CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION. Introduction

Transcription

1 1 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION Introduction The purpose of Chapter 1 is to provide the reader with a general background on learning organization, organizational culture and organizational identification. The significance of creating a learning organization is discussed initially followed by the discussion of how learning is influenced by the culture of an organization. The significance of organizational identification is further discussed and a new conceptual model relating learning, culture and identification is introduced. The statement of the problem underlying the need for the study is explained and the chapter concludes with the significance of the study and research questions. Significance of Creating a Learning Organization For an organization to survive, its rate of learning must be equal to, or greater than, the rate of change. - Rosemary Hill (1996) 122 The continuous change in the external environment have stimulated heavy competition between various organizations. Tremendous improvement in the customer requirements have become a great challenge and there is a need for all organizations to continuously improve the quality of their products and customer service to sustain in this competitive and dynamic

2 2 environment. The organizations need to fulfill the essential requirements for continuous improvement like learning something new and a commitment to learn. There arises the need to create a learning organization. The purpose of creating a learning organization is to enable the organization to search for new ideas, new problems and new opportunities for learning from which competitive advantage can be culled in an increasingly competitive world (Jennifer Rowley, 1998) 73. Learning organization enables organizations to adapt more quickly to environmental changes than their competitors, to be more creative and to allow lessons learned in the past to become important sources of knowledge for its members (Myra Hodgkinson, 2000) 101. The concept of Learning Organization acquired prominence in the UK with the work of Pedler and his co-workers in the late 1980 s culminating in the publication of their book, The Learning Company. Pedler and his team produced the oftquoted definition of the learning organization as, an organization which facilitates the learning of all its members and continuously transforms itself (Pedler, Boydell & Burgoyne, 1992) 109. Peter Senge in his book, The Fifth Discipline, described a learning organization as, one which is continually expanding its capacity to create its future (Peter M. Senge, 1990) 111.

3 3 Influence of Culture on Learning The success of creating a learning organization relies on understanding the factors that stimulates learning. An extensive study on the variables that stimulates organizational learning suggests that an organization s culture may facilitate or inhibit learning depending on its characteristics (Argyris, & Bate, ). Deshpande & Webster (1989) 38 and Schein (1990) 123 emphasize that it is important for an organization s culture to be supportive because it is difficult to develop and sustain appropriate learning behaviours if the corresponding organizational values are not in place. This suggests a synergistic relationship between the elements of culture and learning activities within the organization systems which support the learning organization. Significance of Organizational Identification While most theorists see culture as a means of supporting the learning organization, Richard Teare and Richard Dealtry (1998) 121 in their study identify that learning can serve the purpose of gaining competitive advantage only when it is able to enhance the sense of belongingness among the employees, so that the employees will be willing to accept and contribute to the learning that prevails in their organization. This sense of belongingness reflects in organizational identification of the employees. Ashforth and Mael (1989) 13 view identification as the perception of oneness with or belongingness to a group, involving direct or vicarious

4 4 experience of its successes and failures. Previous research relating to possible correlates of organizational identification has concluded that positive identification is related to lower employee turnover, decrease in inter-group conflict, and increase in worker compliance, motivation, involvement, and job satisfaction (Pratt, 1998) 116. The more an individual indentifies himself strongly with an organization, the more he will be willing to contribute to organizational learning. A final dimension is that learning should stimulate organizational identification among the employees for an organization to become a learning organization. Some of the theorists have also related the notion of organizational culture to that of organizational identification. Ashforth & Mael (1989) 13 explored that, when individuals perceive their values and beliefs to be common with the culture of the organization, their potential for identification is enhanced. This reveals a link between culture and identification. Since both the variables, learning and culture have been found to be related with identification; the influence of one variable on the other may increase or decrease the strength of organizational identification. Hence there is a need to explore how culture and learning interacts with each other in influencing organizational identification.

5 5 Assembling a New Conceptual Model: Organizational Learning, Culture and Identification The notions of organizational learning, organizational culture and organizational identification are widely recognized in the management literature. However, there have been relatively few empirical studies relating these concepts. The review of literature explains in detail the link between culture and learning, stating learning that occurs in an organization is influenced by the culture. This learning in turn enables a sense of prestige and privilege, elucidating organizational identification i.e. organizational identification is influenced by organizational learning. Moreover, organizational identification is also influenced by the dynamics of an organization s culture (Hatch & Schultz, 2002) 59. Consequently, the ability to gain a deeper and more integrated understanding of the interrelationship between learning and culture and their ultimate impact on identification is critical to theoreticians and practitioners alike. The purpose of this research study, then, is to develop a theoretical background supporting a new conceptual model integrating organizational learning, culture and identification and to test this new conceptual model for its fitness. Statement of the Problem There is a lot of excitement about learning organizations but not a lot of solid experience or case examples of how to go about becoming one. It is

6 6 well to remember that in one sense all companies are learning organizations: any company, which continues in business, must, at a minimum, have learned enough to survive. A lot of exploration is required to identify what makes a learning organization. The companies need to explore continuously the changes that is taking place in the external and the internal environment, understand the type of learning that is required by their organization, identify the variables that can effectively stimulate this learning and continuously measure the outcomes of learning. There is no blueprint for a learning organization. No company can simply be taken out to a visit or be given a program to install to become a learning organization. The companies can learn from what others are doing, and they can develop a plan, but it must be to some extent invented by the company, to fit the unique mix of people, products, processes, history, aspirations and culture. The Shortage of Research on Organizational Learning The theoretical literature related to the notion of organizational learning is abundant. However, there remains a surprising shortage of empirical research on organizational learning, and a notable absence of empirical research purposed specifically to link organizational learning to other important organizational constructs like culture and identification. Indeed, the absence of empirical research on organizational learning is considered by some to be a major weakness of the field (Easterby-Smith, Snell &

7 7 Gherardi, 1998) 46. The shortage of empirical research have also prompted some researchers to call for a much more aggressive development of valid and reliable measurement instruments purposed to measure the organizational learning construct (Crossan & Hulland, 1997) 32. The Shortage of Research on Identification Like organizational learning, the concepts of organizational identification have garnered extensive attention in the theoretical literature, and yet relatively few empirical studies relating to identification have been published (Dukerich, Golden & Shortell, 2002) 42. A limited number of research studies have linked perceived organizational image with organizational identification (Mael & Ashforth, ; Smidts, Pruyn, & van Riel, ). Notably, only one research study (Schrodt, 2002) 125 has attempted to link organizational culture to the strength of organizational identification. Significance of the Current Study As noted above, there is a clear deficiency of empirical research linking the notions of organizational learning, culture and identification. While the theoretical background relating the above concepts is abundant, it stimulates a need to conduct empirical research to gain an increased understanding of the interrelationship between organizational learning, organizational culture and organizational identification. For the reasons stated above, the purpose of this research study was to empirically examine

8 8 the relationship between the above concepts and to answer the following research questions: 1. What is the impact of organizational culture on organizational learning? 2. Whether culture and learning variables explain any variation in organizational identification? 3. How do culture and learning variables combine together to produce different dimensions of discrimination among employees with low, medium and high organizational identification? 4. Whether the relationship between observed variables suggest conceptually sound and statistically significant model? Conclusion Given the shortage of empirical research purposed to study the relationship between learning, culture and identification, this research study explored the contextual relationship between them. Chapter 2 provides a background of the insurance industry and the need for insurance companies to become a learning organization. Chapter 3 provides an in-depth review of the theoretical literature. Chapter 4 discusses the research design and methodology used in this research study. Chapter 5 presents the results and discussions and Chapter 6 describes the implications of the research study.