The Role of Consultants in Organizational Learning

This paper aims to find out how the OL processes (i.e. intuiting, interpreting, integrating and institutionalizing) are influenced by the roles of consultants. Through a longitudinal case study, it was found that based on the directive roles of consultants, the evidence of the direct use of intuition was weak but the processes of interpreting and integrating became the main constraints for lean knowledge to be learnt by managers and employees. The efficiency of institutionalizing was enhanced but its effectiveness was restrained by the processes of interpreting and integrating. Theoretical and practical implications of this study are provided in the conclusion.

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