Session Information
Session 9A, Work Related Learning and CVT
Papers
Time:
2005-09-09
13:00-14:30
Room:
Arts E114
Chair:
Nick C. Boreham
Contribution
On the way to the knowledge economy, networks are becoming a usual form of company activities (Elgar, 2004). In many cases the emphasis of research still lies on the inter- organizational (e.g. clusters) rather than intra- organizational networks. However, the enterprises that seek to achieve the state of the learning organization try to establish the learning partnership networks inside their organization, thus enriching the organizational knowledge and competence both on the individual and organizational levels. As this is far from being an easy task, various problems are encountered. What is the relationship between the formal organizational structures and networks? What difficulties are faced by the organizations with the hierarchical structure in implementing the partnership networks? At what stage of the networking process is learning achieved - on individual and organizational levels? What conditions have to be created? Can enterprises in countries in transition, still facing intense social changes, expect to achieve the state of knowledge organizations, considering that the learning partnership networks is one of its main preconditions? A number of researchers (Garavan, Costine, Heraty, 1995; Gerlach, Palmer, 1981; White, 1967; Jay, 1964) analyze networks in their general sense. Many authors analyse networks from the management point of view (Van Wijk, Van Den Bosch and Volberda, 2003; Tichy, 1981, etc.), as the communities of learning (Child and Rodrigues, 2003; Plaskoff, 2003; Nonaka,1994) or in the aspect of the relationship between the organizational learning and knowledge management (Lyles and Easterby-Smith, 2003; Vera and Crossan, 2003). However, still there is a lack of research on the conditions and peculiarities of the functioning of the learning partnership networks inside the organizations. The aim of this paper is to present the peculiarities of learning partnership networks inside the company. Methodological background. Drawing on Tichy (1981) and Hall (1998), networks are primarily regarded as social capital. Particular attention is paid to the relations among the network actors, which are most accurately defined by the theory of social exchange (Blankenburg, Holm and Johanson, 1997). Learning in partnership is conceptualized as learning from your own activities, those of your partners as well as joint activities in partnership. The main method of such learning is reflection (Mc Gill and Beaty, 1995). Within reference to the social learning theory, learning is regarded as social participation. It means much more than mere communication with single individuals; the emphasis lies on the participation in community of practice and the construction of employee's identity in relationship with this community. In my research, a learning partnership network is regarded as a community of practice. The main method of the research is a questionnaire survey. The research relies on the original instrument created by the author that is briefly described in the paper. The sociometric method has been applied in identifying the relationships inside the network. The research was carried out in one of the largest Lithuanian manufacturing enterprises in the field of electronics, which is also one of the largest manufacturers of its product in Europe. It is in its third year of systemic development into the knowledge and learning organization. Three intra-organizational networks have been chosen for the survey: 1) top-management network, 2) network of department managers, and 3) network of managers in one of two largest manufacturing departments. The findings of the research are presented in the aspect of network profiles: 1) cohesion; 2) recognition of aims by the network actors; 3) type of partnership; 4) type of learning in the network activity - the context of aim implementation; individual and organizational levels; single-loop learning and double-loop learning; 5) the identification of roles inside the network 6) the atmosphere inside the network. The identification of the profile of every researched network and the comparison of three network profiles allowed determining the peculiarities of the learning partnership networks that are discussed in this paper. Some further questions are also submitted for the discussion, for example: can it be considered that the specificity of national environment, e.g. level of economic development, national cultural values etc. may have a strong impact on the peculiarities of the learning partnership networks in a specific enterprise? Or maybe it is the type of company activity and other characteristics of the company that are of greater importance?
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