A longitudinal study of the roles of facilitators in project action learning (PAL)-driven organizational learning

Abstract

This PhD study sets out to examine the roles of facilitators in the Project Action Learning (PAL)-driven organizational learning setting and how the roles can help enhance Project Action Learning (PAL) implementation effectiveness. It studies the major barriers encountered in PAL implementation and investigates the use of structured facilitation interventions to help overcome the barriers. The study was undertaken through an ongoing company-based collaborative learning organization (LO) and organizational learning (OL) project between SAE Magnetics (SAE) and City University of Hong Kong. It is essentially a longitudinal case-based research. Since early 2000's, SAE has persisted with its adoption of Project Action Learning (PAL) from Law and Chuah (2004, 2006) as the vehicle to drive its OL implementation to sustain its competitiveness in the electronics manufacturing industry. Its continuous PAL implementation provides an invaluable opportunity for this OL facilitation research. Review of literature indicates that OL and LO research is not new. The concepts and ideas of OL and LO have been widely written about in the last three decades. However, in reality, how to achieve effective OL is still a challenging proposition for most practitioners today as before. At the same time, studies on facilitation are growing in popularity, as participatory ways of doing things are more widely adopted in modern times. Although a number of facilitation models have been proposed, they were all developed and examined in general group situations (e.g. Kiser, 1998; Heron, 1999; Hogan, 2002). The fact is that few studies have focused on the facilitation issues in OL settings. The PAL framework (Law and Chuah, 2004; Chuah and Law, 2006; Law, 2007) as it is originally developed, includes OL facilitation as one of its supporting pillars, but it does not offer a practical and structured facilitation model that guides facilitators to perform their roles during PAL implementation. This study is conducted to bridge these gaps. Both qualitative and quantitative research approaches were used in this longitudinal study. The concept of triangulation was adopted to examine the validity of data collected. The study is comprised of four stages. In the first stage, literature were reviewed to identify the gaps in past research on OL facilitation. Following that, a preliminary field research was undertaken to examine the major barriers encountered in SAE's PAL-driven OL implementation. To overcome these barriers, a set of facilitation interventions were designed and pilot tested in an ongoing round of PAL implementation. The interventions received positive feedback from PAL members. In the second stage, reflecting on the results of the pilot test and the feedback from the preliminary fieldwork, a theoretical research model was developed. The initial set of facilitation interventions were further developed to form a structured, practical PAL facilitation model. Propositions that examine the causal relationships between the proposed facilitation interventions and the effects on PAL implementation were defined. In the third stage, the PAL facilitation model was formally introduced into the case company. This thesis presents the first two rounds of its implementation. In the first round, a control group study was conducted. In the second round, middle managers and PAL team leaders were trained up to take on the roles of facilitators. Data collection instruments were developed. To gauge the effectiveness of OL implementation, the study developed an OL evaluation instrument based on the Focus/Will/Capability performance model of Smith and Tosey (1999). Research data was collected at designated times. In the fourth stage, data analysis was carried out. The two rounds of facilitation model implementation produced consistent results that clearly show the effectiveness of the proposed PAL facilitation model. This study produces rich empirical evidence of how facilitators could play the proactive roles of learning motivation reinforcer and team learning effecter to overcome the OL implementation barriers. The author strongly believes that the longitudinal case study on OL facilitation is rare and valuable in the contemporary organizational development research.

Date of Award	16 Jul 2012
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	City University of Hong Kong
Supervisor	Kong Bieng CHUAH (Supervisor)