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Learning for Professional Development via Peers: A System Theory Approach
Available online at www.sciencedirect.com
ScienceDirect Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 172 (2015) 88 – 95
Global Conference on Business & Social Science-2014, GCBSS-2014, 15th & 16th December, Kuala Lumpur
Learning for professional development via peers: A System Theory approach Fadilah Puteha*, Maniam Kaliannanb, Nafis Alamc abc
University of Nottingham, Semenyih, Selangor Darul Ehsan,43500, Malaysia
Abstract CPD is critical to combat ‘professional obsolete syndrome’ among employees. CPD is derived from formal, non-formal and informal learning. With respect to informal learning, the role played by peers is still vague and less explored. First, this paper discusses the potential of learning for professional development via peers from the system theory lenses. Secondly, it presents the analysis of learning practices and the challenges associated with learning via peers in the Malaysian service-based industry. Data was gathered through interviews. This study recommends that greater attention be given on peers as one of the rich sources of learning in the organization. 2015The TheAuthors. Authors. Published Elsevier ©©2015 Published by by Elsevier Ltd.Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer-review under responsibility of GLTR International Sdn. Berhad. Peer-review under responsibility of GLTR International Sdn. Berhad. Keywords: Continued Professional Development; Systems Theory; Informal Learning; Peers; Competency; Malaysian Service-Based Industry
1. Introduction Continued Professional Development (CPD) which focused on continuous lifelong learning (Adanu, 2007; Jones & Fear, 1994; Leader, 2003; Noon, 1994; Tan, 2005) is important to combat ‘professional obsolete syndrome’ (Latham & Wexley, 2001; López-Cabrales et al., 2011; Tan, 2005) among employees. For professionals, CPD is crucial to remain relevant, having up-to-date competencies thus, created ‘community of practice’ (Hamidi et al., 2012) to continually embark on knowledge discovery. Literatures on CPD suggested that learning is derived from formal, nonformal and informal learning (Briggs & Sommefeldt, 2002; Conlon, 2004; Garrick, 1998; Smith, 2011; Thomas & Anderson, 2006; Wai et al., 2012). Informal learning is claimed at its best and is accurately described as a form of
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1877-0428 © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Peer-review under responsibility of GLTR International Sdn. Berhad. doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2015.01.340
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lifelong learning (Adanu, 2007). It is deemed to be influenced by people-experience; it shapes how employees view the reality about their work and workplace practices; and offers possibilities for improving the learning capabilities of complex organisation as there are no defined sets of curriculum aimed at informal learning. Informal learning differ from formal and non-formal learning where the former is characterized by the learner’s perspective and takes place anywhere, everywhere and not confounded by structure and environment (Smith, 2011); and it can take place despite the environment being inconducive (Marsick & Watkins, 1990). Studies show that informal learning fills in knowledge and skills gap that are not covered by formal and non-formal learning (Briggs & Sommefeldt, 2002; Burns & Chisholm, 2003; Eddy et al., 2005; Garrick, 1998; Heijden et al., 2009; Smith, 2011). In the area of informal learning too, research also merely focus on the role of leaders or supervisors as learning facilitators (Cunningham & Hillier, 2013; Heijden et al., 2009) have received considerable attention by many scholars and researchers (Briggs & Sommefeldt, 2002; Nyberg et al., 2014). Nevertheless, informal learning through knowledge-sharing amongst individuals within organisations is under-researched (Foss et al., 2010). Interestingly, researches have confirmed that peers and supervisors are more useful sources of knowledge and support than formal programmes conducted by organisation (Bui & Baruch, 2011; Eddy et al., 2005; Thomas & Anderson, 2006). Senior co-workers with high and rich tacit knowledge and their roles in terms of knowledge-transfer to other employees is still vague and less explored (Eddy et al., 2005) thus, open vast opportunities in this area to be explored. The next section of this paper will explore the potential and challenges of learning via peers or senior co-workers towards professional development of junior co-workers from System Theory perspective. 2. Learning via Peers from System Theory Lenses: Potential and Challenges System Theory is defined as a complex entitiy created by the multiple interaction of components by abstracting from certain details of structure and component, and concentrating on the dynamics that define the characteristic functions, properties, and relationships that are internal or external to the system (Laszlo & Krippner, 1998, p.2). Laszlo as quoted by Graetz et al. (2006) defined system as a set of units or entities that interrelate with each other to form a whole thus, a wide range of systemic disconnect will adversely affect performance (Swanson & Holton, 2009). The system theory views that even small changes to one part of an organisation will have multiple and potentially, ongoing effects (Graetz et al., 2006, p.16). System theory is based on the belief that takes into consideration the value brought, contributed and possessed by individuals in the organisation (Chiangmai, 2005; Eddy et al., 2005; Tan, 2005). System perspective is very interested in the operation and functions of organisation that gear its activity among and between individual, units or entities across the whole organisation. The system perspective indirectly viewed all kinds of change intended to improve organizational performance (OP) need to occur across every organisational part and across the range of subsystems (López-Cabrales et al., 2011). Hence, under this theory perspective, even a small contribution from an organisational member has significant effect to the organisation or units or departments in the organisation in terms of practices, processes and structures. Since organisation consists of living entities with specific role thus, each of the entity has significant impact on the OP in a unique way (Whee et al., 2012). Collaboration between business units or between employees lead towards better OP while too much competition within an organization produce negative effect on OP (Levenson, 2005). When an individual employee leaves the organization, the composition will also change and might have significant negative or positive effect to overall OP. Similarly the inflows and outflows of human assets plus the knowledge they hold, do influence their organization and its overall OP. As Resource Based View (RBV) appreciate human resources in a larger context or “macro foundations”, system theory in contrast appreciate and explore the “micro foundations” of individual employee as unique resources and capability (Nyberg et al., 2014). The notion that each and everyone in the organization has a special role triggered the use of system theory in order to look at how senior co-workers do influence or help in competency development of their junior co-workers. This is because each individual employee has a set of unique knowledge, skill and ability (KSA) and other characteristics that is useful in sustaining or achieving competitive advantage. Different types of KSA owned by individual employees may have different influences in different context and also produce different outcomes in terms of OP, thus system theory provides an attempt to new trajectories to cater for the development of an employee competency.
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2.1 The Potential In the context of senior co-workers, particularly in Malaysia this area is still under-research. They are the most sought after resources when dealing with problems related to day-to-day operations. Leaders or manages undeniably play important roles, nonetheless, managers face difficulties in facilitating and building knowledge in and between organisations due to information, knowledge, power and status which are distributed asymmetrically across organisation (Chiangmai, 2005; Eddy et al., 2005; Freydouni & Woods, 2010). Furthermore, between leaders and employees, there always exists what we called as ‘power distance’ attributed by formal communication and relationship. In addition, relationship among colleagues seems more natural, informal and have less barriers thus, employees prefer to deal with senior colleagues first rather than their leaders. Highly skilled and talented employees are synonymous with senior employees who have gained vast experience in their work tenure. They usually possess high tacit knowledge that is valuable to the organisation. Tacit knowledge is the “know-how” and “know-why” which is accumulated over many years of experience (Droege & Hoobler, 2003) and difficult to be communicated and transferred due to its complexity and subjectivity. However, tacit knowledge-transfer can be made possible between senior and junior workers if they share or have similar work experience or knowledge structure (Pan & Wang, 2010). Several researchers supported that co-workers can be the important source of learning about role performance (see Feldman, 1976; Louis et al., 1983; Nelson and Quick, 1991). Employees with unique and valuable knowledge and skills are considered as organizational strategic asset; and they contribute significantly towards an organization distinctive competitiveness and profitability (López-Cabrales et al., 2011). The role played by senior co-workers are significant to be looked at closely as they are also part of the entitity in the whole entire organization (Thomas & Anderson, 2006) hence, their distinctive roles are important to be capitalized by an organization. This is inline with the current trend of researches in the field of HR which are more interested in looking into the role of HR or Human Capital (HC) as a mediator between HR related matters and OP (Nyberg et al., 2014). Studies reported that employees spent much of their working time with informal learning rather than formal or nonformal learning which indirectly indicate that the acquisition of knowledge and skills can only be mastered by active participation in the workplace (Conlon, 2004; Heijden et al., 2009; Marsick & Watkins, 1990). Learning from more experienced workers through listening and peer interactions have greater impact on employees performance more than formal learning can offer (Conlon, 2004). Most of the learning process that takes place in the organization involve transfer of knowledge informally through daily interactions among employees. Sharing of cumulated knowledge, skills and experience among employees also provide opportunities to capitalise on the competency of the staff (Tan, 2005). As the cost for training is ever increasing, the use of internal subject-matter-experts provide sound solutions while encouraging and promoting knowledge-sharing and knowledge-transfer among employees. This is in tandem with what Nägele & Hasler (2010) termed as someone who “knows-what” (knowledge), “knows-how” (skills) and “knows-why” (abilities). Hence, organizations must find ways on how to leverage, utilize and transfer the tacit knowledge of senior co-workers to junior co-workers. It was found that suggested that learning from peers and supervisors are strongly related to role performance (Thomas & Anderson, 2006) while reading professional literature, attending workshops and networking with colleagues are the top three specific activities that help employees improve their work performance (Adanu, 2007). Knowledge-sharing and inter-employee interactions helped mediate the task effectiveness which suggest the importance of interpersonal interactions through sharing of tangible and intangible knowledge at workplace (Lin, 2010). It was also discovered that knowledge-transfer occurs when employees who are well-trained in turn, teach others and knowledge-sharing work best if an organisation provides a platform for employees to gather and share new knowledge to flow freely from one individual to another (Fong et al., 2011). Meanwhile studies found that storytelling too offers a great potential to transmit tacit knowledge from senior to junior executives (Kalid & Mahmood, 2012; Wijetunge, 2012). 2.2 The Challenges Despite the great potential of learning via peers however, it is important to note that knowledge-sharing or knowledge-transfer among peers is also quite a challenge. Studies show that many organisations adopt the concepts of cross-functional learning, inter-organisational learning, collective or shared experience (Chiangmai, 2005) as ways
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to enhance competencies, but this condition is subjected to the willingness of the knowledge owner or holder to transfer or sharing the knowledge (Garrick, 1998; Noorazah & Juhana, 2012). In addition to it, knowledge-sharing is also not an easy task to do as some of the knowledge is tacit (Garrick, 1998; Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995; Nonaka & Toyama, 2002). Most knowledge is often tacit in nature and owns by individuals rather than an organization thus; having tacit knowledge can raise the value of the individual who owns that (Nonaka & Toyama, 2002, p.997). Hence, organizations need to motivate organizational members to share their knowledge willingly as sharing of tacit knowledge can lessen the value of the original owner of the knowledge therefore they might reluctant to share their knowledge (Chuang et al., 2013; Nonaka & Toyama, 2002). Recent study also revealed that sharing of tacit knowledge is difficult to be done as compared to sharing of knowledge that is less tacit. Capturing and sharing tacit knowledge is made possible through informal learning provided that the individual members of the organization do not hoard any information and are willing to share (Chuang et al., 2013). A study on the barriers of knowledge sharing in Malaysian hospitality industry revealed that the hotel operators suffers three barriers namely work environment, personnel attitude, and knowledge-transfer process within organization. Many hotel managers and senior staff noted that hospitality industry suffers in terms of knowledgesharing among employees due to the hierarchical structure in which lower level employees are reluctant to ask and get knowledge from senior staff. This occurs due to generation or structural gap in which top management are reluctant to listen and respond accordingly to the suggestions and ideas thrown by junior staff. They termed this as “knowledge hoarding” in which the element of trust between senior and junior staff is the missing link that linchpin the two together and also their unwillingness to share their knowledge. Another major problem facing the hospitality industry in Malaysia was how knowledge are transferred internally in which the process was not done appropriately and smoothly thus creating “loss of knowledge” in between the process (Freydouni & Woods, 2010). They further suggested that the informal learning may be the remedy to overcome “the loss of knowledge” and considered as pivotal in knowledge sharing process. In terms of tacit knowledge-transfer to happen, it relied heavily on knowledge and skills of those whom we put our trust (Noon, 1994). Learning via peers can also leave the employees in a state of burnout and frustation, helpless and directionless if no support is given by their colleagues, should the employees are asked to learn things on their own through “swim or sink” approach. Thus, strong mentoring and backbone support will definitely help to expedite the learning process (Kalid & Mahmood, 2012). The following section describes the methodology employed in order to have an in-depth understanding about learning for professional development via peers in the Malaysian context.
3. Methodology
This study was conducted in order to understand and gauge the role of peers or senior co-workers in learning for professional development amongst junior employees. A qualitative study was employed through semi-structured interviews with 15 HR Directors and HR Managers in service-based industry in Malaysia located in Klang Valley which comprise of three different states (Selangor, Kuala Lumpur and Putrajaya). Four different sectors were chosen namely Multi-National Corporations (6 respondents: R1, R8, R10, R11, R12, R14); Government-Linked Corporations (4 respondents: R5, R6, R7, R9); Small-Medium Enterprises (3 respondents: R2, R13, R15); and Malaysian Government Agencies (2 respondents: R3, R4). The selection of the respondents of this study is based on their expertise in the area being studied. An in-depth face-to-face interview was conducted as a research approach for this study because this method allows the researcher to develop an extensive analysis by providing rich detailed information and provide new and fresh sight. A set of interview questions is developed to assess the practices and challenges of learning for professional development via peers from the management perspective. The data collected
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was audiotaped, transcribed and analyzed using thematic analysis. Subject-matter-expert views are important to be analyzed as it features the actual scenario on how these different sectors see; interpret; regulate; implement; and enforce learning for professional development amongst their staff. The next section will discuss two important findings obtained from interviews: the current CPD practices via peers and the challenges associated with it. 4. Findings and Discussion Each respondent was asked about current CPD practices via peers and its challenges in their respective organization. Their responses and feedback were analyzed, tabled and summarized. Two major findings are discussed namely the current practices of CPD via peers and the challenges associated with it. It was found that majority of the respondents (14/15 or 93%) have agreed on the importance of learning for professional development via peers as part of their current CPD activities in developing employee competency. They also recognized the importance of peers’ role in learning for professional development particularly among junior co-workers. In general, majority of the respondents agreed that learning via peers can take place through learning on-the-job, learning at the workplace, the use of buddy-system, learning through sharing of experience and common interest, learning through sharing of best practices, learning through observation and learning can even take place during lunchbox seminars. For instances, R5, R8, R12 and R14 indicate that: “Yes, we can’t teach them everything during the morning briefing, cannot. We have to teach them there (at their work station). They are also being taught by their supervisors or by their seniors. How to make a bed, how to check the rooms, minibar…..they learnt this from the more experienced staff” [R2]. “Here, we always go in a team. So, in the ground, they will arrange, if 1 team is an expert, they will bring somebody that is not-so expert, so that it become like buddy-buddy. This person will learn from the most senior. So that’s one of the most effective ways we teach people about skills. We stressed on teamwork and peer relationship so that you are not silo or think of yourselves” [R5]. “Peer-relationships is friendship that is based on mutual respect, appreciation and liking. This kind of relationship exists where people share common interest and at almost similar job level or reporting line. This relationship helped to accelerate learning and perform better” [R8]. “Here in X, we have this lunch and learn session. Participants share their thoughts, there could be some people who have done things which have helped them so they shared with everybody as a best practice. So it’s a kind of an interactive session. It is not really a classroom kind of training where the trainer stands up and delivers. It’s about each of them discussing with each other and finding out what are the best practices they can adopt from each other” [R12]. “We have focused on knowledge-transfer especially between the senior employees with junior employees. We believe that knowledge-transfer happen naturally at workplace in which they might exchange information or simply by observing others perform their duties and do it their own” [R14]. The above findings impliedly underlined that learning via peers happen informally and not confounded with any structure, syllabus, time and place. It can happen anytime, anywhere and everywhere. This is supported by Smith (2011) that informal learning is characterized by the learner’s perspective and takes place anywhere, everywhere and not confounded by structure and environment. Although many organizations look up at learning via peers as a powerful learning tool, however only one respondent (R10) indicated that learning through peers is not in practice as there is no platform provided to allow them to learn from each other informally. Asking about employee learning from each other, R10 commented that: “We just didn’t bother to ask even when that person is in the same room. We work like zombies in the office, not talking to each other and nobody bother to ask because that is the nature, our habit at work, we are so isolated. They are too complacent and insist that this is the only way to do, this is my style. If one employee is not around nobody knows what to do” [R10]. This scenario as mentioned by R10 has made informal learning less effective in R10’s organization because it has become rigid in the organization and employees only know their work duties and are not bothered to learn about what the rest of their colleagues are doing. Despite the importance of peers in learning for professional development, nevertheless it has several challenges
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that is worth addressing. Based on the findings, there are four main challenges associated with learning via peers as namely trust, knowledge hoarding, willingness to share and ability to share. In terms of willingness to share R1, R2, R6, R10, R11, R12, R13, and R15 (8/15 or 54%) highlighted this as one of the main challenges they have in their respective organizations. For instances, R1, R11 and R15 pointed out that: “The problem in our industry is people don’t share. People don’t want to share that tacit knowledge. Even if they want to share there is no platform to do so” [R1]. “We do have this kind of seniors who are not willing to share” [R11]. “There is another problem. Sometimes their friends know but they don’t want to share the knowledge. There are people when you ask them questions they just couldn’t be bothered to let you know and help. There are a few here and I have slammed them and they refused to talk to me. And some of them are seniors” [R15]. Meanwhile R3, R10, R13 and R15 (4/15 or 27%) observed that trust as one of their major hurdles in knowledgesharing or transfer between senior and junior staff in their respective organization. For instances, R3 and R15 noted that: “When you talk about the work, the task, the job, you cannot go into their area. They prefer to do themselves rather than by other divisions or units. We can comment; we can give feedback but when you do the actual work, yes, that’s it. Only that particular person will do” [R3]. “When we ask they will deny it, but I know they know. That’s why I always tell the other seniors. When you have your team, you must have your mini-meeting, you must tell them your goals and stressed on teamwork. They know, but they dare not say it” [R15]. Furthermore R2, R4, R5, R6, R7, R8, R9, R10, R11, R13, R15 (11/15 or 73%) also reported that few staff in their respective organizations are hoarding important knowledge or information. They view this as one of the critical challenge they have to work on in order to promote knowledge-sharing and knowledge-transfer among staff. The respondents agreed that learning via peers especially sharing of tacit knowledge and experiences is quite difficult. Some even commented that success rate to tap this invaluable knowledge is slightly lower between 20%-30% if using traditional way of learning such as formal training but is slightly higher if informal learning is utilize in which it allows an open communication and free flow of knowledge among and information between organizational members. For example R4, R7, R11 and R13 mentioned that: “When I first joined here, I see this as one of the major problem. Seniors who are really expert in their areas, we find it difficult to get them to teach others. When we want to have an access on these kind of information, we have to locate them everywhere. We realized this and we are trying very hard to tap their knowledge” [R4]. “I do agree that the transfer process is not easy because of several reasons. We know that we cannot tap the knowledge 100%, but if we can tap 20%-30%, it is considered good enough to us. That 20%-30% or even up to 50% we will look at the skills acquisition gained by the new incumbents in which they are able to do the job hands-on” [R7]. “Every time we ask senior staff to do the job, they will give us lots of answers. We do have cases that senior staff are not cooperative” [R11]. I find it very difficult to get the senior staff to follow because they have their own style of doing. So I tackled the younger staff first” [R13]. With respect to ability to share R5, R6, R13 and R14 (4/15 or 27%) confirmed that their organizations also are facing challenges in terms of knowledge-sharing among staff. Some of their senior staff have lacked the ability to share their knowledge to their juniors. As a result, many organizations are having problem in utilizing valuable knowledge which is mostly tacit in nature and consequently affected organization performance. As commented by R6 and R13 that: “One of the barriers is the person himself. Maybe he is knowledgeable but he did not know how to dig out the knowledge. Unless you are in that situation (where) he is familiar then he can share. But if you sit down together and ask him please share what you have done before, for the past 20 years or 30 years, he might have difficulty to share. Because you have to understand too that not everybody is one; willing to share, second; not everybody knows how to share. I think many organizations are struggling on that too” [R6]. “Within that 10 year period when I was not in this company, a lot of information the seniors have got in their mind but they don’t know or they don’t have the time to download to the other staff especially junior staff. In that 10 years I found that the products, the documents and the quality of the services provided had gone down” [R13].
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Several studies supported the above findings in which to let the knowledge or information flow freely, trust that exists between employees is critical (Hamidi et al., 2012; Pangil & Moi, 2012), they should be willing to share the knowledge (Chuang et al., 2013) and not see others as a threat for their career progressions (Noorazah & Juhana, 2012). 5. Recommendation and Conclusion This section puts forth, sums up the importance and challenges associated with learning for professional development via peers in service-based industry in Malaysia. Literature reviews that discuss peer role from the system theory perspective indicate that peers or senior co-workers certainly play an important part and do influence their junior co-workers competency. Apart of managers, leaders or supervisors, peers also act as an utmost source of learning for professional development. Results obtained from interviews revealed many interesting findings. Research findings point out that peers or senior co-workers have a great potential in the organization particularly learning for professional development among their junior co-workers. Senior co-workers have distinctive roles in learning and it is important that the organization capitalize on them. Despite its great potential, findings also revealed several challenges associated with learning via peers which require creative and critical actions to be taken by organizations. Nonetheless, further research that gauge the importance of senior co-workers in learning need to be tested empirically to see whether learning for professional development has significant relationship with the role of peers or senior coworkers. Informal learning should also be incorporated with both formal and non-formal learning as it has great potentials and provides effective and efficient platform for knowledge-sharing among employees in the organization. References Adanu, T. S. A. (2007). 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Global Conference on Business & Social Science-2014, GCBSS-2014, 15th & 16th December, Kuala Lumpur
Learning for professional development via peers: A System Theory approach Fadilah Puteha*, Maniam Kaliannanb, Nafis Alamc abc
University of Nottingham, Semenyih, Selangor Darul Ehsan,43500, Malaysia
Abstract CPD is critical to combat ‘professional obsolete syndrome’ among employees. CPD is derived from formal, non-formal and informal learning. With respect to informal learning, the role played by peers is still vague and less explored. First, this paper discusses the potential of learning for professional development via peers from the system theory lenses. Secondly, it presents the analysis of learning practices and the challenges associated with learning via peers in the Malaysian service-based industry. Data was gathered through interviews. This study recommends that greater attention be given on peers as one of the rich sources of learning in the organization. 2015The TheAuthors. Authors. Published Elsevier ©©2015 Published by by Elsevier Ltd.Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer-review under responsibility of GLTR International Sdn. Berhad. Peer-review under responsibility of GLTR International Sdn. Berhad. Keywords: Continued Professional Development; Systems Theory; Informal Learning; Peers; Competency; Malaysian Service-Based Industry
1. Introduction Continued Professional Development (CPD) which focused on continuous lifelong learning (Adanu, 2007; Jones & Fear, 1994; Leader, 2003; Noon, 1994; Tan, 2005) is important to combat ‘professional obsolete syndrome’ (Latham & Wexley, 2001; López-Cabrales et al., 2011; Tan, 2005) among employees. For professionals, CPD is crucial to remain relevant, having up-to-date competencies thus, created ‘community of practice’ (Hamidi et al., 2012) to continually embark on knowledge discovery. Literatures on CPD suggested that learning is derived from formal, nonformal and informal learning (Briggs & Sommefeldt, 2002; Conlon, 2004; Garrick, 1998; Smith, 2011; Thomas & Anderson, 2006; Wai et al., 2012). Informal learning is claimed at its best and is accurately described as a form of
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +603-55435884. E-mail address: [email protected]
1877-0428 © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Peer-review under responsibility of GLTR International Sdn. Berhad. doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2015.01.340
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lifelong learning (Adanu, 2007). It is deemed to be influenced by people-experience; it shapes how employees view the reality about their work and workplace practices; and offers possibilities for improving the learning capabilities of complex organisation as there are no defined sets of curriculum aimed at informal learning. Informal learning differ from formal and non-formal learning where the former is characterized by the learner’s perspective and takes place anywhere, everywhere and not confounded by structure and environment (Smith, 2011); and it can take place despite the environment being inconducive (Marsick & Watkins, 1990). Studies show that informal learning fills in knowledge and skills gap that are not covered by formal and non-formal learning (Briggs & Sommefeldt, 2002; Burns & Chisholm, 2003; Eddy et al., 2005; Garrick, 1998; Heijden et al., 2009; Smith, 2011). In the area of informal learning too, research also merely focus on the role of leaders or supervisors as learning facilitators (Cunningham & Hillier, 2013; Heijden et al., 2009) have received considerable attention by many scholars and researchers (Briggs & Sommefeldt, 2002; Nyberg et al., 2014). Nevertheless, informal learning through knowledge-sharing amongst individuals within organisations is under-researched (Foss et al., 2010). Interestingly, researches have confirmed that peers and supervisors are more useful sources of knowledge and support than formal programmes conducted by organisation (Bui & Baruch, 2011; Eddy et al., 2005; Thomas & Anderson, 2006). Senior co-workers with high and rich tacit knowledge and their roles in terms of knowledge-transfer to other employees is still vague and less explored (Eddy et al., 2005) thus, open vast opportunities in this area to be explored. The next section of this paper will explore the potential and challenges of learning via peers or senior co-workers towards professional development of junior co-workers from System Theory perspective. 2. Learning via Peers from System Theory Lenses: Potential and Challenges System Theory is defined as a complex entitiy created by the multiple interaction of components by abstracting from certain details of structure and component, and concentrating on the dynamics that define the characteristic functions, properties, and relationships that are internal or external to the system (Laszlo & Krippner, 1998, p.2). Laszlo as quoted by Graetz et al. (2006) defined system as a set of units or entities that interrelate with each other to form a whole thus, a wide range of systemic disconnect will adversely affect performance (Swanson & Holton, 2009). The system theory views that even small changes to one part of an organisation will have multiple and potentially, ongoing effects (Graetz et al., 2006, p.16). System theory is based on the belief that takes into consideration the value brought, contributed and possessed by individuals in the organisation (Chiangmai, 2005; Eddy et al., 2005; Tan, 2005). System perspective is very interested in the operation and functions of organisation that gear its activity among and between individual, units or entities across the whole organisation. The system perspective indirectly viewed all kinds of change intended to improve organizational performance (OP) need to occur across every organisational part and across the range of subsystems (López-Cabrales et al., 2011). Hence, under this theory perspective, even a small contribution from an organisational member has significant effect to the organisation or units or departments in the organisation in terms of practices, processes and structures. Since organisation consists of living entities with specific role thus, each of the entity has significant impact on the OP in a unique way (Whee et al., 2012). Collaboration between business units or between employees lead towards better OP while too much competition within an organization produce negative effect on OP (Levenson, 2005). When an individual employee leaves the organization, the composition will also change and might have significant negative or positive effect to overall OP. Similarly the inflows and outflows of human assets plus the knowledge they hold, do influence their organization and its overall OP. As Resource Based View (RBV) appreciate human resources in a larger context or “macro foundations”, system theory in contrast appreciate and explore the “micro foundations” of individual employee as unique resources and capability (Nyberg et al., 2014). The notion that each and everyone in the organization has a special role triggered the use of system theory in order to look at how senior co-workers do influence or help in competency development of their junior co-workers. This is because each individual employee has a set of unique knowledge, skill and ability (KSA) and other characteristics that is useful in sustaining or achieving competitive advantage. Different types of KSA owned by individual employees may have different influences in different context and also produce different outcomes in terms of OP, thus system theory provides an attempt to new trajectories to cater for the development of an employee competency.
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2.1 The Potential In the context of senior co-workers, particularly in Malaysia this area is still under-research. They are the most sought after resources when dealing with problems related to day-to-day operations. Leaders or manages undeniably play important roles, nonetheless, managers face difficulties in facilitating and building knowledge in and between organisations due to information, knowledge, power and status which are distributed asymmetrically across organisation (Chiangmai, 2005; Eddy et al., 2005; Freydouni & Woods, 2010). Furthermore, between leaders and employees, there always exists what we called as ‘power distance’ attributed by formal communication and relationship. In addition, relationship among colleagues seems more natural, informal and have less barriers thus, employees prefer to deal with senior colleagues first rather than their leaders. Highly skilled and talented employees are synonymous with senior employees who have gained vast experience in their work tenure. They usually possess high tacit knowledge that is valuable to the organisation. Tacit knowledge is the “know-how” and “know-why” which is accumulated over many years of experience (Droege & Hoobler, 2003) and difficult to be communicated and transferred due to its complexity and subjectivity. However, tacit knowledge-transfer can be made possible between senior and junior workers if they share or have similar work experience or knowledge structure (Pan & Wang, 2010). Several researchers supported that co-workers can be the important source of learning about role performance (see Feldman, 1976; Louis et al., 1983; Nelson and Quick, 1991). Employees with unique and valuable knowledge and skills are considered as organizational strategic asset; and they contribute significantly towards an organization distinctive competitiveness and profitability (López-Cabrales et al., 2011). The role played by senior co-workers are significant to be looked at closely as they are also part of the entitity in the whole entire organization (Thomas & Anderson, 2006) hence, their distinctive roles are important to be capitalized by an organization. This is inline with the current trend of researches in the field of HR which are more interested in looking into the role of HR or Human Capital (HC) as a mediator between HR related matters and OP (Nyberg et al., 2014). Studies reported that employees spent much of their working time with informal learning rather than formal or nonformal learning which indirectly indicate that the acquisition of knowledge and skills can only be mastered by active participation in the workplace (Conlon, 2004; Heijden et al., 2009; Marsick & Watkins, 1990). Learning from more experienced workers through listening and peer interactions have greater impact on employees performance more than formal learning can offer (Conlon, 2004). Most of the learning process that takes place in the organization involve transfer of knowledge informally through daily interactions among employees. Sharing of cumulated knowledge, skills and experience among employees also provide opportunities to capitalise on the competency of the staff (Tan, 2005). As the cost for training is ever increasing, the use of internal subject-matter-experts provide sound solutions while encouraging and promoting knowledge-sharing and knowledge-transfer among employees. This is in tandem with what Nägele & Hasler (2010) termed as someone who “knows-what” (knowledge), “knows-how” (skills) and “knows-why” (abilities). Hence, organizations must find ways on how to leverage, utilize and transfer the tacit knowledge of senior co-workers to junior co-workers. It was found that suggested that learning from peers and supervisors are strongly related to role performance (Thomas & Anderson, 2006) while reading professional literature, attending workshops and networking with colleagues are the top three specific activities that help employees improve their work performance (Adanu, 2007). Knowledge-sharing and inter-employee interactions helped mediate the task effectiveness which suggest the importance of interpersonal interactions through sharing of tangible and intangible knowledge at workplace (Lin, 2010). It was also discovered that knowledge-transfer occurs when employees who are well-trained in turn, teach others and knowledge-sharing work best if an organisation provides a platform for employees to gather and share new knowledge to flow freely from one individual to another (Fong et al., 2011). Meanwhile studies found that storytelling too offers a great potential to transmit tacit knowledge from senior to junior executives (Kalid & Mahmood, 2012; Wijetunge, 2012). 2.2 The Challenges Despite the great potential of learning via peers however, it is important to note that knowledge-sharing or knowledge-transfer among peers is also quite a challenge. Studies show that many organisations adopt the concepts of cross-functional learning, inter-organisational learning, collective or shared experience (Chiangmai, 2005) as ways
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to enhance competencies, but this condition is subjected to the willingness of the knowledge owner or holder to transfer or sharing the knowledge (Garrick, 1998; Noorazah & Juhana, 2012). In addition to it, knowledge-sharing is also not an easy task to do as some of the knowledge is tacit (Garrick, 1998; Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995; Nonaka & Toyama, 2002). Most knowledge is often tacit in nature and owns by individuals rather than an organization thus; having tacit knowledge can raise the value of the individual who owns that (Nonaka & Toyama, 2002, p.997). Hence, organizations need to motivate organizational members to share their knowledge willingly as sharing of tacit knowledge can lessen the value of the original owner of the knowledge therefore they might reluctant to share their knowledge (Chuang et al., 2013; Nonaka & Toyama, 2002). Recent study also revealed that sharing of tacit knowledge is difficult to be done as compared to sharing of knowledge that is less tacit. Capturing and sharing tacit knowledge is made possible through informal learning provided that the individual members of the organization do not hoard any information and are willing to share (Chuang et al., 2013). A study on the barriers of knowledge sharing in Malaysian hospitality industry revealed that the hotel operators suffers three barriers namely work environment, personnel attitude, and knowledge-transfer process within organization. Many hotel managers and senior staff noted that hospitality industry suffers in terms of knowledgesharing among employees due to the hierarchical structure in which lower level employees are reluctant to ask and get knowledge from senior staff. This occurs due to generation or structural gap in which top management are reluctant to listen and respond accordingly to the suggestions and ideas thrown by junior staff. They termed this as “knowledge hoarding” in which the element of trust between senior and junior staff is the missing link that linchpin the two together and also their unwillingness to share their knowledge. Another major problem facing the hospitality industry in Malaysia was how knowledge are transferred internally in which the process was not done appropriately and smoothly thus creating “loss of knowledge” in between the process (Freydouni & Woods, 2010). They further suggested that the informal learning may be the remedy to overcome “the loss of knowledge” and considered as pivotal in knowledge sharing process. In terms of tacit knowledge-transfer to happen, it relied heavily on knowledge and skills of those whom we put our trust (Noon, 1994). Learning via peers can also leave the employees in a state of burnout and frustation, helpless and directionless if no support is given by their colleagues, should the employees are asked to learn things on their own through “swim or sink” approach. Thus, strong mentoring and backbone support will definitely help to expedite the learning process (Kalid & Mahmood, 2012). The following section describes the methodology employed in order to have an in-depth understanding about learning for professional development via peers in the Malaysian context.
3. Methodology
This study was conducted in order to understand and gauge the role of peers or senior co-workers in learning for professional development amongst junior employees. A qualitative study was employed through semi-structured interviews with 15 HR Directors and HR Managers in service-based industry in Malaysia located in Klang Valley which comprise of three different states (Selangor, Kuala Lumpur and Putrajaya). Four different sectors were chosen namely Multi-National Corporations (6 respondents: R1, R8, R10, R11, R12, R14); Government-Linked Corporations (4 respondents: R5, R6, R7, R9); Small-Medium Enterprises (3 respondents: R2, R13, R15); and Malaysian Government Agencies (2 respondents: R3, R4). The selection of the respondents of this study is based on their expertise in the area being studied. An in-depth face-to-face interview was conducted as a research approach for this study because this method allows the researcher to develop an extensive analysis by providing rich detailed information and provide new and fresh sight. A set of interview questions is developed to assess the practices and challenges of learning for professional development via peers from the management perspective. The data collected
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was audiotaped, transcribed and analyzed using thematic analysis. Subject-matter-expert views are important to be analyzed as it features the actual scenario on how these different sectors see; interpret; regulate; implement; and enforce learning for professional development amongst their staff. The next section will discuss two important findings obtained from interviews: the current CPD practices via peers and the challenges associated with it. 4. Findings and Discussion Each respondent was asked about current CPD practices via peers and its challenges in their respective organization. Their responses and feedback were analyzed, tabled and summarized. Two major findings are discussed namely the current practices of CPD via peers and the challenges associated with it. It was found that majority of the respondents (14/15 or 93%) have agreed on the importance of learning for professional development via peers as part of their current CPD activities in developing employee competency. They also recognized the importance of peers’ role in learning for professional development particularly among junior co-workers. In general, majority of the respondents agreed that learning via peers can take place through learning on-the-job, learning at the workplace, the use of buddy-system, learning through sharing of experience and common interest, learning through sharing of best practices, learning through observation and learning can even take place during lunchbox seminars. For instances, R5, R8, R12 and R14 indicate that: “Yes, we can’t teach them everything during the morning briefing, cannot. We have to teach them there (at their work station). They are also being taught by their supervisors or by their seniors. How to make a bed, how to check the rooms, minibar…..they learnt this from the more experienced staff” [R2]. “Here, we always go in a team. So, in the ground, they will arrange, if 1 team is an expert, they will bring somebody that is not-so expert, so that it become like buddy-buddy. This person will learn from the most senior. So that’s one of the most effective ways we teach people about skills. We stressed on teamwork and peer relationship so that you are not silo or think of yourselves” [R5]. “Peer-relationships is friendship that is based on mutual respect, appreciation and liking. This kind of relationship exists where people share common interest and at almost similar job level or reporting line. This relationship helped to accelerate learning and perform better” [R8]. “Here in X, we have this lunch and learn session. Participants share their thoughts, there could be some people who have done things which have helped them so they shared with everybody as a best practice. So it’s a kind of an interactive session. It is not really a classroom kind of training where the trainer stands up and delivers. It’s about each of them discussing with each other and finding out what are the best practices they can adopt from each other” [R12]. “We have focused on knowledge-transfer especially between the senior employees with junior employees. We believe that knowledge-transfer happen naturally at workplace in which they might exchange information or simply by observing others perform their duties and do it their own” [R14]. The above findings impliedly underlined that learning via peers happen informally and not confounded with any structure, syllabus, time and place. It can happen anytime, anywhere and everywhere. This is supported by Smith (2011) that informal learning is characterized by the learner’s perspective and takes place anywhere, everywhere and not confounded by structure and environment. Although many organizations look up at learning via peers as a powerful learning tool, however only one respondent (R10) indicated that learning through peers is not in practice as there is no platform provided to allow them to learn from each other informally. Asking about employee learning from each other, R10 commented that: “We just didn’t bother to ask even when that person is in the same room. We work like zombies in the office, not talking to each other and nobody bother to ask because that is the nature, our habit at work, we are so isolated. They are too complacent and insist that this is the only way to do, this is my style. If one employee is not around nobody knows what to do” [R10]. This scenario as mentioned by R10 has made informal learning less effective in R10’s organization because it has become rigid in the organization and employees only know their work duties and are not bothered to learn about what the rest of their colleagues are doing. Despite the importance of peers in learning for professional development, nevertheless it has several challenges
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that is worth addressing. Based on the findings, there are four main challenges associated with learning via peers as namely trust, knowledge hoarding, willingness to share and ability to share. In terms of willingness to share R1, R2, R6, R10, R11, R12, R13, and R15 (8/15 or 54%) highlighted this as one of the main challenges they have in their respective organizations. For instances, R1, R11 and R15 pointed out that: “The problem in our industry is people don’t share. People don’t want to share that tacit knowledge. Even if they want to share there is no platform to do so” [R1]. “We do have this kind of seniors who are not willing to share” [R11]. “There is another problem. Sometimes their friends know but they don’t want to share the knowledge. There are people when you ask them questions they just couldn’t be bothered to let you know and help. There are a few here and I have slammed them and they refused to talk to me. And some of them are seniors” [R15]. Meanwhile R3, R10, R13 and R15 (4/15 or 27%) observed that trust as one of their major hurdles in knowledgesharing or transfer between senior and junior staff in their respective organization. For instances, R3 and R15 noted that: “When you talk about the work, the task, the job, you cannot go into their area. They prefer to do themselves rather than by other divisions or units. We can comment; we can give feedback but when you do the actual work, yes, that’s it. Only that particular person will do” [R3]. “When we ask they will deny it, but I know they know. That’s why I always tell the other seniors. When you have your team, you must have your mini-meeting, you must tell them your goals and stressed on teamwork. They know, but they dare not say it” [R15]. Furthermore R2, R4, R5, R6, R7, R8, R9, R10, R11, R13, R15 (11/15 or 73%) also reported that few staff in their respective organizations are hoarding important knowledge or information. They view this as one of the critical challenge they have to work on in order to promote knowledge-sharing and knowledge-transfer among staff. The respondents agreed that learning via peers especially sharing of tacit knowledge and experiences is quite difficult. Some even commented that success rate to tap this invaluable knowledge is slightly lower between 20%-30% if using traditional way of learning such as formal training but is slightly higher if informal learning is utilize in which it allows an open communication and free flow of knowledge among and information between organizational members. For example R4, R7, R11 and R13 mentioned that: “When I first joined here, I see this as one of the major problem. Seniors who are really expert in their areas, we find it difficult to get them to teach others. When we want to have an access on these kind of information, we have to locate them everywhere. We realized this and we are trying very hard to tap their knowledge” [R4]. “I do agree that the transfer process is not easy because of several reasons. We know that we cannot tap the knowledge 100%, but if we can tap 20%-30%, it is considered good enough to us. That 20%-30% or even up to 50% we will look at the skills acquisition gained by the new incumbents in which they are able to do the job hands-on” [R7]. “Every time we ask senior staff to do the job, they will give us lots of answers. We do have cases that senior staff are not cooperative” [R11]. I find it very difficult to get the senior staff to follow because they have their own style of doing. So I tackled the younger staff first” [R13]. With respect to ability to share R5, R6, R13 and R14 (4/15 or 27%) confirmed that their organizations also are facing challenges in terms of knowledge-sharing among staff. Some of their senior staff have lacked the ability to share their knowledge to their juniors. As a result, many organizations are having problem in utilizing valuable knowledge which is mostly tacit in nature and consequently affected organization performance. As commented by R6 and R13 that: “One of the barriers is the person himself. Maybe he is knowledgeable but he did not know how to dig out the knowledge. Unless you are in that situation (where) he is familiar then he can share. But if you sit down together and ask him please share what you have done before, for the past 20 years or 30 years, he might have difficulty to share. Because you have to understand too that not everybody is one; willing to share, second; not everybody knows how to share. I think many organizations are struggling on that too” [R6]. “Within that 10 year period when I was not in this company, a lot of information the seniors have got in their mind but they don’t know or they don’t have the time to download to the other staff especially junior staff. In that 10 years I found that the products, the documents and the quality of the services provided had gone down” [R13].
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Several studies supported the above findings in which to let the knowledge or information flow freely, trust that exists between employees is critical (Hamidi et al., 2012; Pangil & Moi, 2012), they should be willing to share the knowledge (Chuang et al., 2013) and not see others as a threat for their career progressions (Noorazah & Juhana, 2012). 5. Recommendation and Conclusion This section puts forth, sums up the importance and challenges associated with learning for professional development via peers in service-based industry in Malaysia. Literature reviews that discuss peer role from the system theory perspective indicate that peers or senior co-workers certainly play an important part and do influence their junior co-workers competency. Apart of managers, leaders or supervisors, peers also act as an utmost source of learning for professional development. Results obtained from interviews revealed many interesting findings. Research findings point out that peers or senior co-workers have a great potential in the organization particularly learning for professional development among their junior co-workers. Senior co-workers have distinctive roles in learning and it is important that the organization capitalize on them. Despite its great potential, findings also revealed several challenges associated with learning via peers which require creative and critical actions to be taken by organizations. Nonetheless, further research that gauge the importance of senior co-workers in learning need to be tested empirically to see whether learning for professional development has significant relationship with the role of peers or senior coworkers. Informal learning should also be incorporated with both formal and non-formal learning as it has great potentials and provides effective and efficient platform for knowledge-sharing among employees in the organization. References Adanu, T. S. A. (2007). 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