Organizational Learning for Construction Project Management

Abstract

The aim of organizational learning (OL) is to improve organizations’ activities and decisions through effective acquisition and use of knowledge. Organizations seeking adequate implementation of OL should create a supportive culture of management beliefs, attitudes, and commitments, to inspire continuous learning and innovation. Several scholars have studied OL in multiple industries and concluded that many industries have understood the importance of OL and have started to implement it as part of the organization’s strategy. However, based on the type of the industry in which the organization is functioning, some organizations have faced challenges when implementing OL within their strategy. In general, there are differences between organizations with a project-based type of activities, such as construction organizations, and other organizations with a routine-based type of activities, such as manufacturing organizations, and these differences could affect the implementation of OL. In this paper, an introductory investigation from the literature is presented to determine the OL in the construction industry and the major challenges of OL implementation in construction organizations. An overview of the OL practices of each project phase is summarized in the conclusion of this paper.