Organizational Learning through Public-Private Partnerships: A Human Resource Management Perspective

This paper aims to investigate the nature and location of organizational learning in the public sector from the perspective of human resource management (HRM). Based on the proposition that HRM is a determining factor in... [ view full abstract ]

This paper aims to investigate the nature and location of organizational learning in the public sector from the perspective of human resource management (HRM). Based on the proposition that HRM is a determining factor in organizational learning, this research examines how the quality of social interaction between the public sector and the third sector in public-private joint programs affects knowledge flow and how that knowledge flow generates the dynamics of organizational learning or unlearning. To explore the above theoretical argument, an empirical analysis of five public-private partnerships (PPP) across different social welfare policy domains is conducted in Taipei, Taiwan.
The contributions of the research are fourfold. First, the study encourages consideration of an alternative role for government as a tummler or a social entrepreneur in the era of pervasive networked governance. Second, it argues that each proposal for collaboration with non-governmental stakeholders can be considered an opportunity to promote organizational learning in the public sector or fuel for a learning organization. A networked program has the potential to generate an indirect dynamic impact that is much greater than its immediate effects. Third, the findings also remind us to reconsider the often-ignored contribution of middle managers or frontline staff to incremental organizational change, as opposed to more popular strategically geared organizational change led by politicians or heads of agencies. Finally, valuable or unique organizational human capital assets in the public sector need not only be developed internally as suggested by conventional wisdom; rather, public agencies must also internalize external sources or knowledge learned through externalization.