An Investigation on Learning Organization Characteristics: Focusing on Knowledge and Technology Subsystems

Considering the significance of studying universities as a learning organizations and investigating their strengths as well as their weaknesses for the adaptation to the enormous evolutions in the new era, this study is designed to explore learning organization characteristics at Shahid Chamran University Due to its comprehensive and systematic approach, the Marquardt’s learning organization model was employed as the theoretical basis for the current study. The main purpose of this research was to investigate the learning organization parameters from the two perspectives of knowledge and information technology. A descriptive survey design was chosen for this study. The population of this study included all of faculty members of the university. Three hundred faculty members who were selected by the simple random sampling method received a copy of the instrument, and 220 of them completed the questionnaire. Based on the Marquardt’s questionnaire, the literature review and the consultant with experts, a research tool comprising 50 questions rated on a Likert-type scale (5 Points) was developed. The reliability of questionnaire was determined by calculating the Cronbach's alpha coefficient (existing t condition=./913 and desired condition= ./980). The descriptive and inferential statistics (paired t test) were used for analyzing the data. The findings revealed that there was a significant difference between the existing condition and the overall desired condition regarding the learning organization parameters at Shahid Chamran University.