A Survey of Organisation Learning in Private Recruitment Agencies in Nairobi

Abstract

The survey was carried out between August and September 2006. The main objective was to establish the extent to which the private recruitment agencies in Nairobi have embraced organisation learning concept and the factors that influence the adoption of the organization learning in the agencies. The respondents were Human Resource Managers of the recruitment agencies in Nairobi. The information was collected using a structured and uniform questionnaires. Thirty of the Human Resource Managers completed the questionnaires Among the variables used were the knowledge acquisition, information distribution, information interpretation, organization memory, systems thinking, shared vision, team learning, mental models and personal mastery. The findings of the study suggests that the private recruitment agencies have adopted the organization learning concept to a great extent. Due to the competitive nature of business the agencies have to remain competitive and due to challenges facing the firms they have to strategically adopt the concept so as to be effective. Creating a learning organization and atmosphere has hence been the only option left for the agencies. It was also found out that for the concept to be effective the agencies have to employ right caliber staff with the necessary qualifications. The study further suggests that a similar study be undertaken in another industry to check whether there are similarities in the adoption of the organization learning and also the challenges that are faced by the organizations in the course of adopting the concepts.