Fostering action learning and continuous improvement in an e-Commerce company / Mae Joyce Erandio Calag

Year : 2012

Number of Pages : 99 leaves

Adviser : Dr. Serafin D. Talisayon

Executive Summary

The study aimed to determine the extent of action learning and continuous improvement employed in an e-commerce business. It tried to identify the business-critical areas that have processes and decisions that create biggest business value the extent that action learning and continuous improvement are happening in the business-critical areas of the company and offered suggestions on how action learning and continuous improvement be enhanced in the identified business-critical areas of the company. Using Michael Porter's Value-Chain Model of a Firm, the researcher found that the three most critical activities in the company are Operations, Outbound Logistics and Marketing and Sales. The top three teams that perform these three most critical activities are Product and Development, Merchandizing and Marketing. Using Reginald Revans and Michael Marquardt's action learning formula and Peter Senge's Five Discipline as an action learning and organizational learning framework, the data revealed that the three teams that perform the most business critical activities of the firm, in terms of its learning, lack learning coach, support from the management in terms of providing trainings to improve the team members' skills and support from the management by providing needed materials to solve a problem of the team and a formal process of committing to action learning. Also, the weakest learning aspects of these three teams are Personal Mastery and Team Learning. The researcher offered recommendations on how to improve these weakest learning points of the three teams. The team needs to have a learning coach that would enable them to reflect, a person who can facilitates a good feedback session and a person who can help them focus on the problem that they encounter. To improve the company's commitment to learning, the company must support the teams and provide the needed things of the teams to help them perform their tasks and solve problems that they encounter. To enable the company and its employees be aware and be committed to action learning, the researcher proposed Marquardt's twelve item checklist for introducing and implementing action learning initiatives. To improve Personal Mastery, the company should do the following : Trainings and Development, Sponsorships and Scholarships, Sharing and Learning Sessions, Join and be Active in Organizations, Create a company library and e-learning portals, Manualization of functions and conduct a Personal Assessment (personal SWOT review). To improve Team Learning, the company should do the following : Trainings for team in leadership skills, conflict management skills and communication skills, Meetings, Have Reflective Learning Journals and creation of Team Building Activities. The researcher endorsed sharing and learning sessions and meetings as the two basic ways of the company to improve its learning. The reason for this is that these two are the easiest, cheapest and would not seriously interrupt the day to day operations of the company. Moreover, the researcher emphasized that the company should make these recommendations a reality. The researcher believes that the company should be open to these recommended activities and should commit time, effort and resources. The company and employees should see the importance of action learning so that they will support and participate actively in any of the activities. The company and its employees should know that even if these activities to improve the company's learning require additional responsibilities for them, they will be the ones who will benefit from it.