Factors Supporting Organizational Learning at the Individual Level:

Abstract

This research aimed to study the factors influencing the organizational learning of personnel of the Government Savings Bank at their headquarter, and to study the problems and obstacles they encounter, as well as to provide recommendations for organizational learning. This research is a cross - sectional study combining the quantitative and qualitative research.  The population of this study was 340 officers of the Government Savings Bank that have been working at the headquarters. The statistics applied were frequency, percentage, mean and standard deviation. Multiple regression analysis was applied in order to test the hypothesis of the study.  In terms of  qualitative research, the structured interviews with the management and the officers relating to the personnel development of the Bank and a review of the literature were applied together with the content analysis.

In terms of the qualitative research, the structured interviews on the management and the officers relating to the personnel development of the Bank and a review of the literature were applied together with the content analysis. It was found that the factors supporting organizational learning at the individual level (understanding of organizational learning, personnel motivation, personnel characteristic and information technology supporting organizational learning) were, in the overall picture, at a high level (x= 3.09) and organizational learning at the individual level was at a high level (Y= 2.98) .All independent variables explained organizational learning at the individual level at 53.8% (R²=0.538). Only two factors had positive relationships with organizational learning at the individual level at the significant level of 0.05: namely, understanding of organizational learning and organizational culture.

The problems and obstacles related to the organizational learning were that the personnel did not understand, had no skill with knowledge of, or attention to organizational learning, learning structure, or learning course. Some courses have never been applied in functions. Policy on monitoring and evaluation has never been set or implemented consistently and a clear objective for personnel learning has never been determined. As a result, there were no clear objectives for the operation.

The recommendations from this research are as follows: the management should play a supporting role by setting activities to develop the personnel continuously and should encourage self-learning of all individual. In addition, the management should support policies, knowledge dissemination, and understanding of courses via training by outsourcing facilitators. Additionally, the management should encourage teamwork and establish learning schedules including, includind monitoring learning activities on a regular basis. Management at all levels should be role models for creating knowledge-based cultures. In addition, the management should participate in all activities as much as possible in order to motivate the personnel. All personnel in the organization should be willing and ready to participat in activities and understand the objectives of organizational learning, while information technology should be applied to the training of personnel  and development in the form of the Web-based Training (WBT) as well.