Organisational learning through public-private partnerships: a human resource management perspective

Abstract

This paper aims to investigate the nature and location of organisational learning in the public sector from the perspective of human resource management (HRM). The research examines how the quality of social interaction in public-private joint programs affects knowledge flow and the dynamics of organisational learning. To explore this theoretical argument, an empirical analysis of five public-private partnerships (PPP) across different social welfare policy domains is conducted in Taipei, Taiwan. The contributions of this research are fourfold. First, it is one of the few studies to expand HRM to the non-private sector and, especially, to cross-sectoral collaboration. Second, the study views PPP as a potential expansion of governments HR structure and an opportunity to promote organisational learning. Third, this work demonstrates how organisational learning is dependent on social relations between actors. Last, a fundamental distinction between a public and a private organisation is made to suggest that different HRM strategy is required for each.