Organizational learning: Challenges of the Serbian hotel sector

Abstract

Organizational learning is the process of improving core competencies of the organization in order to be able to adapt to changes in the business environment. Organizing learning is the result of the involvement of members of the organization in the exchange of knowledge and experience. The aim of the paper is to determine in which extent the hotel organizations are oriented towards learning. and it is operationalized through two research tasks. The first task is to determine the attitude of employees in terms of dimensions of organizational learning, while the second task is to measure the frequency of participation of employees in educational activities and their attitude on the usefulness of such activities. The survey was conducted on a sample of 512 employees in 57 hotels in Serbia. The results indicate moderate positive mean values of dimensions of organizational learning, significant interest of employees in improving their knowledge and skills and their professional development as well as insufficient investment in the employee development in the hotel sector in Serbia. The results of the research represent new scientific information and can be used in making future decisions in context of human resources management. Only continuous improvement of the knowledge, skills and capabilities of the employees, as well as the development of mechanisms for retaining, transferring and utilization of the acquired knowledge, the hotel organization can provide a competitive advantage, respond to the trends in the environment and satisfy more demanding requirements of the guests.