Project Environments
ATTITUDES
120 internal and external cultural factors that are presumed to be consistently in line with business principles (Nyhan et al., 2004). In reality, there are inconsistencies with the way organisational culture is taken at an individual level. In most cases, there are no rules in place regarding learning, therefore the implementation of learning structures or practices could be haphazard. Nyhan et al. (2004) argued that companies have concentrated considerably on developing systems that could influence the behaviour of workers to make them more productive. However, often little attention is paid to ensuring that individuals could also be personally developed so that their learning behaviour could eventually be useful to their work, their industry and their families (Nyhan et al., 2004). It has been recognised that businesses could have their own interests; however, individuals would also have to be considered in the strategy for learning because it could affect their job security or attitude to work (Nyhan et al., 2004). The main deficiency to learning is therefore a lack of attention to the workforce in terms of what they prefer at the operational level (Thomas, 2008).
4.11
Summary
For Qatari industry, the threat to the policy of organisational learning emanates from the difficulties in managing a largely migrant workforce dealing with complex issues, which are crucial to a KBE (Gardner, 2012). There are varying social, cultural, political and religious factors to consider in Qatar and the Persian Gulf at large (Kamrava & Babar, 2012). As a result, processes to manage people need to incorporate emotional intelligence as well as possible cross-cultural sensitivity to learning (Thomas, 2008), otherwise staff turnover could be a problem (Garcıa- Morales et al., 2007).
It could be argued that the contentment of locals is a threat in itself to the process of learning and the implementation of the learning process. Therefore, the overall risk for organisational learning starts with the organisational culture that has been embedded in the companies over the years (Kissi, Dainty & Liu, 2012). The operations of the industry need to be assessed in order to identify patterns concerning learning, innovation and commitment to learning, and behaviour, as well as the social, cultural and religious attitudes towards the drive to create, capture, share, use, and transfer knowledge (Kissi et al., 2012). The attitudes of the local workforce have a
121 significant role in assessing the implementation of learning in organisations. It is a complex issue considering that Qatar has workers from all corners of the world; as a result, this complexity needs to be managed otherwise any such learning process could be extremely difficult to implement (Ochieng, Price, Ruan, Egbu & Moore, 2013).
The ways in which organisations go about their operations is important to the learning process. If there is a standard approach to operational challenges, the learning process could also be standardised. For instance, Lyles (2014) explained that, if the current environment promotes learning though innovation, it is possible to apply the learning process. However, the skill levels may vary hence there may be no single approach, which could be ideal for everyone (Ajmal, Kekale & Takala, 2009). However, good practice can be established so that other organisations can benchmark the practice (Ajmal et al., 2009). Ultimately, the context wherein learning is to be applied to organisations can only be assessed by the industry; without contextual analysis, it could be difficult to implement organisational learning (Gieskes et al., 2002).
This chapter has discussed in-depth one of the main drivers for a knowledge-based economy, namely organisational learning. Knowledge management underpins organisational learning; therefore its implementation must be driven by initiatives that are backed by technology, strategy, leadership, and worker involvement. These tasks fall to individuals within organisations, but the participation of individuals to learn in the organisation is not enough. To enhance the effectiveness of individuals and organisations, a policy to actively involve workers is essential for Qatar’s economic growth. This chapter has also assessed the contextual factors that are necessary to implement organisational learning, and these include:
Integrating informal social networks with the formal structural networks between individuals.
Providing an enabling environment that could allow for structural as well as informational interaction between people
Human development
Guidelines and support
122 Lave and Wenger theorised the contextual entanglement of learning, and explained that the way people operate at an organisational level is driven by power and politics, creating islands of informal or formal structures whereby the implementation of learning depends on how well an organisation deals with these elements. Also, the Chapter provided a discussion on four schools of thought, namely, the economic, management, development, and/or the process perspectives. These schools of thought about organisational learning need to be useful in order to allow for a flexible way to develop learning at the organisational level, and thereby form a part of talent management.
From the previous and current chapters (Three and Four), this research can conclude that human development is the most influential factor in the process of managing knowledge and learning in an organisation to foster competitive advantage in a KBE. The next chapter will expand on the literature concerning talent management.
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