Organizational learning: A practical approach on intra- and inter-project learning : A case study in tranmission development projects

Abstract: Knowledge management has become one of the most important challenges inorganizations’ pursuit of competitiveness and long-term success. Essentialaspects of managing knowledge are its creation, transfer and retention.Organizational learning, which comprises these three processes, aims forimproving an organization’s performance. Hence, having an effective approachto organizational learning is crucial. In the literature, numerous guides, models and opinions on organizational learning exist, yet organizations struggle to learn from their experiences. This can be explained by the fact that the theory focuses on how to capture rather than how to apply learnings. Moreover, a description of a practical approach is lacking. Therefore, this thesis aims to develop a holistic strategy for an effective use of organizational learnings. For this purpose, a case study at the transmission development department ofa large Swedish commercial vehicle manufacturer was conducted. The statusquo of organizational learning as well as potential barriers to and drivers andenablers for an effective learning approach were investigated qualitatively. The data gathered was analyzed under the lens of organizational learning viewed from the outpost of social learning theory. Furthermore, Law and Chuah’s (2015b) theoretical framework for the study of organizational learning was applied. Great similarities between this study and previously conducted studies werediscovered. The research confirmed that even though organizationsacknowledge the value of organizational learning, they tend to lack an effective learning strategy. Learnings are seldom captured and applied even more rarely. One of the main reasons found is that the drivers for organizational learning, i.e. strong leaders, and a shared vision and mission, are poorly developed. These findings subsequently fed into the development of a learning strategy, which was adapted iteratively. It is designed to facilitate organizational learning in order to improve the learning outcome. For the learning strategy, the authors describe concrete learning actions as well as the underpinning drivers and enablers. The results of this thesis can serve as a springboard for further studies. The thesis opens up the possibility to examine the effectiveness of diverse strategies and to determine practical approaches to how organizational learning can be promoted. This study provides a relevant example for the setup of such a strategy and accentuates the importance of organizational learning.