The Impact of Organizational Learning Culture on Organizational Performance: Case Study for Afghanistan

Abstract

Organizational learning culture (OLC) reflects how much an organization is capable of accumulating, creating, transferring, and transforming knowledge as a resource within an organization. An organization optimizing its utility from knowledge can be defined as a learning organization. Therefore, organizational performance and organizational learning hold a direct link. Learning organizations develop a dynamic culture which allows them to rapidly adapt themselves to changes, and it results in success in all levels of organizational performance. An increased organizational performance goes beyond financial performance. In this study, seven dimensions of OLC are investigated in terms of their impact on organizational performance. Over the last decades in Afghanistan, multiple development projects have been undertaken, and substantial amounts of investment have been made for accelerated development, peace, security, capacity building, and reconstruction in collaboration with international partners. Because OLC is a constructive contributor to performance outcomes, the study conducts a survey analysis to examine the contribution of OLC to the organizational performance in Afghanistan for publicly and donor-funded projects. Empirical results revealed that there is a strong relationship between OLC and organizational performance with respect to the seven dimensions of OLC. Except for the system connections and embedded systems which hold an inverse relationship with different performance outcomes, it is observed that all OLC parameters hold a strong positive relationship with performance outcomes.