| In order to stay competitive in a rapidly changing environment, organizations need to continually learn. Yet, the only way to create sustainable, ongoing organizational learning is by creating and consistently using organizational learning practices, which are ongoing processes, procedures, systems, and routines design to acquire and share the knowledge needed for organizations to innovate and learn. Although learning practices are the heart of organizational learning, they have received very little attention in the research literature. This study contributes to the scholarly and applied organizational learning literature by creating and validating an organizational learning practices scale containing 26 practical, generic learning practices that are relevant for most organizations. A field study with 245 participants from 29 functional departments in eight organizations was used to explore the relationship between learning practices, learning culture, leadership support of learning, and successful innovation. Learning practices were studied across multiple departments and multiple levels within each organization. A multi-method approach was used, including interviews with senior executives, HR professionals, and functional managers for each organization, and surveys completed by functional managers and non-supervisory employees for each department studied. Significant, positive relationships were found between learning culture, leadership, and the number of learning practices used by employees. In addition, a significant, positive relationship was found between the number of learning practices used and successful innovation, as well as between learning culture, leadership, and successful innovation. |
