The Organizational Learning Process of Students’ Council of University of the Sri Jayewardenepura

The Organizational Learning Process of  Students’ Council of the University of Sri Jayewardenepura

(Written by M.M.Nirmal Chathuranga, B.Sc. Business Administration (Sp.), University of Sri Jayewardenepura, Sri Lanka)

25 June 2016

Introduction 

Here I have concerned about the behavior of the students and their organizational learning aspects of the Students’ Council of University of Sri Jayewardenepura as the members of a political organization. How do them collectively effort to achieve their common goals. The improved Model of Ziestsma, Winn, Branzei, and Vertinski (2002) – Extended Model of organizational Learning is applied in order to explain the learning process of selected organization.

How the Students council of USJP becomes an Organization?

An organization is a collection of group of people who are working together in order to achieve a common goal/goals.

In the perspective of Students’ Council of USJP,

·         People  - Students

·         Working together – They engage with various activities collectively. As the examples Clamours, Going tills, Street dramas (Japura Parapura), Art ceremony, Orientation program, cultural show, social party.

·         Common goals – There are three main common goals.

1.      Protecting the free education.

2.      Intervening to solve students’ academic and welfare problems.

3.      Intervening to the controversial problems of the country without conditions.

When we consider about the composition of the Organization, it is totally consisted by the students. There is an executive committee as the agents of the students. They act as the representatives of the whole students’ community in the University of Sri Jayewardenepura.

The power has been distributed within the organizational members, but any single person cannot take the decisions regarding a circumstance that effect to whole, or group of students. The executive committee also does not hold dominant power. They have to work according to the majority idea of the students. They are only leaders, guiders in the students’ career.

How this Organization relates to Knowledge Management and Knowledge based theories?

We cannot say that the student’s council of USJP as a fully knowledge intensive organization. It mainly gives the priority to the crowd/people/students as their most important resource which mainly emphasizes the concepts of fraternity, harmony and equity.

But it considers the Knowledge as an important resource. The foundation of their career is the Leftist political thought of Socialism which was developed by Carl Marks and Lenning.

In Organizational Knowledge creation, learning and sharing there is an accepted way to transit the knowledge in the organizational procedure.

General body Meeting is the occasion that the decisions of executive committee and ideas of students’ are collaborated. Students can put through their ideas without interruptions within above procedure. The committee or other members are not ignored the individual ideas. Therefore the degree of the legitimacy traps of the organization in the lower level. But changing the norms, procedures, values and other cultural aspects is very difficult. Because each and every student in the organization are highly tied with the concept of university subculture. They believe that the principle of University sub culture should be protected and ascribed to the next generation. It is a special value of the organization. There they have felt in to a competency trap and the degree of competency trap is in very higher level.

Organizational Learning

The embed of individual and group level learning in organizational structure and processes, achieved through reflecting on and modified the norms and values embodied in established organizational processes and structure.(Hedberg 1981; Shipton 2006; Shrivastava 1983)

Individual – One single student.

Group – A batch, department, faculty.

Organization – Each and every student in the university.

Norms and values – University sub culture.

Processes and Structure – Orientating first year students. Decision making process, structure of committee.

The improved Model of Ziestsma, Winn, Branzei, and Vertinski (2002) – Extended Model of organizational Learning.

 This Model mainly explains that how individual learning become an organizational learning as a “Feed forward” loop (Exploration) and how organizational level learning becomes individual learning as “Feedback” loop (Exploitation).

Feedforwad (exploration) – Development and assimilation of new knowledge.

Feedback (exploitation) – Utilization of existing knowledge.

We can see two roots of learning in an Organization.

 This Extended Model of Organizational learning identifies the Organizational Learning as a process of Intuiting, Attending, Interpreting, Experimenting, Integrating and institutionalizing.

We expect to do an analyze about the learning process of our selected organization (Students Council of USJP) based on,

         I.            Two paths of Organizational Learning. (Feed forward and Feedback)

      II.            Steps of the process of organizational Learning. (Intuiting, Attending, Interpreting, Experimenting, Integrating, Institutionalizing)

We found two main cases which were happen and happening relative with the students Council of USJP in order to analyze the Organizational learning concept.

Case 01 - Physical ragging

Only before the years 2007/2008 physical ragging for new students (Fresher) was a main part of the new comers’ orientation program by the senior students. The physical ragging culture had been developed as a physical and mental training for the university students in 1970 and 1987/1989 riots season. At that time the students were kidnapped by the government forces and did severe and fatal harassments and punishments. In order to improve the tolerance, morale and empower the students, the physical ragging was conducted.   The physical ragging procedure had been stabilized in the culture of students’ union. (Socialism students association, 2007)

But even after the riot season, physical ragging procedure did not eliminated from the university. A competency trap occurred where the senior students were highly believed that the physical ragging should be a major part of the university subculture during the first year orientating period. The new students were faced to severe exercises such as creeping, jumping and other verbal and physical exercises. That institutionalized norm was very powerful and dominant. Because of a majority accepted concept, some students were hesitated to question. (If somebody try to question seriously by violating the norms of the organization were been ignored. It named in culture as “ala karanawa”. In here it was seemed to be as a legitimacy trap)

However when these things were happening in that manner it was granted a higher resistance from the society for this physical ragging procedure. Individual level emotion was started and also it was an initiation of challenging to the traditional practice.

Hence forth we continue the case relative with the extended Model of Organizational Learning by Zietsma et al. (2007)

Intuiting

The preconscious recognition of the pattern and/or possibilities inherent in a personnel stream of experience. (Weick, 1995) It is a cognitive process in individual mind. It is highly rooted in individuals’ experience.

According to our case the individuals (students) gradually understand that physical ragging culture is useless. It conducted many of misleading and troubles. They thought that this physical ragging procedure is not compatible with modern society. So they understood that this is a procedure that should not be adapted.

Attending

Attending is an active process of seeking information from the environment. (Kleysen and Dick, 2011) It is not mere thinking. Individuals are actively searching and absorbing new ideas.

With regards to above case in the intuition step they thought that there is an issue regarding the procedure. Now they start to react for it. One by one student tries to depart from the current procedure of physical raging in mentally and physically. The senior students who have understood about the issue are starting to not intervene to the physical ragging.

Interpreting

The explaining through words and/or actions, of an insight or idea to one self and others. This process goes from the pre verbal to the verbal, resulting in the development of language. (Crossan et al, 1999) Here individuals are actively interpreting their own insights and also transfer it in to a collective interpretation.  Here the pre verbal intuitions are shaped and shared through conversation, imaginary and metaphors. (Crossan et al, 1999)

Here the senior students who were understood the uselessness and the negative impacts of the physical ragging are critically evaluating their intuition/basic idea. Also those students communicate their idea to other students (their friends, closest companions) and try to substantiate them about the disagreement for physical ragging. They collectively discussed about that and majority of students agreed that the physical ragging is a procedure that should not be existed in the culture of the students’ union further.

Experimenting

Individuals and the groups experiment and the result of their actions add substance to their cognitive interpretations. (Zietsma et al, 2002). Individuals and groups are trying to implement and utilize new learning through actual practice of change.

The students check whether their decision is right or wrong. Examine which the possibility to adapt the new students to the university subculture without physical ragging. They understand that even without physical ragging, the new students can be oriented to the university.

Integrating

The process of developing shared understanding among individuals and thinking coordinated action through mutual adjustment. Dialogue and joint action are crucial to the development of shared understanding (Crossan, Lane and white, 1999)

In here the senior students stop physical ragging gradually. Intuition against physical ragging was arisen in only 1990 and the integration was occurred 1990 to 2008. It was spent only two decades to fully integrate this learning in the university. From experimenting to institutionalizing, there is a huge time gap because the integrating was occurred very slowly.

Institutionalizing

It is the process of ensuring that routinized actions occur. This is the process of embedding learning that has occurred by individuals and groups in to the organization and it includes systems, structures, procedures and strategy. (Crossan et al. , 1999)

Physical ragging at the university was strictly prohibiting by the students council. All the students accepted that norm, now the physical ragging concept has been removed from the schedule of the students’ council. Also they do not hesitate to take the actions against those who are engaging with physical ragging. Now it has become institutionalized.  

With refers to this case I could identify how that the individual level intention lead to the organizational institutionalization. Also, how the individuals and groups overcome the legitimacy trap and competency trap in order to transfer the individual level and group level learning in to the organizational level learning. The mere idea of one single student against the physical ragging was grown up to a learning of group of students and it expanded as a learning of each and every student in the university.

Case 02 – Going Tills

Going tills is a main activity in procedures of the students union of USJP. It is a main method that the organization collects funds for its annual expenditures. Students (members of the organization) go to the various cities, towns and villages by covering all over the Sri Lanka. They travel those areas by taking a till on their hands. Students explain their purpose of bringing a till to the people and the people put money in to the till.

In here with refers to the case we are going to analyze is that how individuals utilize the existing knowledge. The main way is first year common program which is conducted by the students’ council. Then the organization efforts to give the knowledge to   new comers about the norms, values, procedures and other cultural dimensions of the organization. It is a kind of orientation.

The knowledge of “going tills” is also granted to the new students through the orientation program. The organization gives the practical experience of going a till to the new comers. Collecting, sharing and distributing knowledge is a main purpose of going a till.

E.g.: the students who are going the till can obtain the knowledge experience, practice when they are talking with various people in the society. Also they can communicate their leanings to the public.

It is a special feature that shows as advancement beyond the organizational learning process.

 

It seems that the going till is a main activity which is conducted by the students’ council of USJP in order to giving the experience (kind of tacit knowledge) to its members. Organization facilitates the opportunity to learn to the students by themselves. It improves the general knowledge about the society, individual differences, public opinions, communication skills, group performance, contingency, goal achievement etc. With refers to this case we could identify that how the students’ council of USJP embodies their existing knowledge (values, norms, procedures) to the single student.

Conclusion

Here we had to select an organization in our choice and report the organizational learning process we observed there. We selected “The Students Council of USJP” as the organization and firstly we observed that how it becomes an organization and how it facilitates to the Knowledge Management and Organizational Learning. By a deeper observation we could find some characteristics of Knowledge Management and Knowledge based theories which are associated to the Organization.  By using those facts we tried to do an analysis of “Organizational Learning” by using two cases which are related to the Students council of USJP by applying to The Extended Model of Organizational Learning by Zietsma, Winn, Branzei and Vertinski (2007). The first case is contributing to explain how individual level learning through intuition is running towards the organizational level learning as a feed forward process. Second case is briefly explaining that how the members of the organization utilize the existing knowledge as a feedback process. Also we could identify the nature of the competency trap and the legitimacy trap that discourage the organizational learning process.

Reference

Crossan, M.M., Lane, H.W. and White, R.E. (1999) an organizational learning framework; from intuition to intuition, Academy of Management Review, Vol 24, No.3, pp. 522-537.  

Hedberg, B.(1981) How Organizations Learn and Unlearn , Handbook of Organizational Design, Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Kleysen, R.F. and Dyck, B. (2001) Cumulating Knowledge; An elaboration and extension of Crossan, Lane and White’s framework for organizational learning, Best Paper Proceeding 4^th International Conference for  Organizational Learning and Knowledge Management, London, Ontario (Canada).

Socialism Students’ Association. (2007) Thel bemmen obbata, Socialism Students’ Association.

Weick, K.E. (1995) Sense making in organizations, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.