Learning styles and organisational development in practice: an exploratory study of how learning styles and individual learning strategies can facilitate organisational development

Abstract

Abstract:Issues of innovation and knowledge management are often treated from an organisational learning perspective. As a complement to this, there is a vast potential in the strategic enhancement of individual learning by implementing learning styles profiles and creating personal learning strategies for management and employees in a knowledge-based organisation. Based on an action-research case study, we offer an example of how learning styles affects individual learning and thus personal knowledge creation in practice. The paper argues that innovation and knowledge management is enhanced and facilitated in practice by working with the learning styles of individuals and groups/teams. Keywords: learning styles; personal knowledge management; organisational development; learning; incremental innovation.Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Brix, J. and Lauridsen, K.M. (2012) 'Learning styles and organisational development in practice: an exploratory study of how learning styles and individual learning strategies can facilitate organisational development', Int.

Improving learning competencies in the context of radical innovation: a team perspective

“…One of the participants stressed that: "I have found that there is not one correct way for all people to be concentrated when working, rather, there is my way of working concentrated and your way of working concentrated, and the insights and implementation of learning styles in our team has assisted in removing this assumption!" This perspective corresponds the findings by Brix and Lauridsen (2012) that stress the importance of intra-and interpersonal insights regarding learning strengths and weaknesses in the context of working with complex information. As a complement to this, the participants stated that they worked more effectively after creating the Team Mastery Profile® in the team workshop, the reason being that they had agreed to work according to their learning styles preferences, both when working alone and when working together.…”

“…To create a scientific contribution that both claims knowledge to the academic community via the investigation of a specific variable in the team context (Argote, 1999) and that represents implementable suggestions for improving teamwork in practice, this study taps into Brix and Lauridsen (2012) that integrated Rundle and Dunn's building excellence (BE) learning styles construct (Dunn and Rundle, 2007) to enhance individual learning competencies and to improve group/team collaboration and communication in organisational practice -that is the how of learning. The reason for these improvements, Brix and Lauridsen (2012) argue, emerge not least because the individuals start working (i.e., learning, see below) more strategically with their personal knowledge construction and reconstruction according to their individual learning styles, both when working (learning) alone and when working (learning) together in a team (Brix and Lauridsen, 2012).…”

“…The reason for these improvements, Brix and Lauridsen (2012) argue, emerge not least because the individuals start working (i.e., learning, see below) more strategically with their personal knowledge construction and reconstruction according to their individual learning styles, both when working (learning) alone and when working (learning) together in a team (Brix and Lauridsen, 2012). As a compliment to this, the argument for utilising BE to inform the working concepts derives from Lauridsen's (2012) definition of learning styles which especially treats the learning individual, both when working alone or together with others.…”

“…The integration of the BE learning styles construct into the research will furthermore claim knowledge to the call made by Brix and Lauridsen's (2012) work on implementing learning styles in a knowledge based organisation, in which it is put into supposition that individual work as well as teamwork will be enhanced based on implementing individual learning styles profiles and Team Mastery Profiles®; in the work with these, individual and collective learning competencies are discussed and the implications for having different -or the same -ways and preferences for working concentrated on new and difficult tasks are needed. The selected variables from the BE is utilised to inform the five working concepts.…”

“…The two strands 'sociological' and 'emotional' were altogether not taken into consideration since the implications of these strands cannot possibly be identified by mere observations. The working concepts below are analysed/informed by Dunn and Rundle (2007), Lauridsen (2012) and Brix and Lauridsen (2012). Separate references will not be made during the analysis.…”