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Under the evolving environment, a utility company is required to improve the operation and maintenance of its physical assets usually in the forms of an asset management program. This paper proposes an organisational learning model for the utility companies with respect to the asset management activities. CommonKADS is utilised as a tool to capture the knowledge associated with managing the assets from the learning processes of the utility company. A case study of Bangpakong power plant in Thailand is presented. The results show that by applying the proposed methodologies, the learning processes within the utility companies can be categorised and explained by five major learning steps of breakdown, corrective, preventive, predictive, and proactive maintenances.

The objectives of this study were to (1) establish whether a relationship exists between individuals’ perception of organisational culture, measured by the South African Cultural Instrument (2005) and lifelong learning, measured by the Dimensions of the Learning Organisation Questionnaire (2003); and (2) determine whether the participants differed with regard to these variables in terms of sociodemographic contextual factors such as age, race, gender, education, years of service, disability status and job level. A quantitative study, using primary data, was conducted on a convenient sample (N=257) of full-time public service officials in a South African public service organisation. Correlational and inferential statistical analyses revealed statistically significant positive relationships between individuals’ perception of organisational culture and lifelong learning. Significant differences were found in the perception of these variables for individuals with different years of service and for individuals of different age groups. The findings should contribute valuable knowledge to the field of organisational behaviour, which could be used to promote a lifelong learning culture in public service organisations. The study concludes with recommendations for future practice / Industrial & Organisational Psychology

The study proposed an evidence-based framework for designing and evaluating organisational learning and knowledge management processes to support continuously improving intentions of organisations such as hospitals. It demarcates the extant approaches to organisational learning including supporting technology into ‘rationalist’ and ‘emergent’ schools which utilise the dichotomy between the traditional healthcare managers’ roles and clinicians’ roles, and maintains that they are exclusively inadequate to accomplish transformative growth intentions, such as continuously improving patient care. The possibility of balancing the two schools for effective organisational learning design is not straightforward, and fails; because the balanced-view school is theoretically orientated and lack practical design to resolve power tensions entrenched in organisational structures. Prior attempts to address the organisational learning and knowledge management design and evaluation problematics in actuality have situated in the interpretivist traditions, only focusing on explanations of meanings. Critically, this is uncritical of power relations and orthodox practices. The theory of deferred action is applied in the context of critical research methods and methodology to expose the motivations behind the established organisational learning and knowledge management practices of Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH) which assumed rationality design conceptions. Ethnographic data was obtained and interpreted with combined critical hermeneutics and narrative analyses to question the extent of healthcare learning and knowledge management systems failures and unveil the unheard voices as force for change. The study makes many contributions to knowledge but the key ones are: (i) Practically, the participants accepted the study as a catalyst for (re)-designing healthcare learning and knowledge management systems to typify the acceptance of the theory of deferred action in practice; (ii) theoretically, the cohered emergent transformation (CET) model was developed from the theory of deferred action and validated with empirical data to explain how to plan strategically to achieve transformative growth objectives; and (iii) methodologically, the sense-making of the ethnographic data was explored with the combined critical hermeneutics and critical narrative analyses, the data interpretation lens from the critical theory and qualitative pluralism positions, to elucidate how the unheard emergent voices could bring change to the existing KATH learning and knowledge management processes for improved patient care.

The Catholic Education Office (CEO) Sydney is a large non-government education authority which administers the systemic, Catholic schools of the Archdiocese of Sydney, Australia. The system consists of 148 primary and secondary schools with an enrolment of some 62,000 students. The major research question was: What characteristics of a learning organization can be identified in the Catholic Education Office (CEO) Sydney and are these perceived to raise standards in systemic schools of the Archdiocese of Sydney? Like all western education systems the CEO Sydney is immersed in constant change and is expected to account for improving educational standards within the system. The learning organization with its emphasis on adaptability and continuous improvement was considered an appropriate framework within which to conduct this research. The study consisted of two main parts the first investigated the CEO Sydney as a learning organization using a survey questionnaire distributed, using a dedicated web site, to a sample of primary and secondary principals in the system and a smaller number of senior CEO Sydney personnel. The response rate was 91%. This was complemented by examination of relevant CEO Sydney documentation and policies. The definition of the learning organization adopted for the study consisted of eight characteristics each of which formed a scale in the questionnaire. The eight characteristics adopted were: ‘Systemic Thinking and Mental Models’, ‘Continuous Improvement of Work’, ‘Taking Initiatives and Risks’, ‘Ongoing Professional Development’, ‘Trusting and Collaborative Climate’, ‘Shared and Monitored Vision/Mission’, ‘Effective Communication Channels’ and ‘Team Work and Team Learning’. This part of the study was essentially a quantitative one, with the data subjected to descriptive, statistical analysis complemented by some clarifying and contextualising qualitative data. The second part of the study investigated the perceived relationship between the CEO Sydney and its learning organization characteristics and the standards in three curriculum outcome areas (religious education, literacy and numeracy). This part of the study was also quantitative using descriptive statistics complemented by Pearson correlation, multiple regression and canonical correlational analyses. Once again some relevant contextualising qualitative data was gathered. Five demographic groups (gender, role, region (principals only), years of experience as a principal and age) were examined to see if there were any differences in the extent to which the various learning organization characteristics and curriculum outcomes were identified by each group. The results of this study indicated that the CEO Sydney exhibited many of the characteristics of a learning organization with particular strengths in ‘Continuous Improvement of Work’, ‘Systemic Thinking and Mental Models’ and ‘Shared and Monitored Vision/Mission’. The weakest characteristic was ‘Taking Initiatives and Risks’. Demographic group analysis of this data revealed that there were no statistically significant differences in the responses of the different demographic groups. The results also indicated that there were correlations between the CEO Sydney as a learning organization and raising standards particularly in religious education and literacy and less so in numeracy. Finally, the study made a number of recommendations for the further development of the CEO Sydney as a learning organization and ways that it can further raise standards in the schools of the system.

Increasing competitions in the markets, companies are tending to acquire different potential competitive advantages. Cost-effective ways of doing business have been deeply underpinned in every leader’s minds. However, the problem is how to obtain the most cost-effective way to operate business apart from cutting costs or other strategies which only focus on short-term measures. Nowadays, employees’ creativity are claimed to be highly valuable for the organisation to become successful and sustainable. Since, we are interested in what kind of organisational structure, culture and working environment would have positive influence on employees’ creativity at work, how those working qualities are able for employees to increase their capability on creativity; and also the constraints of those working environment on employees’ creativity will also be discussed. To have a better understanding of our research area, a single case study is introduced as a tool helping us to get to know more about the real life and in a practical perspective. Since, a Swedish company has been chosen as our case study here. In order to reach the purpose of our study, our research questions focused on what factors in the organisation and what characteristics of leadership styles can beneficial to employees’ creativity, and the constraints of the organisation for the employees’ creativity. Based on our frame of reference and our research questions, we investigated the relevant literatures for our better understanding of the research area. It is also used as a guide for us to collecting data. We used qualitative single case study as our approach to acquire data and interviews were conducted with the IKEA managers. A qualitative inquiry method is used, entailing in-depth interviews with four employees of IKEA with different types of positions and departments. The results show that their impression and experience of the company vary in some aspects, as different positions might perceive differently.

The globalisation of economy, increase of employees’ mobility, the forthcoming shortage of people next 10 years and, hence, war for talented people are some of the most important problems of corporations today. This thesis has a purpose to show systematic picture of the organisation, which will be named as Talented Organisation, with appropriate conditions for having talented people within and developing their talents. Some assumption of the research discussed in this paper are about the talented people themselves as special, difficult to work with, but interesting for any organisation. They can create some problems for leadership and co-workers and at the same time represent the most important source of ideas and to be essential resource. It will be described the strategy for gaining the Talented Organisation which will facilitate the process of hiring talented people as well as will promote the utilisation of inner organisational potential: identifying, breeding, nurturing and retaining of talented people.

<p>The globalisation of economy, increase of employees’ mobility, the forthcoming shortage of people next 10 years and, hence, war for talented people are some of the most important problems of corporations today. This thesis has a purpose to show systematic picture of the organisation, which will be named as Talented Organisation, with appropriate conditions for having talented people within and developing their talents.</p><p>Some assumption of the research discussed in this paper are about the talented people themselves as special, difficult to work with, but interesting for any organisation. They can create some problems for leadership and co-workers and at the same time represent the most important source of ideas and to be essential resource.</p><p>It will be described the strategy for gaining the Talented Organisation which will facilitate the process of hiring talented people as well as will promote the utilisation of inner organisational potential: identifying, breeding, nurturing and retaining of talented people.</p>

<p>Increasing competitions in the markets, companies are tending to acquire different potential competitive advantages. Cost-effective ways of doing business have been deeply underpinned in every leader’s minds. However, the problem is how to obtain the most cost-effective way to operate business apart from cutting costs or other strategies which only focus on short-term measures. Nowadays, employees’ creativity are claimed to be highly valuable for the organisation to become successful and sustainable. Since, we are interested in what kind of organisational structure, culture and working environment would have positive influence on employees’ creativity at work, how those working qualities are able for employees to increase their capability on creativity; and also the constraints of those working environment on employees’ creativity will also be discussed.</p><p>To have a better understanding of our research area, a single case study is introduced as a tool helping us to get to know more about the real life and in a practical perspective. Since, a Swedish company has been chosen as our case study here.</p><p>In order to reach the purpose of our study, our research questions focused on what factors in the organisation and what characteristics of leadership styles can beneficial to employees’ creativity, and the constraints of the organisation for the employees’ creativity.</p><p>Based on our frame of reference and our research questions, we investigated the relevant literatures for our better understanding of the research area. It is also used as a guide for us to collecting data. We used qualitative single case study as our approach to acquire data and interviews were conducted with the IKEA managers.</p><p>A qualitative inquiry method is used, entailing in-depth interviews with four employees of IKEA with different types of positions and departments. The results show that their impression and experience of the company vary in some aspects, as different positions might perceive differently.</p>

The purpose of the study was to explore the role of organisational behaviour in establishing a corporate university in a large corporate in the construction industry. Studies have been conducted regarding the process steps in establishing a corporate university but a gap exists in the cohesive presentation of the various relationships and the behaviours that drive the successful implementation and sustained operation of a learning academy. An understanding of organisational behaviour at three levels (individual, group and organisational) is a critical success factor that provides the superstructure to the firm foundation provided by the right process steps. An in-depth, single case study research design was used by the researcher taking a qualitative approach from a complete member researcher perspective with an analytic autoethnographic orientation. Data collection comprised archival document review and semi-structured, in-depth interviews with senior executives and leadership on other levels in the organisation. Analysis was conducted with the assistance of a qualitative data analysis computer software package as well as through iterative coding and memo writing to surface patterns and themes. The study resulted in a framework reflecting a complex web of relationships and roles that included: context as a catalyst; leadership as a critical role player; academy structure as a key driver of learning; individuals as recipients and beneficiaries; key stakeholders and internal role players in the implementation of learning; and finally, organisational culture as the normative domain. The study concludes with propositions that encapsulate these relationships. The framework presenting a complex web of relationships and roles has expanded the existing theory of organisational learning by integrating and incorporating organisational behaviour theory to understand the role that behaviour on individual, group and organisational levels plays when establishing a corporate university. In addition, the framework provides insight into the role of an academy in promoting a culture of learning. Organisations can benefit from an insight into the behaviours which underpin the establishment of a corporate academy because such insight will more readily lead to successful implementation and the avoidance of costly mistakes. A corporate academy plays a key role in assisting organisations to build essential skills and capabilities particularly in times of increasing demand for competent and capable employees to execute strategy. The single ‘revelatory’ case study approach was conducted due to the unique opportunity presented when the researcher was tasked with establishing a corporate university in a large corporate in the construction industry. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / gm2014 / Human Resource Management / unrestricted