Analysis of higher Education Organisations in Pakistan

Higher Education (HE) organizations of Pakistan are normally considered as a learning organization. The objective of this paper is to analyze that how well HE organizations function as a learning organization. The reason to opt this sector is that HE organizations produce thousands of graduates annually who ultimately run the organization and become input for the organization to transform into learning organization. But their creativity, capability and system thinking depends on what they have learnt from their HE organizations. To investigate this study factor analysis and descriptive statistical technique is used to analyze the data while a self administrated questionnaire is used as a research methodology, for this purpose 30 senior faculty members selected to get responses and 5 likert scales is used to explore this study. This paper provides a strapping foundation for all the HE organizations to analyze that whether they are functioning as a learning organization or not.

Keywords:

Learning organization, Learning environment, Concrete learning process, Leadership, Higher Education organization

1. Introduction:

The transition of HE organizations into learning organizations requires continuous effort. From last few decades inventions, innovations and modernizations has entirely changed the way of doing work. Many studies have been conducted to explore the new ways for the learning of the individuals. Today policy makers of HE organizations are forced to think about the challenging organizational environment. The question how to compete in the market Leads towards learning organization. Striving for the best and deployment of skilled personnel and knowledge management is the spirit of the learning organization.

The idea of learning organization is the outcome of knowledge management. According to my point of view learning organization is a continuous approach of the individuals towards creative and progressive learning environment to optimal use of the organizational resources and proper utilization of knowledge from upward to downward to streamline the individual goals with the organizational goals. Only knowledge management is not essential for the learning organization but also individuals must be ready to support the new changes. In third world countries like Pakistan, most of the organizations suffering because individuals are not ready to adopt the new things due to their pessimistic approach towards the organization. Peter M. Senge has opened up a new horizon about the learning organization and he has introduced a very remarkable book The Fifth Discipline. Senge defined: In learning organizations people continually develop their capacity to achieve their desired goals, where new and expensive patterns of thinking are fostered, where they have collective objectives, and where people are frequently learning to learn jointly. In this book Senge has planned a framework of five disciplines: Personal mastery, Mental model, System thinking, Team learning and Shared vision to provide a foundation for the managers to transform the organization from organizational learning to” learning organization”. Senge has discussed many management flaws which hold back the practices of learning organization. He has given many practical examples to high lighten the organizational issues in context of learning organization.

The objective of this paper is to analyze that how well HE organizations function as a learning organization. The reason to opt for this sector is that HE organizations produce thousands of graduates annually who ultimately runs the organization and becomes input for the organization to transform into learning organization. But their creativity, capability and system thinking depends on what they have learnt from their institutes. This paper provides a strapping foundation for all the HE organizations to analyze whether they are functioning as a learning organization or not.

2. Literature Review

Supportive learning environment in HE organizations:

Today every organization intends to penetrate in the market and wishes for competitive advantages over all the others. To achieve this goal they are much focusing on “restructuring”, “reengineering” their processes, competent hiring and bearing millions for training, just to meet their future needs. In general and specifically for the HE organizations only these concepts are not sufficient to renovate into learning organization. Switching towards learning organization desires Psychological Safety, admiration of different opinions, openness to new ideas, time for reflection, experimentation, information collection and information transfer to all the individuals and also acceptability of new changes is much essential for the HE organizations. Rowley (1998) Pointed out that HE organizations considered as a learning community where faculty members and students both engaged in learning environment. So it might be considered that the environment in HE organizations is more suitable for transforming the organization into learning organization. How much it can be changed it depends on the environment of the organization, and an organization who is striving for the learning organization may not be determined in terms of structure and culture.

In addition Aggestam (2006) pointed out th