Investigating the Relationship Between Organizational Structure and Organizational Learning

The concept of organizational learning has become increasingly popular because of organizational need for adaptation to environmental changes. As learning is essential for the people’s growth it is also important for organizations. Since the organizational knowledge is a strategic asset in an organization, organizational learning has been proposed as a vital source of competitive advantage in strategic management.In addition, the organizational conditions can provide some situations in which organizational learning and knowledge creation can lead to new and better services. Organizational structure iso ne of the most important factors. The purpose of this research is to investigate the relationship between organizational structure and organizational learning in Guilan University of Medical Sciences. This research is descriptive and co-relational. The variables are by no means controlled and manipulated and the research environment for conducting is natural. Questionnaires were used to collect information for testing hypotheses. To test the reliability of the questionnaires, Cronbach's alpha method was used. The statistical population of this research was all the employees of Guilan University of Medical Sciences (nurses, staff, doctors, etc.). Sample size was determined by using the limited statistical methods (Cochran sample size formula). The samples consisted of 385people. To analyze the data, descriptive statistics (descriptive statistics, mean and standard deviation) and inferential statistics (data normalization, correlation analysis and regression analysis, structural equations) were used. Finally, the research hypotheses were tested using the collected data. It was found that there is a significant relationship between organizational structure and organizational learning in Guilan University of Medical Sciences. The intensity of the relationship between organizational structure and organizational learning was 67%, reduction of formalization and organizational learning 63%, reduction of organizational centralization and organizational learning 61%, and reduction of complexity from a vertical point of view and organizational learning 62%. Beta coefficients show that 24 percent of organizational learning changes are through complexity, 43 percent through formalization, and 13 percent are predicted through centralization, and the rest are due to factors other than organizational structure. It is suggested that attention of Guilan University of Medical Sciences to issues such as employee participation in decision making, delegation of authority to managers, reviewing past activities and facilitating learning can lead to more employees’ satisfaction with organizational structure and organizational learning.
Conflict of interest: non declared