A Qualitative Assessment of Organizational Learning Processes in Selected Turkish Public and Private High Schools

Abstract

If they are to be effective, organizations must acquire and create new knowledge in order to achieve their goals. Service organizations, such as schools, must employ the concept of organizational learning. Organizational learning is an intentional process directed at improving organizational effectiveness. The process involves four constructs - knowledge acquisition, information distribution, information interpretation, and organizational memory. This paper presents findings of a paper that examined the ways in which three high schools - one foundation school, one private school, and one public school - in Ankara, Turkey, acquired, disseminated, interpreted, and preserved new knowledge. Data were derived from observation and interviews with 24 teachers and 6 administrators. Findings indicate that the foundation school outperformed the public school and the private school in terms of the four organizational learning constructs. The foundation school gathered data through a wider variety of sources and distributed information through a wider variety of sources and distributed information through more intra- and extra- organizational activities than did the other two schools. Both the foundation school and the private school had more effective interpretation processes. None of the three schools had developed mechanisms for storing information for father use. The effectiveness of both the public and private schools was hindered by their centralized, bureaucratic organizational structures; the effectiveness of the private school was also hampered by the school’s profit motive.