| dc.description.abstract | My desire to study the concept of learning organization started when we were given a class presentation to research and present in 2008 during our HRD lesson. I was fascinated by the contribution this concept can make to improve performance of an organization especially in today's competitive world. The European Community's white paper (1996), on education and training in Wilson (2005) highlights the impact of the information society on work and organization, the impact of internationalization on the need for competitiveness and the impact of scientific technological knowledge on industry, growing competition, technological changes, new work methods, financial constraints, globalization, reorganizations, mergers and the like gave rise to the need for organizations to learn and adapt more quickly to changing circumstances.
In the words of McCarthy 1997 in Wilson (2005), these processes necessitated continuous improvement both in people and organizations. This can be achieved easily if organizations adopted the learning organization tenets. The research question was therefore to determine the application of learning organization at National Social Security Fund.
The research project is a case study of National Social Security Fund. The data analyzed and presented were obtained using self administered questionnaires. Population sample was identified using simple stratified sampling technique. This was because the population was heterogeneous. Questionnaires were distributed to one hundred and twenty eight (128) employees and only ninety (90) questionnaires which formed 70% were returned. The return rate was higher among staff from head office at 68.9% than field offices which were at 31.1 %.
The data was presented in tables for ease of analysis. Responses from Respondents were tabulated and presented in Percentages for ease of comparison. The research study concluded that National Social Security Fund is not a learning organization. This is because it has scored many negative results on most of the dimensions of a learning organization such as on continuous learning, dialogue and inquiry, team learning, empowerment, leadership and embedded systems.
The overall scores for all these dimensions were negative. Case studies should be carried out in other organizations to determine whether this is the trend or a unique case for NSSF. This is because past survey studies conducted in the Insurance and the Banking sectors had indicated that they were learning organizations. Case studies involve more participants in an organization than surveys where the Human Resource Manager or the Chief Executive are involved. Major challenges encountered by the researcher included limited financial resources and time. | en_US |
