Can a start-up become a “learning organization”? The employee perception of continuous learning in a start-up business
Buchanan, Maria (2023)
Buchanan, Maria
2023
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Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-202302162462
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-202302162462
Tiivistelmä
Start-up companies are dealing with constant change and often the main business strategy of a start-up is continuous growth. The beneficiary of this thesis is a start-up company operating in Finland. The start-up leadership and management wishes to take into consideration the employee perspective when planning and implementing future learning initiatives. The empirical part of the thesis consists of qualitative and quantitative mixed methods research, which consists of qualitative interviews conducted with management and a quantitative survey for the employees. The interview aims to better understand the start-up environment and the purpose of the survey is to find out the opinions and attitudes of the employees toward learning related subjects.
The theoretical framework consists of discussing the concept of a learning organization, organizational learning theories, and the organizational learning management field. The thesis considers what the start-up environment is like, and how entrepreneurial qualities are important. The literature review provides guiding principles for the partnering start-up that clarify, how all stakeholders, leadership, and employees, individually and collectively can contribute towards an environment that is conducive to learning.
The results showed that the start-up environment in itself, enables continuous learning even though no formal framework for learning previously existed. Due to the lack of people, resources, and traditional structures often found in well-established businesses, a start-up can create an environment that naturally promotes learning. Start-up employees are expected to work hard and possess entrepreneurial qualities. The start-up employees daily work involves performing tasks beyond their title and scope of work. They are busy, but they know how to organize their work so that they do not get overwhelmed with work. The respondents showed motivation toward future learning initiatives and were open-minded toward different methods. The respondents were satisfied with the work environment and were generally trusting towards leadership and coworkers. Turnover and being disconnected from others because of the remote nature of the work were viewed as challenges from the management perspective. Communication, internal processes, and job security were aspects where development needs arose from the employee perspective.
The theoretical framework consists of discussing the concept of a learning organization, organizational learning theories, and the organizational learning management field. The thesis considers what the start-up environment is like, and how entrepreneurial qualities are important. The literature review provides guiding principles for the partnering start-up that clarify, how all stakeholders, leadership, and employees, individually and collectively can contribute towards an environment that is conducive to learning.
The results showed that the start-up environment in itself, enables continuous learning even though no formal framework for learning previously existed. Due to the lack of people, resources, and traditional structures often found in well-established businesses, a start-up can create an environment that naturally promotes learning. Start-up employees are expected to work hard and possess entrepreneurial qualities. The start-up employees daily work involves performing tasks beyond their title and scope of work. They are busy, but they know how to organize their work so that they do not get overwhelmed with work. The respondents showed motivation toward future learning initiatives and were open-minded toward different methods. The respondents were satisfied with the work environment and were generally trusting towards leadership and coworkers. Turnover and being disconnected from others because of the remote nature of the work were viewed as challenges from the management perspective. Communication, internal processes, and job security were aspects where development needs arose from the employee perspective.