Attributes of the Learning-Innovation Transformational Leader

This chapter examines the role of transformational leadership in transforming the learning organization into an innovative one. Important features of the leader, such as the ability to assist in developing and accommodating the implementation of knowledge management programs, learning organization concepts, and innovation protocols, are discussed in this chapter. This chapter demonstrates that shifting from learning organization to become an innovative company could involve some unique attributes of a transformation leadership. In that regard, the chapter also demonstrates that organizations need first to create, capture, transfer, and mobilize knowledge before it can be used for learning and then for innovation. The chapter presents a method of studying how successful innovation leaders of companies could find themselves acting in three roles, namely knowledge leader, learning leader, and then innovation leader. The leadership styles and characteristics that could transform the organisation from learning to innovation are discussed. The type of innovative leadership required to enhance the organizational performance is also highlighted. This chapter provides details for understanding innovative leadership based on the concepts for leadership characteristics and styles. The chapter also discusses different leadership styles and the proposed model of innovative leadership used by most firms in their efforts to improve performance. This chapter examines whether the attributes of leaders and styles of leadership could also influence the behaviour of some leaders towards the transformation from learning to innovation settings.

Innovative Approaches to Improving the Transfer and Sustainability of Learning

The importance of learning transfer in ensuring that learning contributes to an organization's competitive advantage has been undermined in organizational practice. There are two major reasons for this: 1) few studies directly explore the relationship between transfer and performance improvement, and 2) most existing transfer models are too complex for practitioners to implement. The purpose of this chapter is to explore the link between learning transfer activities and performance outcomes, and to create a framework for implementing an effective learning transfer solution. A targeted literature review meta-analysis was used to explore the performance impact of training vs. training plus transfer activities. The authors compute “difference scores” representing the percentage of improvement from the transfer activities over training alone. Activities are categorized into a framework of eleven critical learning transfer actions. They then implement the elements of the Learning Transfer Framework in three demonstration projects. By incorporating findings from the literature review, meta-analysis, and the demonstration projects, the authors propose a new transfer framework that is effective and easy to implement. Implications and directions for future researchers are advanced.

The Construction of Knowledge Management

A number of authors have stressed that competitive advantage through knowledge management is realized through identifying the valuable representation, organization, acquisition, creation, usage, and evolution of knowledge in its many forms that the organization knows or could know now: skills and experience of people, archives, documents, relations with clients, suppliers, and other persons and materials often contained in electronic databases. In so doing, this chapter covers the various types of knowledge, the Learning Organization (LO), and Organizational Learning (OL). This chapter also covers the history and meaning of knowledge (management), LO, and OL in terms of how all three elements are interrelated. Emphasis is placed on the relationship between LO and OL. With that said, the chapter explains why the role of knowledge transfer and human resources management is a top down approach and not a bottom up approach.

Mind Training for Innovation

This chapter fills a gap in the innovation literature by exploring why creativity and innovation are important in the workplace and how the process of creativity can be supported through the practice of mindfulness. At the group and organisational levels, the chapter examines what is required of an organisation through an HR perspective in order to facilitate the optimum context for supporting creativity and innovation through knowledge sharing and transfer. There is a key emphasis on an organisation's culture, structure, and ethos, utilising a knowledge-sharing framework, in addition to a focus on the physical workspaces that can support innovative and creative processes. Finally, proposals for managers and human resource personnel interested in building foundations for creativity in the workplace include: mindfulness training and support for mindfulness practice, the reduction of stress to allow creativity to emerge, and group/team support and training. Suggestions for future research are also offered at the end of the chapter.

Innovation, Learning, Communities, and Actor-Networks of Practice

This chapter addresses the question: Is there a virtuous circle between situated learning within communities of practice and the corporate pursuit of innovation in large companies? The authors trace a succession of ways in which it has been formulated, reframed, and addressed across a range and sequence of qualitative studies. Overall, they argue for more ethnographic studies of organizational learning and innovation and recommend further use of actor-network theory, which has potential to add considerably to communities of practice theory. The authors illustrate this argument in the chapter through a discussion of Carlile's (2002) important paper and cite a number of other studies that use actor-network theory in combination with communities of practice theory.

Could Knowledge Gaps Drive Quality Improvement?

Quality problems could constitute a major obstacle to improvement of products and/or services. The model for assessing the quality of quality management programs presented in this chapter focuses on the role of Strategic Gaps and Knowledge Gaps in driving the quality management programs. The chapter also identifies Strategic Gaps and Knowledge Gaps that could exist in some organisational quality management processes. Those gaps are shown to adversely affect expected outcomes from the implemented quality management programs. Furthermore, the chapter explores the relationship between the perception of the developers or implementers of quality management programs and other related organizational attributes in some software industries.

Managing Knowledge through Dynamic Capabilities

The aim of this chapter is to provide an insight into the interaction of innovation and learning through an integrative view of knowledge management and dynamic capabilities approaches. Firstly, theoretical foundations of the dynamic capabilities perspective and knowledge management are presented. The chapter further explores the existing theoretical linkages between knowledge management and the dynamic capabilities approach, as well as their potential impact on organizational performance, within the framework of human resource practices, relevant for achieving successful knowledge transfer. The existing theoretical foundations are used to provide a generalization, leading to an integrative theoretical model, which should serve as a basis for further empirical verification.

Establishing Learning Places and Knowledge Flows to Stimulate Innovation

Knowledge is seen as a source of competitive advantage, but how can it be mobilized to realize this advantage? Organization norms and routines both reflect what an organization “knows” and may stimulate or inhibit knowledge flows. Tools may help store and share explicit knowledge, but it is only through personal interaction that the wealth of continuously expanding tacit knowledge potentially available to an enterprise can be accessed. This chapter suggests that physical and virtual places for interaction combined with HRM practices can facilitate building and sharing stocks of knowledge to support the business of the enterprise. A case study example of interconnected learning spaces and strategically deployed people specifically established to support innovation is presented.

The Green 5-S Model for Organisational Learning and Development

Riding on his Total Learning Organisation (TLO), an ice-breaking paper published in The Learning Organisation, Ho (1999) has a chance to test out the model in a number of firms in HKSAR, China and Malaysia, based on his proprietary 5-S Practice, which he developed in Malaysia/HK/UK/China since the 1990s. Supported by various government bodies, Ho (2012) has used his 50-point 5-S Checklist for training and consultancy in no less than 10 countries with over 50,000 persons from over 1,000 organisations worldwide. From his observation and experience, in this chapter a powerful learning model for innovation in organizations is developed through what he defined in 1999 as the TLO. One significant finding is that in order to ensure effective knowledge transfer and organizational development, organisations should consider using a simple and useful tool such as the 5-S Practice as a seed to encourage learning and innovation. His practical experience is also shared in this chapter.

Organizational Efficiency and X-Inefficiency

The works of Leibenstein emphasize the existence of x-inefficiency in organizations that explains why firms apparently identical, with the same composition of the workforce and the same technology, are able to realize very different performance. On the basis of Leibenstein and Maital (1994), this chapter presents the sources and reasons for the persistence of x-inefficiency by mobilizing the organizational learning theory and by determining the possible strategies for the correction or the elimination of x-inefficiency by using games theory. Moreover, the establishment of a favorable climate for learning can promote knowledge transfer, which in turn helps to improve innovation, and consequently, achieving organizational efficiency.