Cultivating Collaborative Improvement: An Action Learning Approach

As competitive pressure mounts to innovate in the global knowledge economy, many organizations are exploring new ways of collaborating with their supply chain partners. However, the process of implementing collaborative initiatives across disparate members of supply networks is fraught with difficulties. One approach designed to tackle the difficulties of organizational change and inter-organizational improvement in practice is `action learning¿. This paper examines the experiential lessons that arise when cultivating collaborative improvement in an interorganizational learning environment. The authors, acting as action researchers, facilitated a practical learning program in an Extended Manufacturing Enterprise involving a large system integrator in the automotive industry and three of its\ud suppliers. Based on this experience, a practical learning model is offered to promote and facilitate inter-organizational change as part of a collaborative improvement process

Gender Differences in Preference for Learning Environment Among Aviation Education Students

This study investigated whether differences existed between sex, male and female, for the preference of three different syllabi describing three different learning environments. Learning environments consisted of collaborative, and individual, with the individual sub-divided into competitive, and individual while co-varying participants for credit hours. 264 surveys were administered to students in freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior classes in order to collect preference, and demographic data. The surveys were presented as three fictional syllabi differing only in class grading format, and a paragraph on the instructional philosophy of the professor. Instructional philosophies described the proposed environment of the class by enforcing the individual, competitive, or collaborative instructional methods. According to recent literature, women were predicted to prefer collaborative classroom environments to individual/competitive classroom environments and males were predicted to prefer competitive/individual over collaborative classroom environments. Limitations for the present study were discussed as well as suggestions for future research

THE EFFECT OF LEARNING STRATEGIES AND LEARNING INDEPENDENCE ON LEARNING OUTCOMES IN LEARNING EVALUATION SUBJECT

Abstract. This study aims to find out and stress: (1) differences in learning outcomes between those taught with collaborative learning strategies with competitive learning strategies, (2) differences in student learning outcomes with different learning independence, and (3) interactions between learning strategies and independence learning about learning outcomes The research instrument is a test used to obtain learning outcomes and questionnaires to obtain data on learning independence. The analysis technique is two-way Anava at significance a = 0.05. The results showed: (1) the average learning outcomes of students taught with collaborative learning strategies = 28.15 higher than those taught with competitive learning strategies = 26.92, with Fcount = 29.57 > Ftable = 3.968, (2) the average student learning outcomes with high learning independence = 29.93 is higher than low learning independence = 25.94 with Fcount = 4.43 > Ftable = 3.968, and (3) there is an interaction between learning and independence learning strategies towards learning outcomes with Fcount = 7.18 > Ftable = 3.968. Keyword: Learning Strategies, Learning Independence, Learning Outcomes

Interorganizational Learning through Exploration and Exploitation Under Conditions of Goal Divergence in Private-Public Partnerships: A Case Study

In a time when interdependence in business becomes more prevalent and necessary to maintain and sustain competitive advantage, understanding the mechanisms by which businesses relate and collaboratively adapt become central to collaborative growth and mutual success. Learning becomes central to the adaptive process. Interorganizational learning is an often challenging result of collaborative efforts. The more different the organizations are from one another, the more challenging the adaptive process and interorganizational learning. This writing addresses some of the complexities involved in collaborative learning of organizations with divergent goals through the lens of exploration exploitation phenomena. It further addresses how interorganizational learning happens between organizations that are private and public in nature. This writing is a case study that answers the question of how organizations working in collaboratives learn from each other to attain mutually beneficial results by examining two such entities in a government and private partnership. This study extends concepts of interorganizational learning as well as provides guidelines for business entities seeking to attain or sustain learning organizations. It also provides a framework from which government entities may work synergistically with private enterprise to provide competitive service to their respective demographic

Knowledge, learning, networks and performance of firms in knowledge-based economies

The paper examines the issue of knowledge as a public good, and, therefore, the question of open knowledge. Moreover, it analyses the crucial relationship between knowledge and learning and, more specifically, the relationship between technological knowledge, learning and the environment. Thus the construct of absorptive capacity is investigated and the related dynamic capability approach is also considered. Finally, the paper looks at the networks and investigate the rationale of networking. Therefore, in this context, the paper discusses the issue of competition/collaboration duality, since alliance is also a complex phenomenon, where collaborative behaviours and competitive relations coexist; a more eclectic view is, thus, offered on this issue with the aim to provide a new theoretical framework of inter-firm relations.Firms; Knowledge; Learning; Networks