Environmental Traits That Support a Learning Organization: The Impact on Information System Development Projects

Organizational learning is influenced by many traits. Among these, certain environmental and managerial traits within the organization have been shown to support a learn- ing organization. This organizational learning is crucial in infor- mation system development so that future projects may gain from the knowledge generated from past projects and during current projects. Organizational technology learning is the term we give to the organizational learning that occurs in information system development. A survey of project managers and participants in sys- tem projects tested whether certain common traits tend to be active promoters of learning in the project team setting as well as at the organizational level. Of those traits tested, clear mission and objec- tives, knowledge transfer mechanisms, and experimentation all proved to be significant environmental factors for learning in proj- ect teams.

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