The Learning Climate of an Organisation and Practitioner Competence

This paper reports on a fully structured interview survey, using a multi-sectional questionnaire, of experienced construction contract price forecasters. The aim of the research was to investigate the relationship between organizational learning styles (the learning climate of an organization, individual learning styles and approaches-to-learning) and competency (individual forecasting performance/accuracy). The results found that the degree of accuracy of the subjects’ forecasts improved as their perception of the overall learning climate, and particular its working practices and staff development systems, improved. However, the relationships between their ability to learn from experience, measured in terms of individual learning styles and approaches-to-learning, and the quality of their forecasts were found to be very different from those anticipated. No significant correlations were found between forecasting accuracy and the organizational learning styles measures used, except for the learning style Reflective Observation and the approaches-to-learning dimensions labelled 'Risk-taking', 'Insecurity' and 'Self-confidence'. The results for Reflective Observation imply that those forecasters who overemphasise reflection and deliberate and ponder before taking action produce inaccurate, while the 'Insecurity' and 'Self-confidence' dimensions suggest that balanced forecasters, i.e., those who were neither insecure nor overconfident, produce more consistent forecasts. Similarly, the results for the 'Risk-taking' dimension indicate that high-risk takers tend to underestimate, while those who are more conservative tend to overestimate contract prices.

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