Dynamics of learning for advancing improvement in organisations within the construction industry

Continuous improvement has become an ever present reality to construction organisations in their quest for improved performance and sustained competitive advantage. One major issue that infers great consequence in a changing business environment is the styles organisations employ to address improvement in their enterprises. This is becoming significantly important as one of the factors driving continuous improvement. As a result, calls have been made to adopt a culture of learning as part of an organisation’s core competence for all improvement schemes. Today’s highly successful companies are differentiated from others not so much by any single set of their knowledge, but equally, by their ability to learn as corporate entities. This paper explores the dynamics of learning by examining the styles organisations engage to address their improvement. The paradigms involved in the styles of organisational learning provide useful lessons for understanding and undertaking continuous improvement schemes in construction organisations. The paper adopts these lessons to evolve a framework within which continuous improvement schemes desired in construction industry should take place.