment is declining. Organisations are now using more temporary employees, among other things for their different projects, with the intention that these should provide complementary competence to the organisation. This is clearly shown in the statistics from SCB, which illustrates that the share of temporary employees in Sweden increases and at the present represents almost 16 % of the labour force.
This thesis studies learning processes in organisations with a high E/E-number, which stand for organisations where the share of temporary employees exceeds the share of regular employees. The thesis focus on learning within and between projects, as well as how the main organisation takes part of the learning in the projects, when the individuals with special competence are only temporary employed.
The respondent organisations view on knowledge stop at individual competence. Their strategy is to employ people with the right competences temporary to each new project, so when the project is closed, the people and the competence leave. If the organisation requires people with the same competence again for other projects, they are temporary re-employed.
The study shows that the organisations examined do have a functional learning process, although they do not consciously strive for this. Within the projects there is a constant knowledge exchange between the team members, and a lot of this knowledge is spread through out the organisation by small talk and formal meetings. An important source of knowledge is the supervisors which function as a link between the main organisation and the project teams.
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Carlsson, Angelica, and Lina Eliasson. "En lärande organisation? - Kompetensutveckling inom en Polismyndighet." Thesis, Halmstad University, School of Social and Health Sciences (HOS), 2008. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:hh:diva-1273.
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This essey discuss competence development for the employees in a unit of the Swedish police authorities. The purpose with this survey has been to show an understanding for how this unit within the Swedish police authorities works with competence development and what kind of competence investments they carry out and also why competence development is important in their organisation. To answer the purpose of the survey and the questions a qualitative method has been used remaining interviews with five involved respondents working in the investigated unit. The result shows that needs for competence development are made clear during meeting for personal development and during the local educational council inventories. Competence development for the employees is prioritated for the policemen comparing to the civil employees on account of that the policemen have a demanding work and they have to develop their work all the time because of the resisting circumstances. The policemen always have to retain and develop their competence to always feel safe and secure and they have to be able to handle the situations that their profession require. According to the result it has been shown that evaluation and follow- ups after carry out an education shuld be more effective and should be performed after every education occasion. According to the investigated unit the work with evaluation and follow-ups in the unit are not taking place in the extent it should be doing. The result of the survey has further shown that a development concentrated on learning takes place in the daily work of a policeman despite their experiences about the learning within the organisation has gone from collective learning to individual learning. This unit of the Swedish police authority does an extensive work with competence development for their employees. They have a positive attitude to competence development when they think retaining and development of competence are very important within the profession of a policeman.
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Vinokourov, Alexei. "The organisation and retrieval of document collections : a machine learning approach." Thesis, University of the West of Scotland, 2003. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.742769.
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Manassakis, Evangeline Smaree. "Young children's participation in the organisation of the early learning space." Thesis, Queensland University of Technology, 2019. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/133429/1/Evangeline_Manassakis_Thesis.pdf.
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This study examined the under-researched insights of young children and how they describe their role in organising the materials in the kindergarten classroom space. Using a participatory methodology and design, young children took the researcher on child-led tours of their kindergarten classroom spaces and engaged in video-stimulated recall interviews with the researcher. Data was analysed through a sociomaterial lens and spatial theory. The results of this study demonstrate that children do have multiple roles in organising the materials in the education spaces that they engage within; however, the level of participation and roles available to children continued to be restricted by adults.
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Stern, Lawrence Julian. "Developing schools as learning communities : towards a way of understanding school organisation, school development and learning." Thesis, University College London (University of London), 2002. http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/10020384/.
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Grounded in philosophy, organisations theories and ideas of learning, three themes are developed in this thesis. First, seeing schools as systems (more specifically as communities), implying a need for the research to discover evidence of this systematic nature and how it might change. Second, investigating the nature of hierarchy in schools (and how this relates to schools as developing systems), again, implying a need for the research to discover evidence for and explore the nature of hierarchies. Third, trying to understand learning in schools (learning by individuals and groups in schools, including student teachers, and how this learning is related to school development), implying a need for the research to explore the use of the views of school participants in a dynamic, changing, system. These three themes came together in the work on schools as distinctive types of communities, as learning communities. From a concern with therapeutic models, developed a number of methodological approaches including the use of 'real' and 'ideal' understandings, and the use of 'sincerity' in research. In this context, three sets of primarily qualitative school based and university based studies were completed, in order to: * * develop and pilot techniques for discovering the views of members of the school community (including student teachers), as ways of exploring the nature of school organisation and exploring school and individual development; investigate the use of the views of members of a school community, to contribute to the development of schools and individuals. The research found evidence supporting the significance of the idea of school as a community (as described by John Macmurray), hierarchically structured in some ways like the state (in Aristotle's sense). In these ways, schools are seen as having a special role in making people more real.
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Nicolopoulou, Katerina. "Towards a phenomenological approach to organisation learning and information systems : a study of human experience in three large scale organisations." Thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), 2002. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.396365.
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Yang, Guoli. "Learning in adaptive networks : analytical and computational approaches." Thesis, University of Edinburgh, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/1842/20956.
Full textAbstract:
The dynamics on networks and the dynamics of networks are usually entangled with each other in many highly connected systems, where the former means the evolution of state and the latter means the adaptation of structure. In this thesis, we will study the coupled dynamics through analytical and computational approaches, where the adaptive networks are driven by learning of various complexities. Firstly, we investigate information diffusion on networks through an adaptive voter model, where two opinions are competing for the dominance. Two types of dynamics facilitate the agreement between neighbours: one is pairwise imitation and the other is link rewiring. As the rewiring strength increases, the network of voters will transform from consensus to fragmentation. By exploring various strategies for structure adaptation and state evolution, our results suggest that network configuration is highly influenced by range-based rewiring and biased imitation. In particular, some approximation techniques are proposed to capture the dynamics analytically through moment-closure differential equations. Secondly, we study an evolutionary model under the framework of natural selection. In a structured community made up of cooperators and cheaters (or defectors), a new-born player will adopt a strategy and reorganise its neighbourhood based on social inheritance. Starting from a cooperative population, an invading cheater may spread in the population occasionally leading to the collapse of cooperation. Such a collapse unfolds rapidly with the change of external conditions, bearing the traits of a critical transition. In order to detect the risk of invasions, some indicators based on population composition and network structure are proposed to signal the fragility of communities. Through the analyses of consistency and accuracy, our results suggest possible avenues for detecting the loss of cooperation in evolving networks. Lastly, we incorporate distributed learning into adaptive agents coordination, which emerges as a consequence of rational individual behaviours. A generic framework of work-learn-adapt (WLA) is proposed to foster the success of agents organisation. To gain higher organisation performance, the division of labour is achieved by a series of events of state evolution and structure adaptation. Importantly, agents are able to adjust their states and structures through quantitative information obtained from distributed learning. The adaptive networks driven by explicit learning pave the way for a better understanding of intelligent organisations in real world.
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Bolt, Susan J. "An investigation of professional learning in dynamic environments." Thesis, Curtin University, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/2449.
Full textAbstract:
Typically, individuals and managers of organisations seek to sustain competitive advantage and maximise their potential through participation in training and development. Prior to this study, little was known about the specific nature of the relationship between training and development and organisational change in the participating organisations. The purpose of this research was to investigate, describe and evaluate this relationship in a volunteer organisation and two government agencies in Australian contexts. So, the researcher investigated adult learning within three organisations in order to understand participants’ experiences with professional learning in a context of organisational change. As a result of this study the researcher made recommendations and developed a model that informs professional learning in dynamic environments.This research was situated within the interpretive paradigm and data were collected using multiple methods. Data collection involved 210 questionnaires and 70 semistructured interviews conducted across the three participating organisations. Quantitative questionnaire data were analysed using SPSS: Qualitative data from the questionnaires and interviews were entered into NVivo 7 and subsequently analysed with themes and categories identified. The major themes were provision, accessibility, motivation, effectiveness and relationship; the themes related directly to the research questions. Individual case reports were sent to managers in the participating organisations. The results are reported in the thesis as separate case studies and include the perspectives of both managers’ and non-managers’ experiences of training and development and its relationship to organisational change. Additionally, a cross-case analysis was conducted and discussed in relation to the literature reviewed in the thesis.Primarily, the researcher found that there were direct and indirect links between training and development and the organisational change agenda, but participants were not always aware of these relationships. Typically, managers provided formal learning opportunities for staff but overlooked the benefits of informal learning. In practice, participants used formal education, non-formal programs, informal and incidental learning; they recognised the benefits of informal and incidental learning. In this research, middle managers had difficulty accessing role-related training and development; managers and non-managers sought their own career development and job-related training and development beyond what was provided by their employers. Individuals’ motivation to participate in training and development was influenced by its relevance to their careers, jobs, and interests. Their motivation to transfer what they had learned into practice in the workplace depended on the purpose of the learning and opportunities for its implementation. Also, it was found that program evaluation was inconsistent and evaluation of staff training and development was marginalised.As a result of the findings, the researcher developed the ‘Integrative Model: Professional Learning in Dynamic Environments (IMPLIDE)’; comprised of three components - capacity, process, and approach. A key feature of IMPLIDE was the up skilling of managers and human resource developers to facilitate effective training and development programs. The findings of this research and the subsequent development of this model have significance for academics and practitioners in the field of human resource development. As a consequence of this research, areas for further research have been identified, particularly, in relation to the current capacity and professional development of middle managers.
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Wulandari, Puspita. "An examination of learning processes in a public service organisation in Indonesia." Swinburne Research Bank, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/1959.3/34551.
Full textAbstract:
Thesis (DBA) -- Swinburne University of Technology, Australian Graduate School of Entrepreneurship, 2007.Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctorate of Business Administration, Australian Graduate School of Entrepreneurship, Faculty of Business and Enterprise, Swinburne University of Technology, 2007. Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (p. 197-209).
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Kenqa, Bandile. "Knowledge management as a tool to enhance innovative thinking in an organisation." Thesis, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/10948/11026.
Full textAbstract:
The twenty-first century is an era where corporate and small businesses alike have to give way to what has been termed the ‘knowledge era’. Knowledge management is regarded as the most important factor in the mainstream of the business fraternity in ensuring sustainability within organisations. Because knowledge management is an integral part of managerial activity in a number of organisations, the broader economic environment and social life today, it is imperative that organisations must be knowledge-driven. Equally important are the associated knowledge management implementation strategies. Based on the literature study and the survey of the branch managerial teams in FNB branches in the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan in Port Elizabeth, it was concluded that FNB partly applied specified concepts to embrace an innovation culture in the organisation. The concepts specified included innovative competency, leadership initiative, customer engagement, staff engagement and personal desire, at both individual and FNB level. In order to attain the objective of the empirical study, survey results were evaluated in order to establish whether the above mentioned concepts were applied. A sample of fifty five (55) managerial members from fifteen (15) branches were surveyed. The responses obtained from the respondents were analysed and compared with the matters raised in the literature review. Leadership initiative appeared to be the most important critical factor in driving knowledge management culture in the organisation. However, it was established that personal desire, both at individual and FNB level, were misaligned to knowledge management. This implied that the organisation was not yielding full benefits from their employees in ensuring that management optimise on the employees’ skills, qualifications and expertise. Conclusions, research gaps and recommendations were formulated for the FNB’s promotion of innovative competency, leadership initiative, customer engagement, staff engagement and personal desire, both at individual and FNB levels. The empirical results were satisfactory and informative. Leadership initiative appeared to be the most critical factor in driving knowledge management culture in the organisation.
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Martoo, Gladys Vivian. "Reculturing a school as a learning organisation: investigative narratives in two Queensland schools." Thesis, Queensland University of Technology, 2006. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/16294/1/Gladys_Martoo_Thesis.pdf.
Full textAbstract:
The focus of this study has been to connect the idea of developing schools as learning organisations with the notion of developing learning leaders and building school capacity for our knowledge economy. Therefore, this action-inquiry self-study has examined the issues of curriculum reform in the context of more general organisational reform. It has explored the notion of schools being recultured or reconstructed to work as learning organisations in a climate that focuses on the improved social and academic learning outcomes of their students.
This self-study represents two significant chapters in my professional life and captures approximately four years of professional snapshots. It has allowed me to examine my practice of partnering, conversing, arranging and developing shared vision across two schools. This study recognized these as powerful reculturing mechanisms and affirmed that conversations about learning, shared beliefs mission and vision, enabling leadership that reflects parallel learning relationships and enabling organisational arrangements are critical for sustainable reform. Consequently the exploration of the relationship between teacher learning, teacher leadership and a professional learning culture has been the main focus for this research.
Analytical processes for this study first explored the relationship between teacher learning, teacher leadership and a professional learning culture through an examination of current curriculum reforms. This is followed by a layered analysis of the two narratives based on my leadership in two different school settings. A rigorous mapping and scanning process then assisted the analysis of these narratives. This process was supported by a number of specific conceptual frameworks that underpin the school reculturing process and reflect key qualities of schools that work as learning organisations.
Six significant snapshots emerged from the analysis of the two narratives. The deeper analysis of these snapshots, which have been referred to as close-ups, formed a number of my first tentative propositions. These layers of investigation were also supported by the responses of several key snapshot participants and reader respondents, before the final propositions were made. These responses recognised that an organisation that works together, learns together; and that there is strength and powerful learning when leadership can assist practitioners to work as a learning community. These qualities were found to be directly related to this study's proposed reconstructed model for developing schools as learning organisations.
The reconstructed model recognised a number of other less visible elements that can be seen in a school working as a learning organisation. These elements relate directly to enabling/capacity building leadership and the associated relationship skills of leaders. They were found to be necessary elements for effective collaboration and for creating spaces for conversation, reflection, spontaneity and risk-taking.
This study also recognised that any deconstruction and reconstruction of a school as a learning organisation is first a reconstruction of core beliefs and values. These beliefs and values are reflected in a school's culture and are inclusive of the visible and less visible elements. The constant examination of one's assumptions, ideas, values and beliefs has been considered to be essential to the analysis process, as well as to the process of reform and achieving organisational change. The study revealed, therefore, that enabling/capacity-building leadership is a key to the process of reculturing a school as a learning organisation. The data from respondents also indicates that this notion of leadership as being enabling/capacity building has also been a primary focus for answering the second of the key research questions: 'How does a process of deconstruction and reconstruction take place?'
The additional points of difference/interest that emerged from the various respondents suggest that the process of deconstruction and reconstruction of a school as a learning organisation would be assisted by realising that energy and passion are needed for enabling/capacity building leadership. This form of leadership requires moving from being top-down and become more parallel with renewed learning relationships. This study affirmed that this focus on establishing parallel learning relationships assists in the development of parallel learning leadership and parallel learning partnerships.
Enabling/capacity building leaders working in parallel with their teachers can also play an important role in developing/supporting flexible and imaginative school organisation. In this way enabling/capacity building leaders can work as learning leaders and brokers to assist the development of other learning partnerships/alliances. This community building strategy can consequently develop opportunities for teachers to work and learn collaboratively as learning leaders.
Enabling/capacity building leadership is correctly placed as the key to considering how the deconstruction and reconstruction process takes place. Further, the reconstruction process taking place reflect a culture of dynamic inquiry. This is made possible when enabling/capacity building leaders share and commit to similar notions of schools working as learning organisations and teachers are assisted/brokered to work collaboratively for professional alliances and professional growth.
Consequently this study proposes that teachers cope better with the ever-increasing demands of curriculum reforms if:
* schools can work as learning organisations
* schools allow teachers to work as learning leaders
* administrative leaders support/enable and model risk-taking, spontaneous and collaborative practices
* there are shared beliefs, mission and vision; organisational arrangements/support; conversations for learning; shared approaches to pedagogy, and parallel relationships
* enabling/capacity-building leadership for learning alliances allows for a professional culture of dynamic inquiry that can evolve with a renewed focus on conversations for learning.
The findings of this study have theoretical, methodological and practical significance. In the first instance it presents as theoretical significance, the reconstruction of a theoretical framework for schools working as learning organisations. The methodological significance is reflected in this study's emphasis on theorising through layers. The methodological contribution acknowledges a legitimate and rigorous form of practitioner research, revealing self-study methodology at a level that is more then mere self-indulgence. In presenting its final contribution, the thesis acknowledges the practical contribution of the study by emphasising the process involved in creating a culture of dynamic inquiry. The transformative nature of this action- inquiry self-study is therefore confirmed in this study. The layered analysis reflects a process of making sense of the messiness of practitioner research, and consequently provides a true sense of this established form of practical theorising in the teaching profession. These characteristics should be seen not as limitations, but rather as authentic strengths.
49
Martoo, Gladys Vivian. "Reculturing a school as a learning organisation: investigative narratives in two Queensland schools." Queensland University of Technology, 2006. http://eprints.qut.edu.au/16294/.
Full textAbstract:
The focus of this study has been to connect the idea of developing schools as learning organisations with the notion of developing learning leaders and building school capacity for our knowledge economy. Therefore, this action-inquiry self-study has examined the issues of curriculum reform in the context of more general organisational reform. It has explored the notion of schools being recultured or reconstructed to work as learning organisations in a climate that focuses on the improved social and academic learning outcomes of their students. This self-study represents two significant chapters in my professional life and captures approximately four years of professional snapshots. It has allowed me to examine my practice of partnering, conversing, arranging and developing shared vision across two schools. This study recognized these as powerful reculturing mechanisms and affirmed that conversations about learning, shared beliefs mission and vision, enabling leadership that reflects parallel learning relationships and enabling organisational arrangements are critical for sustainable reform. Consequently the exploration of the relationship between teacher learning, teacher leadership and a professional learning culture has been the main focus for this research. Analytical processes for this study first explored the relationship between teacher learning, teacher leadership and a professional learning culture through an examination of current curriculum reforms. This is followed by a layered analysis of the two narratives based on my leadership in two different school settings. A rigorous mapping and scanning process then assisted the analysis of these narratives. This process was supported by a number of specific conceptual frameworks that underpin the school reculturing process and reflect key qualities of schools that work as learning organisations. Six significant snapshots emerged from the analysis of the two narratives. The deeper analysis of these snapshots, which have been referred to as close-ups, formed a number of my first tentative propositions. These layers of investigation were also supported by the responses of several key snapshot participants and reader respondents, before the final propositions were made. These responses recognised that an organisation that works together, learns together; and that there is strength and powerful learning when leadership can assist practitioners to work as a learning community. These qualities were found to be directly related to this study's proposed reconstructed model for developing schools as learning organisations. The reconstructed model recognised a number of other less visible elements that can be seen in a school working as a learning organisation. These elements relate directly to enabling/capacity building leadership and the associated relationship skills of leaders. They were found to be necessary elements for effective collaboration and for creating spaces for conversation, reflection, spontaneity and risk-taking. This study also recognised that any deconstruction and reconstruction of a school as a learning organisation is first a reconstruction of core beliefs and values. These beliefs and values are reflected in a school's culture and are inclusive of the visible and less visible elements. The constant examination of one's assumptions, ideas, values and beliefs has been considered to be essential to the analysis process, as well as to the process of reform and achieving organisational change. The study revealed, therefore, that enabling/capacity-building leadership is a key to the process of reculturing a school as a learning organisation. The data from respondents also indicates that this notion of leadership as being enabling/capacity building has also been a primary focus for answering the second of the key research questions: 'How does a process of deconstruction and reconstruction take place?' The additional points of difference/interest that emerged from the various respondents suggest that the process of deconstruction and reconstruction of a school as a learning organisation would be assisted by realising that energy and passion are needed for enabling/capacity building leadership. This form of leadership requires moving from being top-down and become more parallel with renewed learning relationships. This study affirmed that this focus on establishing parallel learning relationships assists in the development of parallel learning leadership and parallel learning partnerships. Enabling/capacity building leaders working in parallel with their teachers can also play an important role in developing/supporting flexible and imaginative school organisation. In this way enabling/capacity building leaders can work as learning leaders and brokers to assist the development of other learning partnerships/alliances. This community building strategy can consequently develop opportunities for teachers to work and learn collaboratively as learning leaders. Enabling/capacity building leadership is correctly placed as the key to considering how the deconstruction and reconstruction process takes place. Further, the reconstruction process taking place reflect a culture of dynamic inquiry. This is made possible when enabling/capacity building leaders share and commit to similar notions of schools working as learning organisations and teachers are assisted/brokered to work collaboratively for professional alliances and professional growth. Consequently this study proposes that teachers cope better with the ever-increasing demands of curriculum reforms if: * schools can work as learning organisations * schools allow teachers to work as learning leaders * administrative leaders support/enable and model risk-taking, spontaneous and collaborative practices * there are shared beliefs, mission and vision; organisational arrangements/support; conversations for learning; shared approaches to pedagogy, and parallel relationships * enabling/capacity-building leadership for learning alliances allows for a professional culture of dynamic inquiry that can evolve with a renewed focus on conversations for learning. The findings of this study have theoretical, methodological and practical significance. In the first instance it presents as theoretical significance, the reconstruction of a theoretical framework for schools working as learning organisations. The methodological significance is reflected in this study's emphasis on theorising through layers. The methodological contribution acknowledges a legitimate and rigorous form of practitioner research, revealing self-study methodology at a level that is more then mere self-indulgence. In presenting its final contribution, the thesis acknowledges the practical contribution of the study by emphasising the process involved in creating a culture of dynamic inquiry. The transformative nature of this action- inquiry self-study is therefore confirmed in this study. The layered analysis reflects a process of making sense of the messiness of practitioner research, and consequently provides a true sense of this established form of practical theorising in the teaching profession. These characteristics should be seen not as limitations, but rather as authentic strengths.
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Pitt, Christine Ann, and n/a. "An exploration of groupware as an enabling technology for the learning organisation." University of Canberra. Information Sciences & Engineering, 2003. http://erl.canberra.edu.au./public/adt-AUC20060427.100120.
Full textAbstract:
The Australian business environment has been changing at an ever-increasing pace
since the mid-1980s. Technological, economic and social changes have altered the
working environment. There have been constant technological advances with
information technology influencing most categories of work. Organisations in public
and private sectors have ongoing expectations of increased productivity, increased
quality of processes and swifter responsiveness to clients. Team roles have changed.
Team members are multi-skilled and work is designed to emphasise the whole task.
The Karpin Industry Task Force described a vision for an Australian business
environment that would, by 2014, be one with a flexible, skilled and motivated
workforce, world class managers, a customer comes first mentality, and an
internationally competitive perspective. These characteristics are congruent with
those of learning organisations.
The aim of this study is to evaluate the suitability of groupware as the supporting
infrastructure for a learning organisation. To do this, the study assesses the use of
technology to support personal and team learning in a learning organisation, studies
the impact of groupware on learning within workgroups, determines the extent to
which communication and learning styles influence its effectiveness, and identifies
ways in which groupware can be used to capture the information used to support
knowledge management in an organisation. Two case studies are used to undertake
this assessment.
Three distinct yet related frameworks underpin this study. The first is that of
Groupware and the related research frameworks of Computer Supported Cooperative
Work (CSCW) and Computer Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL). The
second is the Learning Organisation and its supporting disciplines. The final
framework is that of learning and the action-oriented learning processes. Each is
examined and the interrelatedness of the frameworks is explored.
The journey to produce this written material has been one of twists and turns, blind
alleys and blinding revelations, observation and reflection. My choice of techniques
has been eclectic, reflecting the breadth of theoretical material covered.