Learning organization,organizational culture,and affective commitment in Malaysia: A person–organization fit theory

ABSTRACT

Based on person–organization fit theory, this article moves beyond theories of motivation and social exchange relationships that have often been used in commitment literature. This article contributes to understanding perceptions of organizational culture (OC) and affective commitment (AC) through perceptions of a learning organization (LO). Such understanding helps to tackle current commitment issues in Malaysia through strategic human resources development (HRD) planning and deploying organization development activities. We examined: (a) the extent to which organizations with an embraced LO mediated OC and AC, (b) the most influential component of OC in promoting employee AC, and (c) the most important component of LO for influencing OC and AC. We obtained 516 respondents (64.5% response rate) in selected Malaysian private organizations. It was concluded that LO mediated the relationship between OC and AC. Respect for people was an influential factor of OC for AC, while empowerment played a significant role in LO culture mediating the relationship between OC and AC. HRD practitioners should strategically plan organizational activities, norms, and policies that promote organizational learning processes and a learning culture to enhance AC.     

‘First,get to know them’: a relational view of organizational socialization

An important episode in workplace learning is the socialization of newly hired people into the organization. Typically, the literature conceptualizes the socialization of new employees as a learning process whereby the newcomer is responsible for learning to fit into the organization. This perspective seems to underestimate the social influences of co-workers and managers. Research and theorizing on social exchange and interpersonal relationships identify the quality of relationships between members of a group as a fundamental factor moderating the quality and outcomes of other interactions related to learning and work. This paper presents the findings of a recent study of organizational socialization experienced by new engineers recently hired into a large, global manufacturing company based in the US. Results of this qualitative case study explore and explain the socialization process from a relational perspective providing compelling evidence that relationship building is a primary driver of the socialization process in organizations.     

Implizite Theorien über Lernen und Veränderungen durch Coaching in Organisationen – Eine empirische Untersuchung

There are many different ways to understand and use coaching in organization which are influenced by the organizational culture with different basic assumptions about learning and change of humans. The question is on behalf of which implicit theory the members understand and develop their organization. The goal of the following investigation is to describe these implicit theories of change. Therefore a large sample of human resource managers were interviewed about assessment criteria for coaches, coaching topics, expectations on coaching, attitudes on coaching and the impact of coaching in their organization. The results show that there are no distinguishable patterns in the formal coaching processes but clear und different types of implicit theories about coaching. Finally some implication for coaching in organization and for external professional coaches were made.     

Organizational learning and knowledge in public service organizations: A systematic review of the literature

This paper is a systematic review of the literature on organizational learning and knowledge with relevance to public service organizations. Organizational learning and knowledge are important to public sector organizations, which share complex external challenges with private organizations, but have different drivers and goals for knowledge. The evidence shows that the concepts of organizational learning and knowledge are under-researched in relation to the public sector and, importantly, this raises wider questions about the extent to which context is taken into consideration in terms of learning and knowledge more generally across all sectors. A dynamic model of organizational learning within and across organizational boundaries is developed that depends on four sets of factors: features of the source organization; features of the recipient organization; the characteristics of the relationship between organizations; and the environmental context. The review concludes, first, that defining 'organization' is an important element of understanding organizational learning and knowledge. Second, public organizations constitute an important, distinctive context for the study of organizational learning and knowledge. Third, there continues to be an over-reliance on the private sector as the principal source of theoretical understanding and empirical research and this is conceptually limiting for the understanding of organizational learning and knowledge. Fourth, differences as well as similarities between organizational sectors require conceptualization and research that acknowledge sector-specific aims, values and structures. Finally, it is concluded that frameworks for explaining processes of organizational learning at different levels need to be sufficiently dynamic and complex to accommodate public organizations.     

Cross-cultural influences on organizational learning in MNCS: The case of Japanese companies in China

This paper draws on the social construction perspective and on social learning theory to examine the cross-cultural influences on organizational learning in MNCs. Social learning theory suggests that constructive engagement and member solidarity are key constituents of organization-based collective learning. Literature suggests, however, that cross-cultural differences in assumptions about social participation by organization members may impair organizational learning. The paper also reports a qualitative study, conducted at five Japanese-invested manufacturing companies in the Pearl River Delta, China. The research found that managers perceived Chinese frontline workers as lacking constructive engagement and member solidarity as compared with their Japanese counterparts, thus limiting organizational learning, and attributed these perceived differences to deep-seated cultural values. Attempts in two of the companies to ‘Japanize’ the workforces were reported to have had some impact, but appeared not to have substantially changed this picture. Urging caution regarding cross-cultural stereotyping and home country bias, we consider the implications for organizations with international manufacturing operations.     

Patterns of Strategic Change in Health Care: District Health Authorities Respond to AIDS*

The literature on strategic change is based mostly on research in the private sector. This paper suggests that change in public sector organizations is equally worthy of study and can offer novel insights. Findings from research into the development of services for HIV/AIDS in NHS health districts are used to illustrate six generic themes in strategic change processes. The first theme concerns the role of context in potentiating change, and in promoting a diverse response in different localities despite unifying government guidelines. A second theme introduces the initiators of change, the ‘product champions’, a less homogeneous group than is sometimes suggested. Although personal status, energy and pro-activity were shared characteristics, individuals differed in style and methods used to attain goals. Theme three highlights social movements as mediators of change. Consumerism has affected both private and public sector industry, but for HIV/AIDS the process has been particularly visible. The mobilising role of crisis comes next. A three phase model is suggested, linking ‘crisis-as-threat’ and ‘crisis-as-opportunity’ theories. A fifth theme concerns changes in organizational culture provoked by HIV/AIDS, and the role played by symbolism - often unpredictable and not easily manipulated by management. The last theme is organizational learning; how learning about HIV/AIDS diffused through the districts, and how well learning generalizes to other issues. In conclusion, it is argued that the study of processes of change in a public sector organization can contribute to general models of strategic change and help to develop organizational theory.     

企业环境下个人获取知识和输出知识能力对组织公民行为影响的研究

很多研究者关注企业组织环境下个体如何获取和输出知识、以及个体获取和输出知识与其前因和结果的关系,但是,这些研究至少在以下两方面有待进一步完善:一是未考察个体获取和输出知识对组织公民行为的作用机制,二是鲜有研究将获取知识和输出知识同时纳入研究范畴中。本研究的目的正是希望针对以上问题,考察企业环境中个体获取知识能力和输出知识能力对于组织公民行为的影响机制。对216个样本的实证研究结果表明,个人获取知识能力能够提升个人组织公民行为,而且这种影响是通过输出知识能力的完全中介作用实现的。本研究结果不仅丰富了个体学习和组织学习的相关理论,而且为企业推动组织学习提供了新的思路:企业管理实践中,只有在组织中对人们"获取知识"和"输出知识"齐抓共管,才能更好地促进个体组织公民行为,更好地建设学习型组织,推动组织的可持续生存和健康和谐发展。     

组织创新、组织学习与绩效——一个调节效应模型的实证分析

以我国珠江三角洲地区217家企业为调查对象,对组织创新、组织学习与绩效之间的互动影响,以及基于三者关系建立的调节效应模型进行了实证研究.层次回归分析结果表明,组织学习在组织创新与绩效关系之间确实具有显著的调节效应,说明组织学习的高低水平会影响组织创新与绩效之间的关系,企业组织学习的水平越高,组织创新对绩效的促进影响作用越显著.     

How organizations work: Taking a holistic approach to enterprise health

The factors that facilitate organizational learning have traditionally been analysed by organizational learning and, in particular, the learning organization literature. Following a literature review, we have identified fifteen factors. However, these factors have been considered as universal, in other words, applicable to any sector or industry. In this paper we determine the combinations of organizational learning facilitating factors in a specific sectoral context: the Spanish ceramic tile sector, through an exploratory and comparative case study of four companies that illustrate this sector. In addition, we relate the companies' combinations of factors to their strategies (Miles and Snow 1978). The study mainly reveals that: each business strategy category is related to certain factors; the organizations with the most facilitating factors are the most innovative (prospector and analyser); and becoming a prospector implies the distinctive existence of factors 1 and 2, which encompass openness to and capacity for innovative change, a culture that favours the contribution of discerning ideas and maximum attention to the environment.     

创业者个体学习、组织学习如何交互影响企业创新行为？——基于整合视角的纵向单案例研究

社会经济的不断发展促使分工愈发精细,对个人与组织间的技术隔离也愈加明显,亟待创业者个体及组织开展跨层次的交互学习以构建组织创新优势。基于此,本文援引学习理论与意义构建视角,从"行动"与"解释"出发,采用纵向单案例研究方法,基于"个体-组织"整合性分析框架,探究了不同创业阶段内跨层次行动主体间的学习互动模型,揭示了其对企业创新的影响路径。研究发现:创业者个体学习与组织学习间的互动,表现为渐变初期个体利用式学习经"自上而下"团队互动主导形成组织单环式行动;而在调整转变期,个体学习与组织学习发生交互影响,包含个体探索式学习经"横向协同式"团队互动主导形成组织双环式行动,以及组织双环式行动转换为单环式之后,经由持续反思与质询,刺激形成创业者个体利用式学习;最后,在发展突变期,个体利用式学习经"制度化统筹式"团队交互合作促成组织单环式行动,同时个体探索式学习经"跨越层次自主式"团队交互激活组织双环式学习。此外,在不同创业阶段,3种互动逻辑与意义构建框架下的创新决定机制呈现出以个体创意激发与扩散、信息整合与匹配以及平衡矛盾与冲突3种不同的影响路径展开的态势。本研究为创业学习理论和创业实践过程贡献了新的启示。     

创新互动框架下组织领地氛围对利用性技术创新的影响:一个被调节的中介模型

利用性技术创新是企业把已有的知识、技术和市场转化为商业价值的手段,能够塑造企业的竞争优势。本研究基于创新的互动观点和领地性理论探讨了组织领地氛围对企业利用性技术创新的影响,并识别出其发挥作用的中介机制和边界条件,由此构建出包括组织氛围(领地氛围)、组织结构(控制导向的HRM系统)和各部门主体(跨部门协调)在内的整合模型。本文以146家企业的2113名成员为样本,收集了多源数据,结果发现组织的领地氛围作为约束组织成员行为的"软"的要素会降低跨部门协调进而不利于利用性技术创新的实现。进一步,控制导向的HRM系统作为组织的结构性要素,是约束组织成员行为的"硬"的要素,能够通过调节跨部门协调与利用性技术创新之间的关系来缓冲领地氛围对利用性技术创新的消极的间接效应。研究结果对领地性理论、技术创新和HRM系统研究具有重要的理论意义。     

Risk, Trust, and Safety Culture in U.K. Train Operating Companies

Organizational safety culture reflects the attitudes and behaviors that individuals share in considering and reacting to hazards and risks. We first argue that trust is an underdeveloped and important concept in relation to theories of safety culture and high-reliability organizations. The article then reports findings from a two-year qualitative study of train operating companies (TOCs) in the United Kingdom, which sought to explore in detail the linkages between safety culture and the postprivatized railway industry. In-depth interviews and focus groups were carried out with a sample of over 500 employees, from four organizations, and representing all key functional levels. Our analysis suggests that the 1993 privatization, and subsequent organizational restructuring of the U.K. railway industry, has had important repercussions for both safety culture and trust relationships. We explore our findings in relation to three key constructs within "safe organizations" theories (namely, flexibility, commitment, and learning), and discuss how the safe organization model might be usefully supplemented by a consideration of trust issues.     

Brokering knowledge: Linking learning and innovation

This paper presents a model of innovation, knowledge brokering, that explains how some organizations are able to routinely innovate by recombining their past knowledge in new ways. While existing theories of organizational learning and innovation are useful, the links between them are crucial for understanding how existing knowledge becomes the raw materials from which individuals in organizations construct innovative solutions. This model develops these links by grounding processes of learning and innovation in the larger social context within which they occur. Using a microsociological perspective, this article draws together research spanning levels of analysis to explain innovation as the dissembling and reassembling of extant ideas, artifacts, and people. Previous research has suggested that firms spanning multiple domains may innovate by moving ideas from where they are known to where they are not, in the process creating new combinations of existing ideas. This paper more fully develops this process by linking the cognitive, social, and structural activities it comprises. Knowledge brokering involves exploiting the preconditions for innovation that reside within the larger social structure by bridging multiple domains, learning about the resources within those domains, linking that knowledge to new situations, and finally building new networks around the innovations that emerge from the process. This article also considers the origins of knowledge brokers as firms committed to this innovation strategy, the structural and cultural supports for the knowledge brokering process, and several obstacles to the process that these firms experience. Finally, I discuss the implications of this model for further research on innovation and learning, and the implications for other organizations seeking to establish their own capabilities for brokering knowledge.     

Linking business models with technological innovation performance through organizational learning

This study examines how business models affect technological innovation performance through the mediating role of organizational learning. Using hierarchical regression analysis with data from 173 Chinese manufacturing firms embedded in global manufacturing networks, this study shows that both efficiency-centered and novelty-centered business models affect organizational learning. The results also demonstrate that organizational learning fully mediates the relationship between efficiency-centered business models and technological innovation performance and partially mediates the relationship between novelty-centered business models and technological innovation performance. This study provides new insights into the influence of business models on technological innovation performance by showing the indirect influence of business models. This study may help managers better understand the influence of business models on technological innovation performance.     

学习型组织的组织结构特征与案例分析

系统综述分析了前人关于学习型组织结构的研究成果和观点. 基于作者提出的学习型 组织的6P - 1B 模型,提出了学习型组织的组织结构的5 个职能特征(functional characteris2 tics) ———信息/ 情报职能,创新职能,学习/ 培训职能,知识管理职能,变革/ 危机管理职能,以及 4 个形态特征(form characteristics) ———网络化/ 团队化,扁平化,市场/ 客户导向性,弹性/ 可重构 性. 并对这些特征分别用实际企业案例进行了分析说明. 最后提出了今后的研究方向     

Organizational Learning,knowledge creation,problem formulation and innovation in messy problems

This paper attempts to bring the discussion about knowledge creation, innovation and organizational learning to a level that addresses how messy problems are addressed and how the organizations must integrate the viewpoints of the key decision-makers, establish a process for testing their assumptions, include the context including the environment design, and to allow innovation and creativity to enter the choice of actions. It builds on the literature of problem formulation, innovation, and experimentation and on the articles in this special issue.     

学习型组织对企业绩效的影响研究

在回顾国内外学习型组织文献的基础上,检验了西方学习型组织模型及其测量工具“学习型组织问卷调查表”在中国的适用性,并得到中国环境下学习型组织由“支持个体学习以达成共同愿景”、“建立沟通与创新机制”、“鼓励团队学习与合作”、“倡导系统思考与战略领导”4个要素构成。同时采用平衡记分卡的思想开发了企业绩效评价问卷,为研究学习型组织与企业绩效的影响关系提供了绩效衡量工具,研究结果表明学习型组织对企业绩效有正向的影响作用,从而证明了创建学习型组织对提高企业绩效的必要性。     

学习型组织的学习能力系统、学习导向人力资源管理系统及其相互关系研究——自然科学基金项目（70272007）回顾和总结

主要回顾了国家自然科学基金项目学习型组织的学习能力系统、学习导向人力资源管理系统及其相互关系研究(70272007)所提出的理论观点和实际应用成果,包括组织学习和学习型组织的概念、模型、组织学习能力测量问卷OLCQ;学习导向人力资源管理系统的概念、维度、测量问卷LOHRMQ;学习导向人力资源管理对组织学习能力的影响;其他与人有关的管理措施对组织学习能力的影响;所提出的组织学习和学习型组织、学习导向人力资源管理的理论在中国企业的应用研究及研究发现。最后,介绍了取得的学术成果和实践成就,指出了未来的发展方向。     

The social construction of strategic coherence: Practices of enabling leadership

The construction of “strategic coherence,” defined as the development of a system of mutually compatible meanings among organization members about desirable organizational directions, is clearly a crucial issue for organizations. Yet, how to achieve it is in part an open question. While previous studies have considered how strategic coherence may emerge across top levels of management through strategic planning activities and negotiations among senior leaders, we know much less about the contribution of other actors and processes behind the scenes (in non-strategy roles). Drawing on an ethnographic study of a public hospital's planning and project management practices, this paper therefore focuses on the bundles of practices, people and tools through which strategic coherence can emerge across different levels and sectors in mundane activities. We build on the concept of “enabling leadership”, grounded in practice theories of leadership, as our analytical lens. The study reveals how strategic coherence is socially constructed by practices of ‘fueling’, ‘shaping’ and ‘entwining’ mutually compatible meanings, in interactions among diverse people and tools. We propose a grounded model of the construction of strategic coherence as the progressive socialization of meanings about organizational direction that is not just administered from the top, nor naturally emergent from the grass-roots, but that is a collective and inherently socio-material accomplishment of enabling leadership.     

Thank you!

The study focuses on the question of how HRD personnel employed in a large multinational company perceive learning at work. We are interested in how HR development staff describe learning at the individual, collective and organizational levels. The participants were Finnish and Chinese human resource professionals (n?=?17) who used an asynchronous web-based tool to study adult education. The empirical data consist of all the texts sent to a web-based discussion forum. The findings showed that the HRD practitioners' views of learning covered quite evenly all three levels of organizational learning. The practitioners paid special attention to practical learning taking place in connection with everyday work activities, to communication and collaborative learning and to the development of a learning organization. This reflects the multifaceted nature of learning at work and the necessity of using HRD to integrate individual- and organizational-level needs in order to enhance organizational learning. The participants frequently reported that they found this a demanding task that required a clear 'understanding of humans, people in the organizations and their learning'. If organizational learning is to meet its current challenges it should take note of messages like these from HRD practitioners, which emphasise the diversity of learning experiences. Promoting a shared understanding and especially awareness and recognition of the fundamental issues associated with learning at work is a possible first step.