PurposeThe aim of this study is to assess the relationship between some variables (organizational structure, organizational dimension and age, human resource characteristics, the external environment, strategy and quality) and organizational learning culture and evaluate the way they interact with this kind of culture.Design/methodology/approachData were collected from 107 Portuguese companies, where a total of 1,122 workers were asked about learning culture through a questionnaire. Data about the other organizational variables of this study were collected in official documents, from scales and also from a structured interview with top managers.FindingsThe results revealed that an organic structure, an approach to total quality principles, and highly educated employees, could act as facilitators of the development of a learning culture in organizations. On the other hand, quality certification, firm dimension and age, as well as workers' age, could act as inhibitors of this type of cultural orientation.Research limitations/implicationsIn spite of the meaningful results found, the cross‐sectional nature and the exploratory nature of the research leads us to look carefully at the causality of the relationships under study.Practical implicationsThe results of this study, in so far as they point out some factors linked to greater cultural orientation to learning in organizations and some factors linked to less orientation to learning, provide clues for organizations concerning better management of their investment in developing this kind of culture.Originality/valueIn the literature on organizational learning and learning organizations, culture emerges as a key concept. In fact, organizational culture is mainly conceived as an essential condition to promote and support learning in organizations. Despite its recognized importance in the literature, little research has been devoted to this issue, namely research centered on the related factors that could contribute to its development.

Purpose -The purpose of this article is to analyse the evolution of the concepts of organizational learning and the learning organization and propose guidelines for the future.. Design/methodology/approach -The evolution of organizational learning and the learning organization is analysed in the light of the three-stage model of the evolution of concepts developed by Reichers and Schneider in 1990. Findings -Based on the aforesaid model, the authors positioned these topics at the beginning of the second stage of evolution, a period characterised by evaluation and the attempt to add to the comprehension of concepts through empirical research and conceptual clarification. Faced with this finding, the authors argue that the development and consolidation of concepts is mainly a question of researchers' responsibility and suggest some key areas to guarantee their progress and their general acceptance in the future. Originality/value -The use of a concept's life cycle stage model as a framework to analyse evolution of the concepts of organizational learning and the learning organization that allows comprehension of their pattern of development and, in consequence, provides a consistent basis to propose guidelines for their future development.

Purpose Interest in the relationship between organizational culture and performance is not new but it still attracts considerable attention from researchers. In the literature on organizational learning, organizational culture is mainly conceived as an essential condition to facilitate and support learning and consequently as an important feature in achieving organizational performance nowadays. In the scope of this research topic, the purpose of this paper is to analyze the effect of organizational learning culture on two organizational outcomes – profitability and customer satisfaction, and the mediation effect of total quality management (TQM) in these relationships. Design/methodology/approach The data were collected from 107 firms and the technique used for data analysis was structural equation modeling. Findings The results reveal a positive direct impact of organizational learning culture on organizational profitability and a positive indirect effect, through TQM, on customer satisfaction. Originality/value These findings support to a body of literature that claims the relevance of developing a cultural orientation toward learning in organizations in order to contribute to organizational success. This study also takes into account some methodological features in order to increase the quality of culture-performance research.

The present study examines the psychometric properties (including factorial validity) of an organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) scale in a school context. A total of 321 middle and high school teachers from 59 schools in urban and rural areas of central Portugal completed the OCB scale at their schools. The confirmatory factor analysis validated a hierarchical model with four latent factors on the first level (altruism, conscientiousness, civic participation and courtesy) and a second order factor (OCB). The revised model fit with the data, χ 2 /gl = 1.97; CFI = .962; GFI = .952, RMSEA = .05. The proposed scale (comportamentos de cidadania organizacional em escolas- Revista CCOE-R)- is a valid instrument to assess teacher's perceptions of OCB in their schools, allowing investigation at the organizational level of analysis.

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