Organizational Learning and Continuous Improvement Among Cereal Milling Firms in Kenya
Abstract
This study sought to ascertain what organizational learning mechanisms cereal millings
firms in Kenya use to achieve their learning, the challenges in implementing these
organizational learning mechanisms, and whether the relationship between organizational
learning and continuous improvement holds in this industry. Survey research design was
used on the population of 102 milling firms. Data was collected using both electronic and
self-administered questionnaires.
The findings indicated that performance management systems and regular meetings are
the most preferred organizational learning mechanisms at frequencies of 71% and 58.1%
respectively. Quality circles and experimentation are not commonly used, and were
reported by 9.7% and 6.5% of the respondents respectively. The findings also showed
that 4 out of the 7 constructs of organizational learning had a significant relationship with
the collective variables used to measure continuous improvement.
Several challenges that cereal millers encounter in the implementation of organizational
learning mechanisms were reported. These include lack of proper infrastructure to
support learning activities, ineffective employee reward schemes to reward new
innovative ideas and lack of continuity in the learning process.
The researcher recommends that cereal millers should adopt other organizational learning
mechanisms such as quality circles that enhance organizational learning from a quality
perspective. Cereal milling firms should also seek ways to acquire and appropriately
deploy the necessary infrastructure to aid their learning needs. This can be achieved
through collaboration with continuous improvement professionals.
Citation
Master of Business AdministrationPublisher
Unversity of Nairobi