The ability to learn and thus adapt to change is without doubt one of the most effective tools to emerge victorious in the face of chaos. But how do you know if an organization has this capability? The objective of this study is to validate the instrument of the dimensions of the organization that learns DLOQ (Dimensions of the Learning Organization Questionnaire). The DLOQ has 21 items or reagents distributed in seven different but related dimensions. The instrument seeks to be an initial intervention tool for contexts of chaos. The instrument was applied with a total of 21 items, in 14 organizations in the southern center of the state of Guanajuato, in Mexico, achieving the application of 536 valid cases. Based on the factor analysis carried out in the SPSS program, two important dimensions are observed, one of which is more important and contributes to 34,113% of the total average, a second factor of 28,764% of the total average. Factor one is called the organization's ability to learn, the second dialogue, and team learning.
TopIntroduction
Nowadays, the organization faces several challenges, including a global economy, new competitors and derived from the COVID-19 outbreak, many of the organizations have taken remote leadership, in addition to the use of new technologies, staff motivation needs, as well as to safeguard the security of human capital by managing changes in work patterns. Many of these challenges require an effective and opportune intervention, but above all, a strategy not previously planned or adjusted, that is, an analysis, generation of strategies and learning methods is required with a reduced learning curve in time.
All the above generates chaos in the organization as it becomes a complex system due to the incidence of endless variables. Scientists call chaotic to those complex non-random movements that show a very rapid expansion of errors, which prevents finding the growth rate and therefore inhibits the possibility of being predictable in time (Pidal, 2009). With chaos, therefore, the idea of non-linearity in science is embedded and, in general, the enormous difficulty of predicting the evolution of some systems is established (Moncaleano, 2018).
For more than a decade Yang et al., (2004) argue that many researchers in the organization have concluded that an organization's learning capacity will be the only sustainable competitive advantage in the future. Starkey et al., (2004) note that even Michael Porter, authoritarian of strategies, believes that learning plays an important role in the success of companies in the future. It is through learning that knowledge becomes an essential competitive resource for an organization, as mass production is superseded by information and knowledge (Rastogi, 2000).
On the other hand, an organization that learns is not only one that shares the right way of doing things, nor that all learning is oriented to the alignment of institutional philosophy, it may be doubted that what is learned is not best practices, or that what has been learned is not aligned with the objectives of the organization Even what is not documented in an organizing manual, the practices that the staff know and have experienced have been repeatedly communicated without the need for a formal medium and it becomes part of the culture. The lack of a correct application of the organization's capacity to learn can also generate poor performance and therefore a competitive disadvantage. Although this is an issue that seems to only concern the organization, the individuals involved have a decrease in their ability to achieve that directly impacts the personal and professional satisfaction of each individual.
A complexity that is found when addressing the subject of organization that learns is derived from the fact that learning can be seen as knowledge, however, this work addresses the concept of an organization that learns as characteristics of development and growth; not being merely of knowledge.
Because of today's challenges, the ability to learn and thus adapt to change is undoubtedly one of the most effective tools for overcoming chaos. But how do we know that an organization can learn? To generate a strategic plan, it is necessary to know the organization's current diagnosis of the ability to learn, particularly in rapidly changing and demanding chaotic environments for companies to generate equally rapid responses that are constantly adapted to survive and thrive.
Watkins and Marsick (1997) developed a questionnaire to diagnose an organization's will to learn and called it the Dimensions of the Learning Organization Questionnaire (DLOQ). The questionnaire was validated in about twenty countries and crops. No evidence that validation was carried out in Mexico.
It seeks to improve practices related to human capital development, as well as to implement innovative practices so that staff in the region is qualified and to meet the demands of international industry in a chaotic framework derived from a health pandemic.
Considering that, to initiate an intervention, a diagnosis is necessary, the use of tools such as DLOQ will be of great use, so it is important for validation and reliability of this questionnaire in the state of Guanajuato, Mexico.
Therefore, the aim of the study is to:
Validate the instrument of the dimensions of the learning organization (Dimensions of the Learning Organization Questionnaire).
At present we are in a globalized world where economic, political, social, cultural, and technological variables are integrated and are changing the ways in which countries and subjects interact.