In this paper we consider the results of a pilot study on Learning Organisations and Knowledge Management carried out in the University sector. Due to time constraints the survey was distributed in both a short and long form. Not all organisations completed both. This pilot study is part of a larger project which is still under way and will consider various case studies as well as an in-depth survey of UK business.

The shortened survey form concentrated on asking questions about Learning Organisations and Knowledge Management and it is from these results that we draw the discussion below.

Our starting point for this project had both a practical and theoretical aspect. The practical research developed into the form of a set of wide-ranging questions based around our wish to find out what organisations believed about the concepts of the learning organisation and of knowledge management. We wanted to discover what the organisations understood by the terms and how this matched their own activities. This would allow us to place the empirical data into a conceptual framework and to see how far the terms had penetrated into the workplace, and also, how well the theory matched with organisational belief.

We considered it likely that "not all learning organisations will have knowledge management systems that are expressly thought of as such. It thus becomes important through the questions we ask and the way that we undertake the research, to discover the real use and purpose of whatever information systems exist in the organisation, regardless of what the expressed purpose or use might be." (Coakes and Sugden 1998). This viewpoint led us to our second set of questions that aimed to consider:

1. How crucial is CIS and ICT to supporting and developing organisational knowledge and learning?
2. What are the major areas of knowledge and learning that CIS and ICT supports?
3. Whose responsibility is it to ensure that CIS and ICT supports organisational knowledge and learning?

Since many of our questions were centred round the use of CIS and ICT we also wanted to explore the implications and effects of outsourcing for organisational learning. lthough this aspect is not analysed in this paper.

Our theoretical research lies in the form of an ongoing literature search that should enable us to draw conclusions that are predicated on the latest writing on the main topics. We are thus able to ground our empirical data in conceptual theory and develop these as they apply to our findings.

Roth (1999 discusses the role of ICT as an enabling and supporting tool for learning. He says that most of the knowledge management efforts have been focused on the easiest part of the learning system – the codifying, archiving and retrieving of information. Thinking of knowledge as something that can be stored and retrieved, confuses it with information. Knowledge is the capacity of an organisation and its staff to act effectively. It is related to their capabilities. Learning being the process by which the people and organisation enhance these capabilities.

Andrew Mayo (1999) discusses the concept of intellectual capital and gives three commonly accepted divisions:

1. Customer and market-related capital, such as brands, image, contracts, loyalty and market share;
2. Infrastructure capital which includes systems, patents, culture and knowledge;
3. Human capital, such as expertise, motivation, commitment, teamwork and leadership.

He says that it is the creation and transfer of knowledge between people that causes the other components to grow, to transfer this knowledge into the organisation’s ‘hard-wiring’ allows tacit knowledge to be available to all. Clearly looking at point 2 above, the systems with which organisations work, which would include the ICT systems, are part of the means by which this knowledge is transferred.

Roy Harrison of the IPD would go so far as to say (1999) that knowledge is treated as a commodity and often confused with data. People are seen as a constraint. Knowledge Management has so far often been treated as an issue for IS specialists and has been focused on data and communications systems thus missing out on the more holistic elements of the organisation as mentioned in point 3 above. It is the human element that contains the knowledge after all, and it is the human element that transfers the knowledge into the organisation and thus enables the organisation to learn.

Pilot survey

Following the reception of our presentation at BIT98 (Coakes & Sugden 1998) we decided to concentrate our pilot study on the university sector, and this we have done over the past few months. Our perception was, and still is, that most institutions in the university sector have insufficient funds to explore and exploit the potential uses of new technology or the development of information systems adequate for the administration of the individual organisation or the development of its core business.

This means that our pilot has been conducted within a narrow organisational configuration – essentially what Mintzberg has described as a professional bureaucracy – where some central control is reduced to enable an increase in the autonomy of the staff. In the case of universities this provides more opportunity for individuals to pursue their research interests and use their own particular skills and expertise to further the interests of the organisation. Essentially though, organisations of this type tend towards a bureaucratic stance, since there are controls and rules that overarch any perceived autonomy.

Both the new and the old universities are now being forced to operate in a far less stable environment where traditional boundaries are being broken down as stakeholders, in the form of Government and students, demand a greater say in the standards and content of the higher education system. Additionally, the past decade has seen a function change towards a mass higher education system in the UK, evidenced by the change in participation rates, quoted in Scott (1997:38) as a rise from 17% to 32% between 1987 to 1995. Both the external and the internal environment has and is changing, and provides an interesting area for looking at concepts of learning organisations. According to Bahlmann "an organisation in a turbulent environment has to be a learning organisation in order to survive".

So, what is the viewpoint on what you need to be a learning organisation in the literature? Senge’s view in 1992 was that to come into this category an organisation needed to be one where people could continually expand their abilities to create positive organisational outcomes, where learning was a continuous, collaborative, supportive and supported process. Current views have developed the idea of the Learning Organisation in a way that places emphasis on the human aspect of organisations, qualities of leadership, and the right culture. Kofman & Senge (1995) believe a "learning organisation must be grounded in three foundations:

(1) a culture based on transcendent human values of love, wonder, humility, and compassion;" that is seeing that there are other viewpoints than your own.

(2) "a set of practices for generative conversation and co-ordinated action;", that is a place where dialogue is encouraged in order to find deeper understanding of problems as opposed to a ‘quick fix’.

And, finally,

(3) "a capacity to see and work with the flow of life as a system." This implies that what they know takes "second place to what they can learn", the "dynamic equilibrium between holding on and letting go of beliefs, assumptions and certainties." We must also consider values and cultural beliefs as part of the ‘right culture’ discussed above.

For any organisation to achieve this Kofman & Senge (ibid) put stress on the need for leadership, but with a style that is collective, that includes rather than excludes members of the organisation.

On similar lines Bahlmann (1990) suggests that learning will only take place where structures are simple with little hierarchy, and "where there is room for individuals, where a collision of opinions is cultivated". She believes that in stable environments a traditional ‘systems approach’ may be feasible to the understanding of organisations. However, once change in the environment becomes discontinuous then ‘second generation systems theory’ is more relevant. Aspects that are of importance here are ""self-organisation, a complex culture, a simple structure and emerging, proactive strategies." Once again the emphasis is on people and the building of the right culture.

Wendy Hirsch quoted in Littlefield 1999, says that there are 3 possible approaches to becoming a learning organisation:

1. A top-down approach characterised by a high profile strategy led by management;
2. A bottom-up approach where employees lead the process through surveys, opinion groups and similar;
3. An anarchic strategy involving a combination of 1 and 2 with elements of surprise.

This latter option is the most informal and has been taken up enthusiastically by organisations such as the Dunchurch Management College (owned by GEC). They have developed business improvement groups; organisation improvement groups; a virtual learning centre; process mapping; a learning table (in the restaurant, for free lunches provided you discuss learning); mentoring and shadowing; reviewing; a newsletter; a learning notice board and partnering, as means of encouraging their organisation to learn. This strategy clearly fits closely with Bahlmann’s (ibid) ideas and shows that learning and an organisation that learns can have little to do with the ICT that is supporting that organisation.

Whilst these practical approaches are clearly valid they still do not take explicit account of the need for both single-loop and double-loop learning. This concept, derived from cybernetics, is discussed by Morgan (1997) and again by Bahlmann (1990). Single-loop learning permits organisations to monitor the environment and compare the findings against internal norms and then initiate some appropriate action. Double-loop learning includes the process of questioning the internal norms.

Many organisations become ‘good’ at single-loop learning but fail to progress to the second stage, because Morgan suggests, they neglect the need to "challenge basic paradigms and operating norms". He goes on to say that "failure is especially true of bureaucratized organisations, whose fundamental organising principles often operate in a way that actually obstructs the learning process." We wonder, based on experiences in our own institution, which have been mirrored elsewhere, if there is evidence that much of the major change that occurs is an example of single-loop learning, which appears to be no more than following a lead picked up from elsewhere. Monitoring of what goes on in the surrounding, and relevant educational environment takes place, and a decision is then made to follow. Examples of this appear to have been the more or less national move to semesterisation and modularisation in the new universities. Views on the form the change will take are discussed but the appropriateness of the change itself, or the decision to make that change, is generally imposed by senior management with little or no justification given.

A further indication that universities may not be learning organisations comes to mind in relation to the process of change to modularisation, or indeed any other form of major change. Most institutions have developed and devised their own systems and written their own regulations. The writers’ experiences as external examiners indicate that similar difficulties arise from institution to institution. Yet the minimum of contact takes place between representative colleagues across institutions, so that each one has ‘reinvented the wheel’, whereas in many cases people could have been alerted to some of the worst pitfalls by making one or two phonecalls.

Another example may be that of building a framework of organisational learning. Nonaka & Takeuchi (1995) suggest that "Organisational learning is the process of change in individual and shared thought and action". George Roth comments in the Financial Times (ibid) that one of the worst gaps is between experience and learning. He goes on to say that in the organisations he studied there was little or no feedback and no collective reflection. This meant that there was no basis for organisational learning. Within our own organisation there are several examples of failure to build on learning and experimentation that has already taken place in the use of technology by individuals within the institution. We wonder whether this is especially associated with technology or whether many people learn best through personal experience and find picking up where others have left off is personally unsatisfactory and not the shortcut it may at first appear.

This pilot study selected a sample from the university sector to survey about issues of knowledge management and the learning organisation. In total we had 14 organisational responses including one coming from Germany as a result of an e-mail query to a mail list (some responses were multiples from the same organisation; these are counted as one response in our analysis). Thirteen of the responses were from UK universities (a 28% return on those contacted as not all universities were invited to complete the survey), three were 'old' universities and six were 'new' or 'modern' universities i.e. post 1992 incorporation, the remainder did not specify their university name on their returns and so we were unable to judge their organisational background .

For the purposes of this paper we have ignored the German responses and concentrated on the UK responses. Not all respondents answered all questions.

We found that there were differences between the old universities and the new universities in particular, as figure one below shows, the income of the different types of universities was also different. The three universities, in our sample, that have incomes above 100 million a pounds per annum were all old universities. Some respondents were unable to tell us the income of their university and so they are not represented on this chart.

Our results (see figures two and three) showed that only one university employed a chief knowledge officer (CKO) and only two had knowledge or expertise centres, once again these were the three old universities. One further university claimed to have a Principal who was their CKO, but we cannot judge their organisational type as we did not have their name. However in our sample all the universities responding used an Internet and the World Wide Web for disseminating knowledge amongst their employees.

Figure 2

Figure 3

The responses from all universities when we asked if they felt that their organisation was a "learning organisation" were interesting. Nine universities replied that yes, their institutions were learning organisations, four replied that they were not, but they had very different views of what a 'learning organisation' was. This was shown by the answers to our next question which was to define the phrase "learning organisation". Four respondents were unable to define the term even though they had claimed that their university was such an organisation.

1. An organisation that provides an environment for Education, be it through distance learning or "chalk and talk" or whatever etc.
2. An organisation which is concerned with delivering and assessing learning in teams.
3. The organisation continually tries to improve on the basis of learning by its members.
4. An organisation that continually evolves.

5. The organisation is changing and the role of the people is changing.

The first two definitions are closely related to the function of a university and not to the definitions of what an organisation that learns might be as shown in the sections above. The final two definitions tell us what might happen in a learning organisation but not what are the characteristics of such an organisation.

The respondents who claimed that their organisation was not a learning organisation defined this as:

1. A self-conscious awareness of the need to develop learning and knowledge.
2. One which adapts its infrastructure to exploit new IT.

The latter definition relates strongly to the criticisms of KM offered by Roy Harrison above, in the idea that organisational learning and the management of knowledge has been high-jacked by the IS and ICT specialists.

The remainder of the respondents were unable to define the term.

We also asked our respondents what they understand by the term 'knowledge management'. Our responses included the following:

1. Technology to capture and communicate knowledge.
2. Ability to reliably deliver information to whoever needs it.
3. Collection and dissemination of knowledge.
4. Abstracting and/or consolidating corporate information.
5. Recognising that information and expertise are valuable assets and controlling them
6. Treating knowledge as a tangible asset to be managed like any other asset.
7. To manage the knowledge and experience available within the staff of an organisation. To make use of it and increase productivity, to avoid repeated mistakes and to help staff to be able to work more efficiently.
8. Expert in his/her field. Know how to manage the knowledge.
9. Mental material + thought and thinking = knowledge management.
10. Making knowledge available on demand/request.

All but 3 of our respondents thought that there was a relationship between an organisation that could learn and an organisation that could manage knowledge. This included those who defined themselves as learning organisations. Amongst the reasons they gave were the following:

Again some of these answers show a superficial understanding and confusion between the idea of information and the idea of knowledge. Best practice guidelines may involve some knowledge of processes but is not necessarily the best link between learning from knowledge, guidelines are of little benefit if people do not have access to them. Learning is also much broader than pure process management (although perhaps the BPR gurus would not wish us to think so). We also see that planning is confused with understanding and knowledge of what it is that the organisation knows. Trends and usage information may be useful information for planning further use of whatever it is you are looking at, but it does not necessarily mean that the organisation is using its knowledge or learning from it. Such information provides part of the tacit knowledge of the organisation, when most of the learning comes from the implicit knowledge.

We asked three questions that specifically related to culture and organisational understanding. The results are detailed in figures 4, 5 and 6 below.

Figure 4

Figure 5

The results show clearly that that the majority of our survey respondents felt that their organisation lacked an understanding of knowledge management issues, with the university that employs a Chief Knowledge Officer declining to answer this question. Their replies to our questions about experiencing resistance to sharing knowledge and cultural issues in the sharing of knowledge were mixed as shown by figures 5 and 6 below.

When explaining their answers to figure 6 the following reasons were given:

These findings are also reflected in the statistics quoted by Sean Hallahan from a KPMG survey in 1998. In the survey 30% of the respondents cited problems getting staff to share knowledge, 26% claimed to have met cultural difficulties and 24% felt that a lack of understanding by staff and management had hindered knowledge management projects. Indeed Mark Halper quotes Marcello Hoffman of SRI Consulting as saying 'Unless there is an incentive to share knowledge, whatever knowledge base you have will be pretty weak. The bottlenecks in a company are usually more psychological and organisational than technical'. So nothing has changed there then since the seminal studies on resistance to ICT done by Markus in 1983.

The pilot study described above has shown that understanding of learning organisations and knowledge management in the university sector is, as we suspected, poor. As our survey shows chief knowledge officers and knowledge centres are rare and there are still large amounts of resistance to knowledge sharing although it seems to be politically correct not to admit to this!

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Coakes E and Sugden G 'The Learning Organisation and Knowledge Management' BIT98 Manchester Nov 1998

Hallahan S 'A little bit of know-how..' Computing 10 Dec 1998

Halper M 'Everyone on the Knowledge Pool' Computing 11 Dec 1997

Harrison R ‘Need to Know’ People Management 11 Feb 1999

Kofman & Senge ‘Communities of Commitment’ in Chawla S & Renesch J (Eds) Learning Organisations Productivity Press 1995

Littlefield D ‘Anything Goes’ People Management 25 Mar 1999

Markus ML (1983). "Power, Politics and MIS Implementation." Communications of the ACM 26 (6): 430-444.

Mayo A ‘Called to account’ People Management 8 April 1999

Morgan G Images of Organisation (2^nd Ed) Sage 1997

Nonaka I & Takeuchi H The Knowledge-Creating Company: How Japanese Companies Create the Dynamics of Innovation New York: Oxford University Press 1995

Roth G ‘IT and the challenge of Organisational Learning’ Financial Times supplement Innovation and the Learning Organisation. Part 10. April 5 1999

EC/GS