Get the ball rolling, supervisors! How the culture of an organisation influences the way in which its employees learn.

Abstract

Problem: Much has been written about organisational culture. There is literature, for instance, on the culture of changing organisations. When organisations change, people have to learn. Also, we know about how organisations process information and in which way there is a connection between corporate culture and performance. However, not much is known about the influence of organisational culture on the way in which employees learn. Organisational culture is described as the perceptions about the work practices that a unit in an organisation may have, and determines, to an extent, how employees act. Method/results: This survey tries to inquire if the organisational culture does indeed influence the way in which is learned; and if so, which Learning Sources it influences. It does this by means of two questionnaires: one measures the organisational culture, the other determines which Learning Sources are most used by the employees. Using data from 47 filled in questionnaires, the organisational culture was determined and the Learning Sources most used were ‘supervisors at my company’, ‘co-workers and peers at my company’, ‘formal educational experiences’, ‘trial and error’, and ‘reading/self-study’. The influence of the organisational culture seems to exist only in the Learning Source ‘supervisors at my company’ (R2 = .49, p = <.001). Conclusion/discussion: Concluding, since the organisational culture has an influence on the Learning Source ‘learning from supervisors’, it may therefore be beneficial to the organisation to make special use of the supervisors when an organisation needs its employees to learn or develop their skills.

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