Psychological Mechanisms underlying Individual Knowledge and Contribution in Learning Organizations

• Main Authors: ZHAO, Bin, TAN, Hwee Hoon
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2001
• Subjects: Business; Organizational Behavior and Theory
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/lkcsb_research/2721; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/lkcsb_research/article/3720/viewcontent/PsychologicalMechanismsUnderlyingIndividualKnowledge_2001.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

Although much has been written about how to set up learning organizations, there is a paucity of research on understanding employees’ willingness to learn or contribute knowledge in such activities, a key element in the success of organizational learning. This paper presents models for understanding individuals’ willingness to learn and individuals’ willingness to contribute in organizational settings. Through the examination of the psychological mechanisms underlying individuals’ willingness to learn and to contribute, we will further our understanding on the individual and contextual factors that affect employees’ decision to learn and contribute in organizational learning activities. Drawing from the literature, we assert that in the learning model, willingness to learn would be affected by individual level variables such as learning orientation, risk-taking propensity and self-efficacy and contextual variables such as the quality of working relationship, organizational norms favoring learning and compensation systems favoring learning. For the contribution model, willingness to contribute would be affected by the same set of contextual variables while at the individual level, innovative cognitive style, expert power and self-efficacy are key to willingness to contribute.