| Researchers, academicians and organization leaders have stated that the ability to learn has become increasingly important for success, and organizational knowledge is perhaps the most important resource in organizations. It is of value to society to find how to improve the ways of learning and of obtaining organizational knowledge. This dissertation reviews past literature, develops a conceptual model, develops measures to test the model, and conducts field research to validate the model.; The research question in this dissertation is: “What variables and conditions are related to knowledge gained by individuals in organizations and how is that knowledge used effectively by the organization to improve performance?”; The model developed contained three sources which influence organizational learning: (1) individual which include personal knowledge and creativity, (2) collective which include collective memory, synergy, and insight, and (3) structural that includes vision.; A field study was performed using a questionnaire as the research instrument. The Internet and a website were used to collect data which included 660 individuals in 8 organizations. The subjects selected were knowledge workers, and their organizations were knowledge intensive firms.; The data was evaluated in two parts. The first part has three subgroups: (1) all individuals together in common with a simple relation to success, (2) all individuals with the three groupings of learning influences previously described, and (3) all individuals with three types of success measures described below. The second major group was two industries used for a two-by-two matched comparison.; The results indicated that the hypotheses related to influences on organizational learning were statistically significant. Influences on learning do affect organizational success (with an R2 = .455, p < .000), and learning influences may be combined into three groupings (individual sources, collective sources, and structural sources). This result was indicated in the “all subject” evaluation as well as each of the two industry pairings (significantly different with p < .000). The model of this finding is found in Figure 1.; Finally, success indicators could be grouped into performance indicators which provided insight into organizational commitment, or “framed views”. The three influences affected framed views of success: (1) outward and product orientation (R2 = .383, p < .000), (2) inward and process orientation (R2 = .471, p < .000), and (3) financial orientation (R2 = .180, p < .007).; Future research opportunities abound. A stronger linkage to objective measures is very important to convince organizations to make changes. These measures then require metrics to be established, and then benchmark hurdles and best-in-class examples portrayed. Once achieved, greater organizational effectiveness should result. |
