Description:

Today's rapidly changing work conditions demand more investigations into an innovative learning culture at companies than ever before. Reviewing existing literature and research on learning culture, evokes the impression of learning culture as a bewildering concept that somehow relates theory-driven cultural variables to the possibility to learn within an organisation without reconsidering if these variables string together in the corporate reality (Sonntag et al., 2004). As the whole organisation has to develop and support its own innovative learning culture, we need to study learning culture "in context" through the systematic analysis of instructional strategies and tools (Design-Based Research Collective, 2003). If research wants to help an organisation to design its own learning culture then research has to collaborate with the practitioners at all design phases, that means it is dependent on the knowledge and co-work of all organisational members (Shavelson et al., 2003).

This contribution presents an approach for design based research which enables an organisation to analyse its own learning culture. First, it aims to propose the methodical background of the development of a generic framework for learning culture, which meets the organisational requirements for corporate learning. This framework resulted from an ongoing German cross- company network cooperation of human resources specialists, scientists and managers and contains five components of a learning culture which focus on the empowerment of employees, the leadership support for learning, the organisational infrastructure for learning, the introduction of innovative learning methods and the systematic improvement of learning environments. Secondly, it presents the modification of this generic framework for the learning culture analysis of a telecommunication sector's company. The specific framework has been used to develop instruments and tools that measure the relevant aspects of the corporate learning culture by asking all stakeholders (employees, executives, educational staff, top management, staff association) of the company what they actually do and learn in their work setting.

Methodology or methods/research instruments or sources used:

This paper reports on expert workshops with representatives of all stakeholders of the company to validate the acquired findings on appropriate dimensions of learning culture and to develop instruments for assessment based on scientific knowledge. Thereon, a questionnaire was developed for employees which focuses on the individual employees' experience of the workplace as basis of assessment. Another version was developed for executives who have to assess the learning experiences of their employees. The instrument implies the five factors which were specified for the technical culture of the company.

In order to evaluate the learning culture at the company a complete inventory count at one subsidiary (which will release the learning management system in May 2005) was conducted in November 2005. The aim of the study was to evaluate the existing learning culture at one elected unit and to test the instrument in the field (including scale characteristics like reliability and factor analysis). The sample consisted of n= 1172 staff members whereas 1141 persons were employees and 131 persons were executives (basic population N=3090).

Conclusions or expected outcomes or findings:

The results show significant differences between various stakeholders or groups like employees and executives, external and internal staff, female and male. For example, employees assessed almost all items significantly lower then executives. Moreover, there exist a significant mismatch between the self-perception of executives concerning the factor on leadership support for learning and the heteronomous assessment of this factor by the employees. As an exception, both groups agree that the factor on organisational infrastructure for learning has to be improved.

The data interpretation was (again) discussed with representatives of all stakeholder groups to analyse together how they can improve the learning conditions in general and what role the learning management system can play for these improvements.

References:

• Collective, D.-B. R. (2003). Design-Based Research: An Emerging Paradigm for Educational Inquiry. Educational Researcher, 32 (1), 5-8.
• Shavelson, R. J., Phillips, D. C., Towne, L., & Feuer, M. J. (2003). On the Science of Education Design Studies. Educational Researcher, 32 (1), 25-28.
• Sonntag, K., Stegmaier, R., Schaper, N., & Friebe, J. (2004). Dem Lernen im Unternehmen auf der Spur: Operationalisierung von Lernkultur. Unterrichtswissenschaft, 32 (2), 104-127.