Managing and Leading Organizational Learning and Knowledge Creation

Abstract

The ability to learn and create new knowledge is an essential factor in creating an innovative working environment. However, concepts related to learning and knowledge creation are often very abstract in nature. Therefore, understanding and managing these concepts can be very difficult. The processes of learning and knowledge creation require clear specifications, designs, and constructs, so that they are understood similarly among the members of an organization.

The objective of this research is to develop a system to support collective change management and leadership from the viewpoint of learning and knowledge creation. With the help of this system it is possible to understand the concepts related to learning and knowledge creation better, open a dialogue between members of the organization, have a collective view of the organization's current state and target state regarding learning and knowledge creation, plan development activities and follow up the progress. The system also combines issues related to management and leadership.

In this thesis, three ontologies are presented: Lituus - organizational learning and knowledge creation, Talbot - the organization's learning environment and Folium - the organization's new knowledge creation. In addition, a responsive environment for learning and knowledge creation has been constructed. This new construct describes the main principles to support an organization's development from the management and leadership point of view. The ontologies developed are built on a generic, web-based fuzzy application platform which supports the use of applications on the Internet.

In this research, the conceptual research approach was used to define the concepts, which are included in ontologies for the organization's learning environment and knowledge creation activities. The constructive research approach was used when building the applications. The analytical, systemic and actors approaches were also used in different phases of the research.

The empirical part of the research deals with several case studies conducted in different organizations. The empirical results of the research are presented in the research papers that are enclosed in this thesis. The empirical results of the research indicate that by using these applications it is possible to gain a collective view of an organization's environment for learning and knowledge creation.