Building a Learning Organization

{Excerpt} A learning organization values the role that learning can play in developing organizational effectiveness. It demonstrates this by having an inspiring vision for learning and a learning strategy that will support the organization in achieving its vision. For organizations wishing to remain relevant and thrive, learning better and faster is critically important. Many organizations apply quick and easy fixes often driven by technology. Most are futile attempts to create organizational change. However, organizational learning is neither possible nor sustainable without understanding what drives it. The figure below shows the subsystems of a learning organization: organization, people, knowledge, and technology. Each subsystem supports the others in magnifying the learning as it permeates across the system

Learning to Improve Software Processes: Making Sense of Practice

Software Process Improvement (SPI) programs are frequently considered to be planned in nature. However, there is recent evidence to suggest that SPI can be understood as a form of learning. Drawing on the organizational learning literature, this paper proposes an active learning perspective of improvements in processes. This view recognizes the various actors in the project to be reflective in their actions, making sense of the current context and thus designing their use of the process to best suit their needs at the time. The changes in the processes emerge through ongoing adjustments, experimentation and improvisation as developers and managers seek to improve their product development

Advances in Technology Enhanced Learning

‘Advances in Technology Enhanced Learning’ presents a range of research projects which aim to explore how to make engagement in learning (and teaching) more passionate. This interactive and experimental resource discusses innovations which pave the way to open collaboration at scale. The book introduces methodological and technological breakthroughs via twelve chapters to learners, instructors, and decision-makers in schools, universities, and workplaces. The Open University's Knowledge Media Institute and the EU TELMap project have brought together the luminaries from the European research area to showcase their vision of the future of learning with technology via their recent research project work. The projects discussed range widely over the Technology Enhanced Learning area from: environments for responsive open learning, work-based reflection, work-based social creativity, serious games and many more

On The Alliance of Executive Education and Research inInformation Management at the University of Amsterdam

Over the past fifteen years, Information Management (IM) has emerged as a management sub discipline, both in academic research and in practice. The creation of an Information Management Chair at the University of Amsterdam reflects the importance. What started as a chair in Information Systems on the periphery of the Faculties of Economics and Computer Science, now incorporates a fully integrated discipline in the Amsterdam graduate Business School. Its main activities are the running of Bachelors and Masters programs in Business Studies and Information Studies (both with a major in IM), the Executive Master in Information Management (EMIM) program and the PrimaVera (a playful acronym for PRogram in Information MAnagement at the uniVERsity of Amsterdam) research program. This research note predominantly deals with the combination of the latter two. IM is a young discipline, still struggling with its theoretical identity and its role and place in organizations. Our approach to IM is primarily aimed at keeping the significance of IM to practice (and hence overcoming the common belief that \u27academic\u27 stands for being \u27impractical\u27), yet conforming to and applying academic rigor to the discipline. This approach was shaped by 15 years of experience in aligning executive education and research. The incessant interaction of education and research and of university and business simultaneously is noticeably helpful in highlighting the very concept of IM and its constituent parts. Teaching at the frontline of an emerging discipline give rise to innovative combinations of learning and research in which the specific expertise of executive students as reflective practitioners is exploited. These observations are in line with the often-heard appeals to study and develop IM in innovative, generative and action-based ways. In this respect, traditional academic ivory tower approaches are too distant to be relevant to practice. This research note gives an account of the (as far as we are aware of: unique) combination of executive education and research in IM as it is practiced at the University of Amsterdam. To this end, we first elaborate on the joint learning model and notion of IM, after which we discuss the EMIM program in brief and the PrimaVera research program more at length

Building the Capacity of Capacity Builders: A Study of Management Support and Field-Building Organizations in the Nonprofit Sector

Provides an overview of the current state of management assistance, and promising capacity building practices. Examines the impact an MSO's own organizational capacity has on the quality of the services they provide. Includes recommendations

Competency maturing: a substantive theory of how senior information systems undergraduates develop their existing competencies and acquire additional competencies within an organic learning environment

There is a high demand for competent Information Systems (IS) / Information Technology (IT) graduates in a globalised knowledge-driven economy with rapidly evolving Information and Communication Technology (ICT). However, becoming a competent IS/IT graduate is not a once-off event because rapid technological changes require that IS/IT graduates continually strive to be up-to-date and relevant. Continuous updating of knowledge, keeping up-to-date, acquiring a diverse set of IS/IT/ICT competencies, and being competent is a problematic task globally, and requires building competencies comprising knowledge, skills, abilities and values. This thesis employs Classic Grounded Theory Methodology (CGTM) with a single case to identify the main concern of senior IS undergraduates during their learning process, and how they resolve the concern. Data were obtained from two diverse groups of senior IS undergraduate classes using multiple data collection methods, embedded in constant comparative analyses. Understanding what was going on in the substantive research area and explaining how the senior IS undergraduates' main concern was resolved was the focus of the data collection and conceptualisation. Through the single case exploratory CGTM study, the senior IS undergraduates' main concern emerged as a perceived lack of IS Competency, and the main concern was explored. A substantive theory of Competency Maturing conceptualises and explains how these students attempt to resolve their perceived lack of IS Competency. A substantive theory of Competency Maturing is a Basic Social Process (BSP) which involves engaging in learning by doing, and spontaneous learning within an organic learning environment. Three phases of the BSP of Competency Maturing are student engagement, self-awareness of competency, and self-development. This thesis recommends a Framework for a South African senior IS undergraduates' programme and offers a set of conceptual propositions developed from empirical data. The thesis makes theoretical and practical contributions to the IS education body of knowledge of student engagement, learning environment, senior IS undergraduates' curriculum development and competency development. A substantive theory of Competency Maturing is relevant to IS educators who wish to break away from traditional, teacher-centred approaches in higher education, and are willing to create learning environments where senior IS undergraduates are motivated to learn in rich, relevant and real-world contexts. The thesis contributes to IS educators who seek to understand how the learning environment and IS educational content influence and support student engagement and Competency Maturing. This thesis also offers IS educational practitioners an understanding of the educational content and a delivery style that can provide senior IS undergraduates with strong theoretical and practical foundations. The thesis's findings suggest that creating an organic learning environment can be a useful approach to developing more competent IS graduates

Transforming pedagogy using mobile Web 2.0

Blogs, wikis, podcasting, and a host of free, easy to use Web 2.0 social software provide opportunities for creating social constructivist learning environments focusing on student-centred learning and end-user content creation and sharing. Building on this foundation, mobile Web 2.0 has emerged as a viable teaching and learning tool, facilitating engaging learning environments that bridge multiple contexts. Today’s dual 3G and wifi-enabled smartphones provide a ubiquitous connection to mobile Web 2.0 social software and the ability to view, create, edit, upload, and share user generated Web 2.0 content. This article outlines how a Product Design course has moved from a traditional face-to-face, studio-based learning environment to one using mobile Web 2.0 technologies to enhance and engage students in a social constructivist learning paradigm. Keywords: m-learning; Web 2.0; pedagogy 2.0; social constructivism; product desig

Exploring the Role of Internships in Personal and Professional Development

Internships serve as an instrumental tool in many sport management students’ trajectory to becoming impactful employees and leaders in the sport industry. The purpose of this sequential mixed-methods study was to cultivate a better understanding of the development that occurs for students as they progress through an internship program, whether it be personal or professional. Internship outcomes related to personal and professional development alike occurred (e.g., personal maturing and growth, networking, and strategic reflection & change of mindset) and had an array of impacts on the outcomes of the study. Notably, contributing to the Experiential Learning Theory, the data outlined that no programmatic structures are in place to strategically build and/or assess students’ personal development; rather, personal development seemed to occur organically for certain participants in this study. Similarly, participants highlighted that soft skills were discussed as important by participants, but not necessarily explicitly addressed in their internship experience. The distinctive context and nature of COVID-19, embedded throughout these findings, provides a unique lens into the necessity of the abstract conceptualization and active experimentation phases of the Experiential Learning Cycle. The findings herein have important practical and theoretical implications for both sport management educators and internship supervisors in sport