Learning Organization And Mentoring Practice: An Empirical Investigation

The Architecture, Engineering and Construction industry (AEC) of the 21st century is undergoing significant changes to address issues such as the economic integration, international partnering and globalization. These changes initiate a challenge for the AEC industry in education, training and continuous professional development of personnel. A needs-driven approach to mentoring recognizes the fact that employees in the workplace are required to engage in continuous learning to keep pace with changes within the organization. The foundation of this challenge focuses on how to facilitate learning in organization and establish continuous human resource development throughout all levels of the organization. Organizations are gradually transforming into learning organizations. A quantitative research is developed and conducted: 1) To validate the ëlearning organizationí concept in AEC organizations in Hong Kong; 2) To map out the profiles of organizational learning culture; 3) To evaluate the implementation level of mentoring practice; and 4) To determine the relationship between learning organization and mentoring practice. The Dimensions of the Learning Organization Questionnaire (DLOQ) is adopted to assess various aspects of learning organizations. The questionnaire was administered to young professionals, and drew on responses from a total sample of 151 employees to gauge the progress towards learning organization and mentoring practice in AEC industry in Hong Kong. Emphasis has been placed on young professionalsí view towards organization to ensure learning and knowledge transfer as a means of increasing their knowledge base and improving performance. Factors affecting the transformation of organizations into learning organizations are explored. Implications on improving the performance of the young professionals as well as the organizations are discussed.