Learning Practices and Challenges among Thai Public,State Enterprise and Private Sectorsin Delivering Public Values

Werawat Punnitamai
National Institute of Public Administration
Thailand

Creating learning values in organizations with the aim of improving service delivery is a must in today’s time. This study examines three dimensions of learning organization practices. The focus is on Thailand’s public enterprise sector, public sector, and private sector. The study consists of three major learning organization dimensions: (1) promoting a supportive learning environment within organizations; (2) establishing concrete learning processes; and (3) positioning a leadership that supports learning. A survey was done among individuals working in state enterprises and the private and public sectors in order to determine the effects of the role played by the above-mentioned sectors’ nature of business or
operations, its size, and its interaction effects in the success of establishing a learning organization.

An organizational-level Multivariate Analysis of Covariance (MANCOVA) reveals that private organizations exhibit significantly more activities across three learning organization dimensions: psychological safety, education and training, and knowledge transfer. Employees in private organizations–especially in the finance and banking sector–perceive a higher level of psychological safety under a supportive learning climate and environment. Additionally, the natures of business organizations–production, construction, and real estate–exhibit a higher level of concrete learning practices and reflection on work processes. Furthermore, the number of employees affects the process of analytical thinking within organizations. There were statistically significant interaction effects among
organization sectors, the nature of business, and number of employees on the sub-dimension, psychological safety in the workplace. Finally, this study discusses the challenges of psychological safety and leadership roles on creating learning practices, then, provides recommendations on leading roles in establishing a psychological safety environment as a fundamental ground for creating the learning organization.