Investigation on learning organization culture, mentoring practice andorganizational commitment in Hong Kong architecture, engineering andconstruction industry

Abstract

The Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) industry of the 21st century is undergoing significant changes to address issues such as economic integration, international partnering and globalization. These changes initiate challenges for the AEC industry in educating personnel to appropriately lead to the rapid changes. 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 taking place inside the organization. The foundation of this challenge focuses on how to facilitate learning organization and establish continuous human resource development throughout all levels of the organization. Organization has a great demand of transforming into learning organization.

A quantitative research is adopted to achieve the following objectives:

1. To validate ‘learning organization’ concept in AEC industry in Hong Kong;

2. To explore the organization learning cultural profiles in AEC industry;

3. To evaluate implementation level of mentoring practice;

4. To determine the relationships among organization learning culture, mentoring practice and organizational commitment.

A self-report questionnaire survey is designed and developed to collect individual employees’ perceptions of the variables about organization learning culture, mentoring practice and organizational commitment. The design of the questionnaire adopts three existing instruments based on solid theoretical foundations: Dimensions of Learning Organization Questionnaire (DLOQ), mentoring scale (MS) and organizational commitment scale (OCS), originally developed in western countries. The instruments are chosen to measure organization learning culture, mentoring practice and organizational commitment. Their contents are modified for the Hong Kong AEC context, and the formats of the three instruments are refined and merged into a single questionnaire. Exploratory factor analysis is used to assess the validity of the instruments in AEC industry in Hong Kong. Correlation analysis is used to examine the relationships among the variables.

This empirical study, using western concepts and instruments, explores relationships among organization learning culture, mentoring practice and organizational commitment in Hong Kong AEC industry. The scope of this study is confined to young professionals working in Hong Kong AEC industry graduated from in local universities. The target group is set to have less than five years of working experiences. Despite the limitations of cultural nuances and narrowly geographically concentrated sampling, this study yields several important findings and contributes new knowledge in the literature.

This study recognizes positive relations of organization learning culture, mentoring practice and organizational commitment in the AEC industry in Hong Kong. By confirming the applicability of the three instruments, this study also indicates that there is a high level of similarity between the HK AEC context and other contexts, e.g., Malaysia, Korea, Taiwan, and Mainland China. It also investigates the present status and differences among demographic groups in organization learning culture, organizational commitment and mentoring practice.

The present study provides significant contribution to support the argument that young professionals working in organizations with a higher level of organization learning culture will have a higher level of appreciation in mentoring practice and organizational commitment. Therefore, the result would help managers and practitioners understand the impact of being a learning organization in AEC industry.