Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Organizational learning Australia'

This multi-method study investigated the relationship between the dimensions of organizational learning, organizational innovation and organizational climate in the Australian Hotel Industry. The hotel industry was chosen as it is highly labour intensive and serves as a suitable environment to test the three dependent variables that are closely employee related. Data was collected from a total population sample of 800 respondents, employed in 50 hotels, which included 45 from a large International Brewery Group located in Melbourne and 5 independent hotels. The response rate was 75%. Organizational learning was measured using, the 34-item Organizational Learning Profile (OLP) scale (Pace et al, 1997) containing the four dimensions of OL (Achievement Mindset, Learning Practices, Information Sharing Patterns, and Inquiry Climate) was used. Organizational Innovation was measured using the 24- item Workplace Innovation Scale (WIS) (McMurray and Dorai, 2002) containing the four dimensions of Innovation (Organizational Innovation, Innovation Climate, Team Innovation and Individual Innovation). Organizational Climate (OC) was measured using the 40 item Koys and DeCotiis (1996) scale containing the eight dimensions of support, autonomy, pressure, cohesion, recognition, fairness, innovation and trust. Statistical analysis was carried out using SPSS (v.10) and qualitative data was analyzed using theme-category analysis. This study contributes to the management literature and extends the existing knowledge on learning, innovation and climate. Specifically the results show that the dimensions of organizational learning, innovation and climate are predictors of one another and it establishes a significant relationship between the dimensions of learning, innovation and climate. Furthermore, this study found that Workplace Survey is a valid and reliable scale to measure learning, innovation and climate. The recommendations made in this study will help management understand the importance of learning and innovation in the workplace. In turn, this will improve the organizational climate by facilitating learning and innovation among hotel employees.

Thesis (PhD) - Australian Graduate School of Entrepreneurship, Faculty of Business and Enterprise, Swinburne University of Technology, 2009.
A thesis is submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy, Faculty of Business and Enterprise, Swinburne University of Technology - 2009. Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (p. 225-238)

A significant number of engineers move into management positions, their numbers increasing with their length of service. However, engineers are not considered to be effective managers and are generally considered inadequate in soft skills. Given the centrality of engineers and management, understanding this transition is essential in order to develop strategies for managing. This research is an exploratory field-based study of the transition of professional engineers into management roles (engineer-managers) in Australia, from the perspective of the individual engineer. The study investigates the attitudes of engineers towards such areas as engineering education, towards managerial transition, status, organizational support systems, and strategies for managing transition, and examines their influence on the process of transition. Importantly, this research examines the influence of factors such as job nature, management qualifications, age, employing organizations, and other variables on their attitudes, and studies the differences between various subgroups of engineers. This research is based on the results of a case study and a questionnaire survey. An important outcome of this research is the focus on the process of engineering education. This research concludes that different emphases in the process of teaching and learning would contribute, in the long run, to engineers developing soft skills, and so make their transition into management easier. The study found that electrical engineers are more proactive than civil or mechanical engineers and that it is necessary to develop different strategies for different groups of engineers. The study observed that the higher the status of professional engineers within an organization, the greater was the likelihood of success. Supporting the anecdotal evidence from the case study, it is noted that the more engineers there are in management positions, the better the perception of senior management about their capabilities. This study found that management education for engineers has a strong influence, both in terms of their acquiring managerial skills as well as enhancing their status within their organization. Experiential learning, though, is the most common method by which engineers acquire managerial skills. The study also found that this is the least-managed strategy in Australian organizations; learning is left entirely to the individual. For engineers to be able to take advantage of experiential learning, better management is necessary
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Organizational ambidexterity is about developing necessary organizational capabilities to compete in new and changing markets that enable organizations to survive in the face of dynamic external environments. It is about finding a balance between exploring new knowledge and exploiting existing knowledge or capabilities. The research on ambidexterity has offered different mechanisms for pursuing ambidexterity, and has highlighted the pivotal role of organizations’ senior teams and leadership behaviors in balancing the conflicting demands of exploration and exploitation. Research has also shown that no universal best practices should be sought to resolve the dilemma but instead leaders need to understand the situational context to enable them to develop the capability to effectively adjust the internal context of their organizations to the demands of the dynamic external environment or context. However, exactly how these leaders actually manage the interfaces of exploration and exploitation and the inevitable conflicts that arise from these two conflicting activities in practice is less clear. This study tries to address this gap by using an organizational learning lens to investigate what leaders actually do to achieve ambidexterity. Research has shown that in terms of responding to the effects of the external context or environment, leaders need to pursue both cost-leadership (exploitation) and differentiation (exploration) strategies simultaneously to enable their organizations to compete competitively; they need to avoid “a stuck in the middle strategy” where they fail to successfully pursue either strategy. The aims of this thesis are thus twofold. The first aim is to examine the impact of external environments or contexts (i.e., competition, customer demands, development of technology, strategic partners, and government) on exploratory and exploitative innovation that organizations pursue. The second aim of this thesis, using Crossan et al.’s (1999) 4I framework, is to investigate how leaders facilitate organizational learning ambidexterity for the innovation they are pursuing. Leaders need to provide internal contextual support (i.e. strategy, structure, organizational culture, and resources) to facilitate learning in each of 4I phases in order to pursue innovation. Exploration of new knowledge (idea generation) is often associated with the intuition and interpretation phases of the 4I organizational learning process. Conversely, exploitation of existing knowledge (implementation) is closely linked to the process of institutionalization. One of the most challenging phases of the 4I framework is in the integrating phase, which requires trade-offs, particularly in resource allocation with individuals or groups often competing for scarce resources to explore and exploit. A qualitative approach was adopted to address the research aims of this study. Case studies of four large Australian service organizations were undertaken in an exploratory analysis of the complex phenomenon of ambidexterity for innovation to account for contextual differences. The reason for choosing large service organizations is that service organizations need to continuously explore new approaches to provide better service to their customers, but being large, these organizations often find it difficult to pursue innovation due to the complexity of their structures and bureaucracies. The service organizations studied are a regional private bank, a public university, a police academy, and a private hospital (having public-private partnership arrangements). These organizations had or are engaged in innovation. For the purpose of this study, innovation does not refer only to new services or practices in the industry but can also refer to something new to the organization being observed. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 29 organizational members from the four organizations, mostly from the top and middle managerial levels due to the significant importance of the leadership role in ambidextrous organizations. The interviews were complemented by the use of documentary sources, such as the organizations’ official websites, annual reports, and press releases. Interview data was classified thematically based on the predetermined framework of factors in the external and internal contexts and compared to the corresponding documentary sources to build interpretation for the within and cross-case analyses. The semi-structured interviews also allowed for any new or emerging themes to be considered. Findings emerging from this research indicate that a resource-constrained environment has compelled the four service organizations to achieve increased efficiency, which is often associated with process innovation or exploitation. This was a common theme across the organizations despite their different contexts. Interestingly, for the researched organizations, exploration in a resource-constrained environment can also relate to significant or radical process improvements to increase efficiency and therefore exploration is not simply about developing new products or services. For example, the researched organizations strived to achieve higher efficiency by pursuing radical technological-based innovation and adopting administrative innovation i.e. structural reform. Nevertheless, the cases revealed that while these organizations strived to pursue both cost-leadership (efficiency) and differentiation strategies simultaneously, they tended to focus on efficiency (exploitation) rather than on product differentiation (exploration) in the face of a resource–constrained environment. However, the relative optimal level of or balance between exploration and exploitation varied between these organizations due to their contextual differences. The tendency of focusing on cost-leadership or efficiency was higher among the public organizations (e.g. the public university) compared to their private counterparts (e.g. the regional private bank). Conversely, the competitive pressure for product innovation or differentiation was higher in private than public organizations. This thesis contributes to the discussion on organizational ambidexterity by demonstrating how the external context affects what leaders actually do to provide internal contextual support in order to facilitate organizational learning for both exploratory and exploitative innovation and thus achieve ambidexterity. It demonstrates that leaders should use the framework proposed in this study to consider their organization-specific contexts in managing ambidexterity for innovation because the combinations of and interplay between external and internal contexts vary among different organizations.

This thesis examines the research issue of universities as Learning Organization. It examines the research problem of “How can Australian universities become Learning Organization?” This thesis presents the findings from a qualitative study of two publicly funded universities based in Western Australia, using the convergent interview and multiple case study methodology. The 11 convergent interviews were used to establish the ten key dimensions of what, the researcher considered, are necessary for Australian universities to become Learning Organization. The 32 case studies were then used to confirm or disconfirm these ten key dimensions which are listed below: • Leadership • Vision • Organizational culture • Human resource management • Role in society • Accessibility • Resources • Innovation and creativity • Information Communication Technology • Global reach Of the ten key dimensions examined some, such as leadership, vision, Human Resource Management and having sufficient resources, were found to be clearly important to Australian universities becoming Learning Organization. While others, such as the global reach of a university and the accessibility to a university, presented with less clear findings, but still remain as part of the overall basis for Australian universities to become Learning Organization. The findings presented in this thesis represent the combined views of 32 staff members of two West Australian universities and provide many meaningful insights to the current state of two contemporary West Australian universities; one noted primarily as a research university and the other as primarily a teaching university. Finally, this thesis presents a model of what Australian universities could be, as Learning Organization.

This thesis examines the research issue of universities as Learning Organization. It examines the research problem of 'How can Australian universities become Learning Organization'? This thesis presents the findings from a qualitative study of two publicly funded universities based in Western Australia, using the convergent interview and multiple case study methodology. The 11 convergent interviews were used to establish the ten key dimensions of what, the researcher considered, are necessary for Australian universities to become Learning Organization. The 32 case studies were then used to confirm or disconfirm these ten key dimensions which are listed below: * Leadership * Vision * Organizational culture * Human resource management * Role in society * Accessibility * Resources * Innovation and creativity * Information Communication Technology * Global reach Of the ten key dimensions examined some, such as leadership, vision, Human Resource Management and having sufficient resources, were found to be clearly important to Australian universities becoming Learning Organization. While others, such as the global reach of a university and the accessibility to a university, presented with less clear findings, but still remain as part of the overall basis for Australian universities to become Learning Organization. The findings presented in this thesis represent the combined views of 32 staff members of two West Australian universities and provide many meaningful insights to the current state of two contemporary West Australian universities; one noted primarily as a research university and the other as primarily a teaching university. Finally, this thesis presents a model of what Australian universities could be, as Learning Organization.

This thesis examines the research issue of universities as Learning Organization. It examines the research problem of 'How can Australian universities become Learning Organization'? This thesis presents the findings from a qualitative study of two publicly funded universities based in Western Australia, using the convergent interview and multiple case study methodology. The 11 convergent interviews were used to establish the ten key dimensions of what, the researcher considered, are necessary for Australian universities to become Learning Organization. The 32 case studies were then used to confirm or disconfirm these ten key dimensions which are listed below: * Leadership * Vision * Organizational culture * Human resource management * Role in society * Accessibility * Resources * Innovation and creativity * Information Communication Technology * Global reach Of the ten key dimensions examined some, such as leadership, vision, Human Resource Management and having sufficient resources, were found to be clearly important to Australian universities becoming Learning Organization. While others, such as the global reach of a university and the accessibility to a university, presented with less clear findings, but still remain as part of the overall basis for Australian universities to become Learning Organization. The findings presented in this thesis represent the combined views of 32 staff members of two West Australian universities and provide many meaningful insights to the current state of two contemporary West Australian universities; one noted primarily as a research university and the other as primarily a teaching university. Finally, this thesis presents a model of what Australian universities could be, as Learning Organization.

In 1995 a Federal Government Report, Enterprising Nation: Renewing Australia?s Managers to Meet the Challenges of the Asia-Pacific Century (Karpin, 1995) was published. One of the key themes of this report was that "The "learning organisation" will be standard philosophy for many Australian enterprises and a major way they cope with change and turbulence. Managers will create conditions conducive to learning for both individuals and the enterprise as a whole, within and between groups, across individual business units and between enterprises and their external environments." There is a dearth of published literature internationally, not only on clubs and the degree to which they are learning organizations but organizations in general. A systematic search of the literature identified only one published report in which there was an in-depth exploration of an organization to determine if it was a learning organization. Therefore, this study has a dual purpose. Firstly, it provides an in-depth study of a specific industry; and secondly it helps to fill a knowledge gap in the study of organizations. This study has used as its theoretical framework Marquardt?s (2002) learning organization model to determine the extent to which the characteristics of the learning organization are perceived to apply to a group of clubs in a regional area of Australia. The study has used a survey method utilising the Learning Organization Profile (LOP) questionnaire developed by Marquardt (1996) and validated by Griego, Geroy and Wright (2000) and interviews with the CEOs and Human Resource Managers from four clubs. The LOP was distributed to permanent staff working in these clubs resulting in 36% of the LOPs being returned. Statistical analysis of the returned LOPs indicated that the clubs had not adopted the characteristics of the learning organization to any great extent. The clubs divided into two groups. The perceptions of staff from two clubs were that the clubs had adopted learning organization characteristics to a minor extent. The perceptions of staff from the other two clubs was that the two clubs had adopted learning organization characteristics to a moderate extent. In all cases the pattern of perceptions of staff represented differences of degree rather than fundamental differences. When the data obtained from the managers were examined, managers perceptions were that the clubs had adopted the characteristics of a learning organization to a moderate extent. These results compare favourably with the results of the Byers study (1999), which found that the perceptions of senior managers in Australian organizations were that the characteristics of a learning organization applied to a moderate extent. The perceptions of non-managers were that the characteristics applied to a minor extent. Statistical analysis of the data indicated that there were no significant differences between managers and non-managers, with the differences being in the degree rather than there being any fundamental differences.

Increasingly school principals are more accountable for the performance of both their staff and students. In Australia and most OECD countries, the performance management process is identified as a mandatory vehicle for accountability and improving teacher professional development to advance student achievements. Yet, professional development is identified as a secondary discourse in performance management models, while accountability is arguably the dominant discourse. The purpose of this portfolio is the development of a blended performance management model that meets teachers' needs. The model seeks to shift the emphasis from accountability to professional development and bring the two discourses into a more compatible relationship.

This study is concerned with workers, workplace learning and organisations. In the current climate of techno-logisation and globalisation, change is constant. Consequently, development of workers??? capacity to grow and adapt is essential for both the employability of the individual, and the economic survival of organisations. Capacity is considered essential because it encompasses more than current ability, it enables the growth of innovative approaches to work, which are required to adapt to change. Learning is central to capacity-development and so learning skills and related ???general skills??? are vital, but these skills must be developed in a specific context to be useful tools. Learning involves balancing the chaos of uncertainty and the old grooves of experience. Learning also involves personal growth. This study explores ways of helping workers develop capacity and especially learning skills, in a context of complexity, to meet the demands of their changing environment. The methodological approach taken is two fold, including both a conceptual and an empirical component. Firstly, a framework, based on conceptual innovation, is constructed to direct the design of workplace-based programs aimed at developing workers??? capacity. This is done as guidance in tailoring a program that promotes the development of an understanding of the necessary skills and knowledge in the context of the work undertaken, how to use them effectively, and the impact they have on the worker and their environment. It is contended that this framework promotes continued and sustained growth in workers??? skills and adaptability, that is, it develops capacity. Secondly, fieldwork based on a program developed for a group of tax administrators to instantiate this framework is reported. The findings show that this workplace-based program designed for the Australian Taxation Office has precipitated the development of the participant workers??? capacity, and in so doing, has shown the empirical significance of the conceptual innovation. Finally, the broader implications of developing workers??? capacity are explored. These include the need for organisational support for workers??? capacity-development, the possibility of the development of a learning culture in organisations, and the general applicability of the framework to other organisations, professions, and industries.

Australian policy contexts are promoting school transformation through teacher learning and the development of schools as professional learning communities. However, Australian practitioners have very limited contextualised research to guide their efforts in response to these policies. The researcher's involvement in a school revitalisation process provided the impetus for this research study that investigates the practitioner experience of a developing professional learning community at RI College (pseudonym for a large independent girls' school in Brisbane). This study endeavours to gain a more informed and sophisticated understanding of developing a professional learning community with the intention of 'living' this vision of RI College as a professional learning community. Praxis-oriented research questions focus on the practitioner conceptualisation of their school as a developing professional community and their experience of supporting/hindering strategies and structures. The study gives voice to this practitioner experience through the emerging participatory/co-operative research paradigm, an epistemology of participative inquiry, a research methodology of co-operative inquiry and mixed methods data collection strategies. Incorporating ten practitioner inquiries over two years, recursive cycles of action/reflection engaged practitioners as co-researchers in the collaborative reflective processes of a professional learning community while generating knowledge about the conceptualisation and supporting/hindering influences on its development. The outcomes of these first-person and second-person inquiries, together with a researcher devised online survey of teachers, were both informative and transformative in nature and led to the development of the researcher's theoretical perspectives in response to the study's research questions.;As outcomes of co-operative inquiry, these theoretical perspectives inform the researcher's future actions and offer insights into existing propositional knowledge in the field. Engagement in this practitioner inquiry research has had significant transformative outcomes for the co-researchers and has demonstrated the power of collaborative inquiry in promoting collective and individual professional learning and personal growth.

Due to high costs and high failure rates of mining projects, companies frequently enter strategic alliances to share risks and pool resources. This need is even more pronounced for new firms due to liabilities of newness and smallness. This thesis is a step toward extending our understanding of the alliance portfolio emergence in newly founded firms. I have studied the parental imprinting influence on the antecedents, dynamics and outcomes of alliance network growth in young spinoff firms. I have conducted longitudinal analysis using a panel data of 10 years by a synthesis of multiple datasets.

This thesis investigates issues of learning, innovation and growth by considering arguments from disparate schools of theory, and by an empirical investigation. The development of new growth theory models that demonstrate sustained growth driven by endogenous learning and innovation is reviewed. The importance of learning to the growth mechanisms of many of these models suggests that the new growth theories may have a contribution to make on the understanding of learning in industry. However, it is found that, in focusing on advancing neoclassical growth theory, the new growth theories have introduced learning in scenarios that are schematic and designed to suit the modelling enterprise rather than to capture the nature and process of learning in industry.