The Impact of A Well Established Learning Organization On Employees' Satisfaction in The Pharmaceutical Sales Field

THE UNIVERSITY OF
STRATHCLYDE
BUSINESS SCHOOL
MBA PROJECT
The impact of a well established

learning organization on employees'
satisfaction in the pharmaceutical sales
field
Moustafa Abdulaziz Aboelela

2014
"The impact of a well established learning

organization on employees' satisfaction in the
pharmaceutical sales field"
This paper is submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirement of the degree of Master of
Business Administration of the University of Strathclyde.
THE UNIVERSITY OF STRATHCLYDE

BUSINESS SCHOOL
Page
Project by: Moustafa Abdulaziz Aboelela

Student ID: (201172308) MacWilliam
Supervisor: Raymond Robertson
Word count: 12,596 words.
July 2014
"The impact of a well established learning organization on employees' satisfaction in the pharmaceutical sales field"
Page
II
Statement of Academic Honesty
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First of all I would like to thank god for giving the opportunity and helping me out through the
entire MBA program.
I would like to thank this project supervisor and my advisor "Raymond Robertson" for his
sincere co-operation, prompt response and his remarkable observations.
I would like to dedicate this work for my mother who have been always encouraging me, For
my wife who suffered a lot during my MBA, for my kids for whom I did not manage to give
adequate care throughout my study and for the rest of the family.
Page
III
Finally I would like to thank my managers in Takeda pharmaceuticals in Saudi Arabia for
facilitating the conditions to me in order to pursue this degree.
Abstract
Due to the increased market dynamics nowadays and the scarcity of enough employment
positions compared to employees in the market, employees became very anxious about their
competency level and their ability to develop their skills which is the only guarantee that they
will be able to be competent in the marketplace and to have a secured future.
On the other hand it was a major concern for me to develop a mutual and strategic relationship
between medical representatives and companies where employees have enough support to grow
their potential while on the other hand companies will hold a satisfied and competent stuff who
has the willing to stay longer for their companies.
Page
IV
This was my motive to study the relationship between learning organization as an independent
variable and the employee satisfaction as a dependant variable to find out the nature of the
relationship between these two variable, to find out which activities are valued by employees
and to come up with some recommendations that are able to help companies increase their
employees satisfaction through their development to the learning organization state. This
research depends on survey that measures both variables from the employees' point of view. A
regression analysis has been done to find out that there is a linear relationship between these
two variables which emphasize the role of the learning organization and its ability to satisfy its
employees and in turn this can give us guidance with some recommendations to develop
organizations into the learning organization state.
Table of content
page 1
page 1
page 1
page 1
page 1
page 1
page 3
page 4
page 4
page 5
page 6
page 6
page 6
page 7
page 7
page 7
page 8
page 9
page 9
page 10
page 10
page 11
page 12
page 13
page 13
page 13
page 14
page 15
page 16
page 16
page 17
page 18
page 27
page 27
page 27
page 28
page 28
page 30
page 32
page 35
page 35
page 41
Page
1. Chapter 1: Introduction
1.1.
Background
1.2.
Saudi Arabian pharmaceutical Market
1.3.
Research purpose
1.4.
Research objectives
1.5.
Learning objectives
2. Chapter 2: Literature review
2.1. Learning Organization
2.1.1. The five disciplines
2.1.2.
LO a variable or metaphor
2.1.3. What is an Organization in the context of LO?
2.1.4. The nature of the learning process
2.1.5.
Single and double loop learning
2.1.6.
Adaptive and generative learning
2.1.7.
Who is responsible of creating the LO?
2.1.8.
Assessing the learning organization
2.1.9.
LO building blocks
2.2.
Employee satisfaction (ES)
2.2.1.
What is ES?
2.2.2.
ES theories
2.2.2.1. Situational Theories
2.2.2.2. Dispositional Theories
2.2.2.3. Interactive theories
3. Chapter 3: Research methodology
3.1.
Research approach and philosophy
3.2.
Research Methodology
3.3.
Questionnaire design and measures
3.4.
Survey questions
3.5.
Primary and secondary data
3.6.
Sampling
3.7.
Limitation
4. Chapter 4: Research results
5. Chapter 5: Discussion and conclusion
5.1.
Discussion
5.2.
Recommendation
5.3.
Recommendation for further researches
5.4.
Conclusion
Self-reflection
References
Appendices
1. survey questions
2. survey results
List of figures
Response rate
proportion of participants from local and multinational companies
Learning organizations questions' answers percentages
Employee satisfaction questions' answers percentages
scatter diagram for the relationship between LO and ES variables
Trend line for the relationship between LO and ES variables
Linear equation for the relationship between LO and ES variables
regression analysis for the scattered data set of the relationship between LO and ES
Data for participants from local companies
Data for participants from multinational companies
Data for participants with four years or less experience
Page 18
Page 19
Page 20
Page 20
Page 21
Page 22
Page 22
Page 23
Page 24
Page 24
Page 25
Page 26
page 40
page 46
Page
VI
Data for participants with more than four years experience

Survey questions
Survey results
Figure
4.1
Figure
4.2
Figure
4.3
Figure
4.4
Figure
4.5
Figure
4.6
Figure
4.7
Figure
4.8
Figure
4.9
Figure
4.10
Figure
4.11
Figure
4.12
Figure 1
Figure 2
1.
Chapter-1: Introduction
"The impact of well established learning organization on employee satisfaction in

pharmaceutical sales field"
1.1.
Background
In general, business environment now is more dynamic and competent than before. As a result
of this, people became more concerned about their future, their ability to retain their position
without being replaced and their promotion opportunities. Their anxiousness in turn became a
motive to increase their own competitiveness and their eagerness to learn and to gain
experience.
It is supposed that when organizations have the same goal -as its own employees- to develop its
own people, there will be many commonalities between employees' and organization's goals
which should result in increase in the organization ability to retain its talent and reduce its
turnover as a result of employees being satisfied of their job nature which in turn will give it an
edge over its competitors.
1.2.
Saudi Arabian pharmaceutical Market
Saudi Arabian market in general contributes to 65% of the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Center)
market putting all other gulf countries to contribute less than half of this market. There is around
280 hospitals, 1800 primary care centers with at least 5500 health care professionals working in
these healthcare units which varies between being privately and governmentally owned.
Saudi Arabian pharmaceutical sales market is ruled by expatriates as Saudi nationals for some
certain circumstances refuse to work in such field. Out of these expatriates, Egyptian is the main
nationality that is present in all levels of the sales hierarchy till the very senior level all over the
GCC.
Sales and many other professions in Saudi Arabia is restricted for males due to some cultural
and legal rules, so it is rare to see a female who is working as a sales representative in a
pharmaceutical company in Saudi Arabia, except for some specialties like gynecologists and
pediatricians where they will be dealing mainly with female HCP for easier access to these
HCP, and in many times filling these positions with female medical representatives is against
the law.
1.3.
Research purpose.
This research aims to study the pharmaceutical sales companies' activities to develop a learning
organization and its impact on its employees' satisfaction with a hope that it will be able to come
up with some recommendations that is able to work as guidance for the development to the
learning organization state. The learning organization state and the employees satisfaction will
be measured from the employees point of view which our main concern here as we are looking
to find out which activities are valued most by these employees, what worked and did not work
for them which should be the main predictor of their satisfaction and their decision to stay
longer in their organizations.
Main objectives of this research are to find out if there is a real relationship between employees'
satisfaction and the learning organization, how these organizations efforts are directed to
develop to the learning organization state, how these activities are perceived and to come up
with some recommendation that helps in the development of the learning organization state.
1.5.
Learning objectives
Research objectives
Page
1.4.
Page
I usually think of the learning organization concept as something of mutual benefit to both, the
organization and its employees. As a sales representative for a multinational pharmaceutical
company I was always thinking how to develop such a strategic relationship that does not just
stand on salaries and sales relationship but to be extended to let employees take an advantage
through extending their abilities and potential through professional development and on the
other hand organizations will take an advantage of more competent and loyal employees who
are willing to stay longer with their organizations. My major learning concern is the informal
learning that comes from practice and experience rather than the formal learning that comes
from courses and trainings where it is the practical part that has a direct impact on employees'
potential.
2. Chapter-2: Literature review

In the world of today where there is excessive uncertainty and ambiguity, it is not possible any
more for senior managers to set back in ivory towers to dictate what they see as an appropriate
strategies and policies. It is apparent that what can be seen today as the most appropriate
strategy can turn tomorrow to be outdated and the first employees to know about the change are
those people at the bottom of the organization. Organizations that eager to protect itself from
stagnation should break the shackles imposed on learning inside organization to let the
individual learning boost the organizational learning to continuously modify organization's
theory in use to be appropriate to what is really going inside and outside the organization. On
the other hand and as a result of the continuous change employees are no longer concerned with
job security but they are looking for career security instead. Career security can only be
guaranteed through their continuous informal learning that keeps them competent and updated
with the organizational and market change. Once an employee feels that he is really learning in
his job what is beneficial for his career he should feel more satisfied and to stay in this job for a
longer periods than usual which in turn will give the organization an edge over its competitors
according to its ability to hold its talents and to reduce the turnover.
Page
"In a learning organization, individuals are the key where they are acting in order to learn, or
where they are acting to produce a result. All the knowledge has to be generalized and crafted
in ways in which the mind and brain can use it in order to make it actionable" (Argyris, 1993)
"Organizational learning is learning about learning. The outcome will be a renewed connection
between employees and their work, which will spur the organization to create a future for itself"
(Braham, 1996)
"Organizational learning is the ability to adapt and utilize knowledge as a source of competitive
knowledge. Learning must result in a change in the organizations behavior and action
patterns" (Denton, 1998)
"A learning organization is linked to action learning processes where it releases the energy and
learning of the people in the hour-to-hour, day-to-day operational cycles of business"
(Marquardt and Kearsley, 1999)
"A learning organization is like a fountain tree where the image of energy and life is
characteristic of growth and survival. Organizational members are constituents of this fountain
tree" (Pedler et al., 1997)
"The key to organizational learning is helping executives and engineers learn how to learn, how
to analyze their own cultures, and how to evolve those cultures around their strengths" (Schein,
1996)
"Organizational learning involves developing people who learn to see as systems thinkers see,
who develop their own personal mastery, and who learn how to surface and restructure mental
models collaboratively" (Senge, 1990)
"A learning organization is one that learns continuously and transforms itself where the
organizational capacity for innovation and growth is constantly enhanced" (Watkins and
Marsick, 1993)
LO concept has been in the literature implicitly since the 1960s as a result of starting to view
organizations as an organic metaphor where the relation between its members depends on trust,
Learning organization (LO) and organizational learning (OL) are two elusive concepts that are
results of an expansive literature that have been in influx in the last few decades. The two
concepts of LO and OL are too much interconnected and entangled together. Sometimes the two
concepts are used interchangeably while in many other situations each of which is used to
express different meanings, but what is obvious about the two concepts that there is a little
consensus about their meaning and the relationship between them. Scholars who draw a
distinction between the two concepts have different views about LO and OL and about which of
the two concepts is the broader concept. This confusion can be shown early at the stage of
defining the two concepts.
interdependence, mutual confidence and shared responsibility in contrast to the mechanical view
where inter-organizational relations usually depends on hierarchies of order, obedience and rigid
responsibilities. Later on scholars have started to express what is now known as a LO. The most
popular scholar in that area of literature is "Senge" with his book "the fifth discipline" (1990)
which works as a base for many of the arguments that discuss the learning organization
literature.
Senge (1990) described the organization's derive to achieve the LO state as a result of the
creative tension between the current reality of the organization and the vision of the
organization as where it eager to be in the future. Creative tension will not exist without both an
accurate understanding of the current reality which will indicate what is currently considered to
be important to employees and a clear vision that can indicate what could be more important to
employees than what is considered to be.
Learning Organization
2.1.1. The five disciplines
Senge (1990) has put five disciplines as the pillars that upon which learning organization can be
constructed these are: shared vision, mental models, personal mastery, team learning and system
thinking.
Shared vision
Shared vision is one of the five skills that Senge (1990) call for. While some scholars used to
stand for the creation of the vision at the top of the organization, the dynamic business
environment and the urge to boost learning both calls for a more emergent way of making
policies and strategies where it is more important to foster the individual strategic thinking than
to reach for a rational top level vision (Mintezberg, 1987). This can help organizations cope
with the complexity and the dynamicity of the business environment of today and to allow
employees to learn from experience as it no longer an option to dictate what is can be
considered as right learning inside the organization. In that essence vision is represented by the
governing ideas, strategies and policies and learning processes. However, some scholars depend
on Senge (1990) concept of shared vision as a recognition of the importance of diversity and the
acceptance of differences inside organizations; others may see that this may call for another way
of control as it involves management intervention to influence employees' perspective of how
their world looks like. This means managers will apply some form of supervision that may call
for harmony rather than disruptive thinking which in turn will silence some voices that may
consider itself outside the main stream (Aktouf, 1992; Alvesson, 1995; Alvesson and Willmott,
1992; Flam, 1993; Kromer, 1993; Parker,1992; Willmott, 1992). Those who stand for that view
argue that there is a need for more diversity inside organization and to get rid of any form of
collectivism for the benefit of the individualism and to support the multicultural environment
inside the organization.
Mental models
Senge (1990) has called to challenge employees' mental models which are their assumptions
about their organization, the market and the surrounding world. The main problem in our mental
models is being implicit in our thinking, so, mangers duty is to bring these mental models up to
the surface and challenge it which gives a way to insure its validity and accuracy. Subsequently
people are able to form new assumptions that are more accurate and valid.
Personal mastery
Page
2.1.
Senge (1990) has acknowledged that learning comes more from the informal learning
represented by experience than learning from formal training and development. So, employees
need more space for more practice to develop their own theories and assumptions to be more
relative to reality. According to that idea leaders' job is to practice stewardship more than
leadership where they act to serve their subordinates in the context of the wide purpose of the
organization following their steps through the dynamicity of their learning process rather than
leading them through it. Developing such skills requires developing trust and openness.
However it is attributed to Senge (1990) to be one of those who started to question the heroic
leadership and to ask for some form of facilitation and serving roles that are involved in his call
for stewardship, but his call may lack a clear explanation of some diversity issues such as male
dominated leadership that silence female voices, violence and sexual harassment (Fulop and
Laneyrie, 1996; Denmark, 1993; Flam, 1993).
Team learning
Team learning is another discipline that requires openness and trust between team members to
give a chance for constructive criticism to take place through organizational processes that
encourage dialogue and discussion to help develop shared meaning and understanding. In that
case individual learning synergizes each other and gives a chance for a more practical collective
learning of the whole organization. In their explanation of what senge (1990) meant by team
learning there are two views. First is the implicit call for corporate citizenship that requires
conformity to organizational culture that may indirectly impair diversity and hinder
democratization and empowerment. And at the same time it will silence many voices as the
group think will dominate that will give a chance for those with higher voices to dominate the
team thinking (Hawes, 1992; Heterick and Boje, 1992; Sewell and Wilkinson, 1992). So, those
who stand for this point of view call for "self organizing groups" instead of "self managed
groups" where the latter is characterized by management interference that require a culture of
consensus and a definition of the context through which learning will take place (Stacey, 1993).
Second view correlate the necessity of team learning culture to the inherited politics and power
distribution inside organization as these are the most powerful determinant of learning inside
organization and it requires building a culture that enable the disruption of such legacies and to
negotiate what is more appropriate for organizational success (Kochan and Useem, 1992).
System thinking
System thinking is a discipline through which Senge (1990) meant to draw our attention to two
points. First, to acknowledge that LO can only exist if there is concomitant existence of the five
disciplines together, however organizations may reach to this state through a transformational
conversion or incremental change as seen by O'keeffe (2002). Second, to appreciate the
complex nature organization that requires a holistic vision to its components that appreciates the
gap between effect and result.
As an area of extant literature there are many points that have been mostly under argument and
different views between scholars, some of which will be shown below.
Page
One of the main themes of arguments about LO is whether it is a variable that can be described
as a separate entity that could be determined and achieved through specific processes and
activities or a metaphor that may give a generalized idea about how a LO can look alike and
open horizons for senior executives to evaluate their organizations' current positions as learning
organizations and to illuminate their way so as to achieve what can be called a LO. Those who
2.1.2. LO a variable or metaphor.
adapt the view of LO as a variable tend be objectivists who view world as concrete set of
reality, they see that they can specify some organizational traits through which a learning
organization can be built, and they tend to adapt a prescriptive approach to their argument
(Garrett, 1987; Mayo and Jank, 1994; Mumford, 1995). On the other hand those how view the
LO as a metaphor tend to have a subjective view about the organization. They see organizations
as a learning culture. They have a symbolic and idealistic view of organizations (Jones, 1994).
They adapt a descriptive view of organization as they usually describe how LO can look alike
without giving a strict recommendations. The main difference between the LO as a variable and
as a metaphor is how the first perspective view looks for a pragmatic results while the latter
look to give a general understanding of what is a LO.
2.1.3. What is an Organization in the context of LO Literature?

Scholars are in debate about whether organizations or individuals do learn. Those how stands to
the view of the organization being the unit which learn consider the metaphoric nature of
organizations as an organic systems which include different members that interact together.
They see that learning inside organizations is a complex process that contains many implicit and
hidden activities that only could be observed at the organizational level (Hendry, 1991; Morgan,
1993). Those who opposed that view argued that viewing organization as organism is
considering the functional unity of the organizations while in reality there is a little harmony
inside organizations. As recognition of that debate Argyris and Schon (1981) have but the idea
of agency theory. They argue that organization level learning can occur when individuals inside
organizations act as learning agents for their organization. In that essence people inside
organizations are learning from their collaborative inquiry. They face problems, they make
errors they relate to their theory in action and then they modify their learning from experience in
accordance. While on the other hand collaborative learning may hinder a real learning process
as people will stick to a definite vision represented as cultures and structures that most probably
will restrict their perspective (Hoyle, 1995).
2.1.4. The nature of the learning process

In studying learning as a process it is no longer considered as solid fact but instead it should be
considered as a dynamic process with multi-facet activities. Researchers have two focal points
when it comes to learning, first is the individual learning and the second is the multi
dimensional learning process. In regards to individuals learning process most scholars such as
Bateson (1979), Revans (1982) and Kolb (1984) agree that learning process on the individual
level is a cyclic process that starts with thinking, planning, action then reflection. On the other
hand a multi dimensional learning is considered as a multi hierarchical process that happens on
different levels inside organizations.
Page
One of the most popular notions in regards to the nature of the learning process is Argyris and
Schon (1978; 1991; 1996) view about learning where they put the base for the notion of single
and double loop learning. Single loop learning is the individual level learning through trial and
error, where individual build their own experience but at the same time they may fail to change
the theory in use in their organizations. On the level of double loop learning organizational
theories are challenged, taken for granted assumptions are questioned which give a chance for a
deeper and more comprehensive understanding and learning. The same idea have been
described by different scholars in different models such as first order and second order learning
(Bartunek and Reed, 1992; Watzawick et al., 1974) hapit learning, adaptive learning and
creative learning (Burgoyne, 1995).
2.1.5. Single and double loop learning
2.1.6. Adaptive and generative learning

Another theme in the learning process context is what has been raised first by Senge (1990) as
adaptive and generative processes of learning where the difference between both is that the first
remain inside the original organizational structures through the development of skills as a
response to specific situations which can be labeled as a problem solving process that has an
extrinsic motive while the latter can create new perspectives which can give a chance for new
possibilities this usually arise as a response to an aspired vision which can be considered as an
intrinsic motive that will not limit the learning process to specific issues but it continuously fuel
the learning process. So this lead us to acknowledge that, adaptive learning is essential but it can
only guarantee the organization survival while for organizational transformation and
achievement of a big jump to an aspired state only the generative learning can help.
2.1.7. Who is responsible of creating the LO?

It is commonly assumed in the literature that managers are the ones who are able and
responsible for the creation of the LO. In that essence managers are seen as mandates of
learning who can decide which learning is appropriate and which is not. This can impair a free
learning process and stifle creativity. Creating a learning environment is about the extent of
employee involvement in the learning and transformation process and not about the
organization molding change (McHugh et al., 1998). However, they argue that learning is about
the regulation of the individual learning to be integrated through strategic guidelines and
cultural parameters which in turn will control learning process and determine what is considered
to be a valid learning and what is not which can be considered to be an opposite to what is
called experiential individual learning.
Scholars such as Shawatt and Fields (1993) and Reynolds and Ablett (1998) have criticized
senge (1993) view of "community building" concept as a result of the shared vision discipline as
it calls for the identification of collective behavioral problems within groups and to modify
these behaviors in order to induce transformational changes instead of incremental changes. The
call for community building implies a call for corporate culture which usually asks for unity of
the culture. This is too much disabling to the LO as it stifle diversity and creativity. As the
learning process cannot be liberated or democratized while there is a strict commitment to some
internal values and believes (Battersby, 1999). Specially if these values and believes are results
of competitive and hierarchical culture that will not give the required motive to employees to
share their learning, to have a shared vision and to learn as teams (Teare and Dealtry, 1998).
Reynolds and Ablett (1998) in their trial to identify barriers to LO they identified hierarchical
learning initiatives at the top of organizations and rigid structures within organizations to be the
most hindering factors of learning.
Whatever the previous arguments are about, the main five skills for learning organizations
proposed by senge remains the most popular and at the same time the most criticized according
to the different understandings of these skills and the contradictions it may imply.
Page
As long as there is a lack of consensus about what a LO is, there will be a lack of consensus
about how it can be measured. And because of the elusiveness and intangibility of the learning
concept, its measurement is so difficult. When we do not know how to measure what we need to
measure we look to measure what we know how to measure which may be completely different
from what is supposed to be measured and may distort our vision of the targeted concept. And
that may be the case with many of the LO assessment tools. As a consequence of the
2.1.8. Assessing the learning organization
elusiveness of the concept and its intangibility usually measurement tools look to measure what
can be measured in relation to the concept such as its antecedents or the building blocks that
builds the LO.
When it comes to LO assessment, scholars have many different views which can be classified in
two main groups. First group has a holistic view of learning organization where their main focus
is the whole rather than its complex components, while the other view gives a particular
attention to the learning inside organizations as an individual process. Pedler et al. (1989) is one
of those who stand for the holistic view where they argue that the LO itself is the one which is
responsible for the facilitation of the learning of its individuals in its aim for the transformation
towards excellence. While senge (1990) in his description of the five disciplines, he gave a
focus to the commonality between these disciplines as a result of the intrinsic interdependence
of the organization and its surrounding environment. On the other hand Argyris and Schon
(1978) in their defense for the individual view they argue that individuals work as a learning
agents of the organization where these individuals are responsible for the inquiry and correction
of theory in use and to share these finding with their teams. Later on, in their 40 years of
studying LO, Argyris and Schon (1996) gave some attention to the holistic view of learning
through their consideration of the structures that channel the organizational inquiry and its
importance for the LO but it take much less attention than what they gave to the learning
process itself. In accordance, the assessment tools developed for measuring learning
organization are either dedicated for the measurement of the whole LO as a holistic view or to
the individual learning as a separate process from the whole. Whether the holistic or the more
specific measurement tool is more appropriate for measuring the LO, is dependent on the aim of
the measurement. If it aims to compare the current state of the organization with another one or
with a desired state, it should use a holistic tool. While, when it aims to give a diagnostic results
and advices, it should use a more specific tool.
2.1.9. LO building blocks

It is more common in the academic discussions to consider the LO concept as a metaphor rather
than a variable, this can work as a broad guidelines for the senior executive to inspire their way
of thinking about their organizations and the way it should be optimized towards the LO state
when they are about to set their organizations' visions. As these discussions work as broad
guidelines, it does not indicate clear instructions or imperatives that can enlighten the way LO
practically built specially on the lower managerial levels. As a consequence of the lack of these
clear instructions, there is a lack of the assessment tools that should enable managers inside
organizational units and departments to identify their organizations' weaknesses and strengths
and to identify which aspects they should give particular attentions.
In that essence David A. Garvin, Amy C. Edmondson and Francesca Gino (2008) have
developed a tool that works both as a clear instructions and assessment tool of the LO state.
Page
1. Supportive learning function: under this block there is four characteristics

a. Psychological safety: the extent to which employees are able to express their views and feelings
without feeling threatened or underestimated.
b. Appreciation of difference: when people appreciate different point of views and are able to
absorb conflicts this is what really sparks new ways of thinking and stimulates new ideas.
David et al. have identified three main building blocks of the learning organization. This model
and the building blocks it indicates, serves as a prescriptive model that indicate certain activities
and processes to develop the LO gradually and at the same time as an assessment tool that help
organizations identify their areas to be improved.
c. Openness to new ideas: when employees are encouraged to test new ways of doing business and
when appreciation of initiatives is more important than looking for somebody to blame this can
feeds up the organization with lots of new ideas.
d. Time for reflection: companies that overload their employees with unnecessary tasks does not
let them have a chance to think analytically and subsequently eliminate their chance to learn
from their experiences.
2. Well established learning processes: a real LO does not arise from nowhere; it requires an effort
and a systematic ways to foster organizational learning. There must be an official and effective
way of knowledge sharing between individuals, departments, units and the whole organization.
Knowledge sharing can be either internally (between employees) or externally focus (including
customers).
3. Leadership that put learning as a priority: Learning inside organizations is too much affected by
the Leadership behavior. Leaders can show by examples and by their ability to accept different
views that dialogue between employees; knowledge sharing and reflective thinking are
welcomed behaviors.
Employee satisfaction (ES)

ES is one of the most central concepts to the organizational psychology if it is not the most
central one. Hoppock (1935), in his acknowledgement of the efforts exerted by scholars in that
time to emphasize the concept, said "whether or not one finds his employment sufficiently
satisfactory to continue in it is a matter of the first importance to employer and employee".
Since the rise of ES concept around 10,000 studies have been conducted on it. This means that
ES is the most studied topic in all organizational psychology. However the research on ES is
declining but in terms of past and current research attempts it still on the top of all
organizational psychology topics and it remains a cornerstone in many other theories, and in
addition to that ES concept has a powerful practical application to enhance many desirable
organizational outcomes.
2.2.1. What is ES?
As a widely investigated concept, scholars have proposed a variety of facets to comprise the ES.
Five facets of promotion, pay, supervision, coworkers and the work itself are proposed by
Smith, Kendall and Hulin (1969). Later on Locke (1976) has added some other facets such as
recognition, management, company and working conditions to the previously mentioned facets.
ES facets are commonly separated into intrinsic and extrinsic factors where promotion and pay
are considered as extrinsic factors while the work itself, coworkers and supervision are
considered as intrinsic factors. Another classification has been offered by Locke (1976) where
Lock (1976) has defined ES as "a pleasurable or positive emotional state resulting from the
appraisal of one's job or job experience". In his definition Lock (1976) draws the attention to the
cognitive and affective evaluations of one's job satisfaction as the definition emphasize these
two components through the interaction of the rational appraisal and the resulting emotional
state. In their argument about the nature of ES some scholars has emphasized the cognitive
process of ES formation (Organ & Near, 1985). In addition, (Brief & Robertson, 1989) in their
attempt to emphasize the same concept has found that the relationship between their cognitive
measurements and ES are stronger than the relationship between the positive and negative
affectivity to the same concepts. But it looks rational to infer that these cognitive measures as
well as ES are influenced by affect. So it is obvious to conclude that ES as a result of both
cognitive and affective processes. That is what can be confirmed by (Weiss, Nicholas & Daus,
1999) study results which states that when mood and cognition about job are put together to
measure ES, both were equally and strongly related to it. So, when we think about our jobs we
form our feelings about it and when we have some feelings about our jobs we tend to think
about it, that is why both cognition and affect influence each other as well as ES.
Page
2.2.
ES is classified into events and agents, to but supervision and coworkers as agents while
working conditions itself as events.
2.2.2. ES theories
ES theories can be classified into three main categories. First, the situational theories which
assume that satisfaction is a result of the job nature itself and other environmental aspects.
Second, dispositional theories where its main hypothesize is built on that satisfaction level is a
matter of personality of the individual. Third, the interactive theories where it assume that
satisfaction is a result of the interaction between the personality and the situation.
2.2.2.1.
Situational Theories
Two-factor theory
Herzberg (1967) in his argument about ES has found that factors that lead to satisfaction are
different from those that lead to dissatisfaction where satisfaction is related to the intrinsic
factors while dissatisfaction is related to extrinsic factors that can but a base to state that
satisfaction and dissatisfaction are two different constructs that are not two polar opposites of
the same construct and to assume that to increase satisfaction it is not enough to eliminate
extrinsic factors of the job but it also important to enhance the intrinsic factors.
Two-factor theory did not find much support due to some logical and methodological problems.
Many studies that have tried to repeat what Hertzberg (1967) tried to prove, with independent
methodology, did not prove the correctness of his proposal. Moreover, what they have found is
that both intrinsic and extrinsic factors are related to both satisfaction and dissatisfaction.
B.
Social information processing

Salancik & Pfeffer (1977 &1978) assumed that employee satisfaction is a matter of socially
constructed reality where employees does not form their judgment about their jobs till they are
asked about it and they compose their judgment depending on their own behaviors, what they
infer from others behaviors or even the way the survey questions are formulated. Hulin (1991)
has opposed the social information processing theory as it is socially proven that the same job
parameters appear to influence job satisfaction in the same way through different cultures with
different social environment.
C.
Job characteristics model

JCM is first proposed by Hackman and Lawler (1971)where it was a completely a situational
model then modified in the work of to a more interactive model where it puts five job
characteristics as an intrinsic factors that affect the ES. These job characteristics are:
Task identity: the extent to which the employee can see his work from the beginning to the end.
Task significance: the extent to which the employee can feel the significance and
meaningfulness of his work.
Skill variety: the extent to which the employee job require doing different jobs.
Autonomy: the extent of control the employee has on his work.
Feedback: the extent of feedback that arise from the work itself.
So, in accordance, jobs that are designed to improve these characteristics are assumed to be
associated with more ES.
JCM is widely supported directly and indirectly. One of the indirect evidences that support JCM
is (Jurgensen, 1978) study where when study subjects are asked about the job facets that are of
big importance to them, nature of work consistently appeared to be the most important facet of
Page
A.
10
There are many theories that fall under the situational theories class, of which there are three
theories that are most influential.
the job. Another indirect evidence is indicated in the (Rentesch & Steel, 1992) study where
subjects have reported that the job nature is the most job facet that is associated to their
satisfaction.
In terms of direct support many studies that aim to test the relationship between job
characteristics and ES have gave positive results. Quantitative reviews have also indicated
positive results including (Fried &Ferris, 1987; Frye, 1996) and many other studies.
JCM do have some limitations, such as it mostly depends on self reports which are too
subjective evidence to build a theory upon. However, in objective reports job characteristics still
have a positive correlation with ES (Glick, Jenkins & Gupta, 1986). Other limitation are the
lack of evidence about the proposed psychological state that mediate the relationship between
the job characteristics and the ES and the lack of support to the formulaic combination of job
characteristics where the research have found the simple addition of the dimensions gives a
better results (Arnold & House 1980).
It is the most recently evolved and subsequently the poorest area of research in relation to the
whole ES theories. However individual differences are recognized for as long as the ES is
studied but it did not brought to attention as an independent research area before the publication
of two studies that are two of the most influential studies in that field (Staw & Ross 1985) and
(Staw, Bell and Clausen, 1986) which has put the cornerstone of the dispositional theories.
In the area of dispositional theories, studies will fall under one of two categories: direct and
indirect studies.
Indirect studies do not measure personality but it depends on the inference of its existence
through a series of logical assumptions. One of these indirect studies is that of Staw and Ross
(1985) where they have observed a group of employees over 5 years and found that their ES
was relatively stable even when these employees have changed both their employers and
occupation, this was inferred to be a result of their disposition. Another indirect study looking
for the same outcome is the work of Arvey, Bouchard, Segal and Abraham (1989) where they
found that ES is relatively the same between 34 identical twins who are separated since early
childhood. These studies and others have put an interest to the area of dispositional theories but
for some extent it fail to establish a solid ground for the dispositional source of job satisfaction.
In the two above mentioned studies ES may be due to dispositional factors as well as other
factors, so indirect studies still cannot affirm the concept of dispositional theories.
On the other hand direct studies aim to directly assess the relationship between personality traits
and ES (Staw et al., 1986; Hulin, 1993; Judge & Locke, 1993). The problem is these traits are
widely varied across studies. One distinctive group of studies has studied the relationship
between the negative and positive affectivity and the ES. PA refers to those with innate
enthusiasm and high energy while NA refers to those with distress and low energy. What these
studies seems to agree about is that PA is related to positive ES while NA is related to negative
ES (Levin &Stockes, 1989; Agho, Mueller &Price, 1993; Watson & Slack, 1993, Necowitz &
Roznowski, 1994).
Another group of studies has studied the relationship between the traits of self-evaluation and
the ES. Self- evaluation traits as presented by Judge, Locke & Durham (1997) are; Self-esteem,
generalized self-efficacy, Locus of control and emotional stability. In Judge, Locke, Durham &
Kluger (1998) study they have found that self-evaluation traits are strongly related to the ES
whether both are measured independently or through self reports. Judge, Bono & Locke (2000)
study have shown similar results.
However, there is a huge effort has been done in the area of dispositional theories, still there is
an effort required to integrate these theories. Psychologists have different views about the
relationship between personality traits and ES these views need to be compared and integrated
to give more enrichment to that construct. Also more effort has to be done to reveal the way by
which personality affects ES.
11
Dispositional Theories
Page
2.2.2.2.
2.2.2.3.
Interactive theories
Interactive theories are these theories that put both person and situation into consideration.
Cornell Model
CM is the work of Hulin, Rozonoski, Hachiya (1985) where its main concept is that ES is the
balance between work inputs (what individual puts in his work including his time, effort and
experience) and outputs (what individual receive from his work including pay, recognition and
working conditions). So from the employee point of view when his evaluation for the outputs is
higher than the inputs this should be associated with high ES and vice versa. High evaluation of
outputs may be associated with high unemployment rates. Also the low evaluation of the
outputs received in a previous position may be associated with higher evaluation of the output
received in current position due to individual's frame of reference.
B.
Value-Percept Theory
Locke (1976) has proposed his Value-Percept Theory. The main concept about it is that the
difference between what is the employee want and what is provided by the employer is what
makes the employee satisfaction and this relation tend to be more powerful as the importance of
these aspects to the employee increases.
Further research on Value-Precept theory has shown to be supportive (Rice, Philips & McFlarin,
1990; Rice, Gentile and McFlarin 1991).
Page
12
A.
3. Chapter-3: Research methodology

Ghauri and Gronhaug (2005) have defined research as a structured and systematic way to find
out about things this means that it should imply rational and logic instead of feelings and
judgment.
Bryman and Bell (2007) have defined business research as any academic research on topics that
arises from the business and management field.
Academic research contains the researcher's interests, background, education, experience,
values and assumptions so it cannot be free of bias but it is the researcher's job to be as neutral
as possible.
3.1.
Research approach and philosophy
Academic research can be classified into quantitative and qualitative approaches; where
quantitative research used to find the logic behind specific phenomena while qualitative
approach is usually used to measure phenomena which are hard to be measured. Qualitative
researches are more time and effort consuming and it requires deep investigation to come up
with subjective data, while quantitative researches depend on surveys and questionnaires to
collect data that is supposed to gives objective results at the end (Dawson, 2002).
3.2.
Research Methodology
Research methodology is the general principle and the strategy that guide researchers to meet
their research objectives and to answer their research answers, and at the same time researchers'
choice of their research objectives and their data resources strongly affects their choice of the
suitable research strategy. Research strategies can be classified into:
My research is explanatory research that aims to find out the relationship between two variables
My research design was to use survey strategy with a combined two sets of questions each aim
to measure one variable (learning organization and employee satisfaction) from the point of
view of the front line medical representatives in pharmaceutical companies operating in Saudi
13
Experiment: when research is about natural science it can be called Experiment and aims to find
out objective results.
Survey: is a research method that used to collect quantitative data that can be analyzed
statistically to find out more about specific phenomena or to establish a connection between two
or more variables. It can be used through structured interviews, questionnaires or observation to
collect a considerable size of data from specific population in an economic way.
Case study: is a research strategy that is used to research about specific phenomenon in a real
environment in a way that employs a variety of types of evidence such as surveys,
questionnaires and interviews.
Action research: is a research strategy that is of practical implications. It is characterized by its
action oriented porpuse, the involvement of practitioners among the researchers, research
process of repeated nature and the aim for finding practical implications.
Grounded theory: Is a research strategy that is used to build theories and it starts with a
theoretical frame that is used to determine data to be collected and the subsequent analysis
required, then further research is done to investigate the correctness of the data founded.
Page
Arabia. Survey was structured on an online research engine (survey planet) to be sent as an
online link to participants. My aim was to reach for 150 participants who have already worked
for at least 6 months in Saudi Arabia.
3.3.
Questionnaire design and measures
Questionnaire is formulated to combine two sets of data, one to measure the development level
of the learning organization from the employees' prospective and the other to measure their own
satisfaction regarding their job. Questions are close ended questions where the participant is
asked to specify his degree of acceptance to each sentence.
ES and LO as variables are measured based on employees opinions. Questions were formulated
as close ended questions with rating format. Three more questions that ask the participant about
his gender, years of experience and whether he works for a local or multinational company have
been added.
Page
Employee satisfaction survey questions are based on job characteristics model (JCM). JCM is
first introduced by Hackman and Lawler (1971) then it is updated by Hackman and Oldham
(1976) .As building and improving the learning organization is concerned with the improvement
of the organizational culture and other factors that compose the surrounding environment, so
building the learning organization activities and how employees perceive these activities is more
related to the situational components of ES rather than the dispositional component of ES that
why the JCM model is used not any of the dispositional theories of ES. This does not mean that
employee personalities has no effect on how they perceive these activities but this means that it
will impact all organizations at the same levels given that people personalities are supposed to
be diversified equally through different organizations. In other words, developing the learning
organization is a matter of job design and improving organizational culture, so, JCM is a good
tool to measure how people perceive these activities.
14
Learning organization questions theoretical background is based on learning organization

building blocks model in "is yours a learning organization" article of the HBR as it gives a good
base for measuring how people perceive efforts done to achieve the learning organization as it
rounds the all the learning organization elements up. It gives a particular consideration to the
surrounding environment which is responsible for the support of the learning processes through
providing the psychological safety, appreciation of differences, openness to new ideas and time
for reflection. Also it considers the quality of such processes through allowing analysis
experimentation information collection and transfer and the quality of the learning process
itself. At the end LO building blocks model give a chance to measure how employees perceive
their leaders to lead their learning process and to be examples on their own. If we went back the
Senge (1990) characteristics of LO we would notice that it all can be achieved through LO
building blocks. Shared vision, personal mastery, mental models, team learning and system
thinking are all skills that can be developed through suitable learning environment, proper
learning processes and with the care of leadership team who really wants to give their
employees a chance to learn through challenging the usual and giving live examples. The point
is that you cannot measure Senge (1990) characteristics but you can measure if the conditions
are prepared to let such characteristics develop and flourish.
Each question answer is given a score which starts at one for "strongly disagree" till 6 for
"strongly agree". For each participant his degree of ES or how he perceives LO is considered to
be the sum of the scores of each question that composes the questions set for each of these two
variables. Total scores for each of the two variables are collected, plotted and the degree of the
connection between these two variables was found out through analysis. As we are studying the
degree of connection and relationship between two variables where LO is considered to be the
independent variable and the ES is considered to be the dependant variable so the ideal way to
study such a relationship is through the simple linear regression process as it gives an insight
about the degree of relationship between these two variables while we can be reassured about
the significance of such relationship through the ANOVA table. At the same time regression
will give us some data about the significance of the trend line slope and intercept. This amount
of data can provide us with a clear understanding of the relationship nature of these two
variables.
Before activating my survey I have gave a chance for three of my colleagues to submit it on the
preview mode and I have asked them to describe to me what is exactly meant by each of these
questions. This gave me a chance to modify questions wording to be clearer and simpler to
ensure that everybody will understand what is meant by it. For example in order to measure the
job task identity I used " The job is arranged so that I have the chance to do an entire piece of
work from beginning to end" but I had to change to " The job provides me the chance to
completely finish the pieces of work I begin" to be better understood.
3.4.
Survey questions
Q1 - The pharmaceutical company you work for is (local; multinational)

Q2 - Your total experience as a pharmaceutical sales representative in Saudi Arabia is (less than
one year; one to four years; more than four years)
Q3 Gender (male; female)
Q4 - People in your organization are free to share their own ideas, without the fear of being
mocked or blamed.
Q5 - Your organization's culture gives enough chance for opposing points of view to be
expressed through productive discussions.
Q6 - People in your organization are encouraged to try new ways of doing business, through
new ideas, without the fear of being blamed.
Q7 - Work load in your organization is in balance to the extent that employees have enough
time to think analytically about their daily activity.
Page
Q9 - Leaders in your organization encourage behaviors such as accepting different point of

views, dialogue between employees, reflective thinking, and taking initiatives.
15
Q8 - Sharing information inside your work unit is an active process that takes place through
official channels which insure the availability of the data to whoever needs it.
Q10 - Leaders in your organization gives a good example of behaviors such as accepting
different point of views, dialogue between employees, reflective thinking, and taking initiatives.
Q11 - Your superiors and coworkers gives you enough feedback about how well your work is
being done.
Q12 - There is a lot of people in your organization can be affected by how well your work is
done.
Q13 - Your job provides you with enough feedback about how good or bad your work is
progressing.
Q14 - Your job gives you the chance to finish the work pieces that you begin.
Q15 - Your job is not simple and repetitive.
Q16 - You have enough freedom and independence while you are doing your job
3.5.
Primary and secondary data
Data used in this project are from two sources, primary and secondary data resources. Primary
data is based on the survey's results and the subsequent analysis which is the main contributor to
the results and conclusion part, while secondary data in the literature review is used to provide
the research with the theoretical framework that the survey questions are built on. A specific
care and importance is given to the primary data so as to answer the survey questions which aim
mainly to find out whether or not there is a relationship between the learning organization and
the employee satisfaction as two variables where employee satisfaction should be the dependant
variable and the learning organization should be the independent variable.
3.6.
Sampling
Sampling can not involve the whole population; instead it can involve a portion of this
population that is able to represent the population evenly.
Sampling could be through probability or non probability sampling where in probability
sampling the researcher has no control on the participants' selection while in non probability
sampling the researcher has the control over the participants' selection.
In this research a probability sampling method have been employed by sharing the online link
on facebook groups and other online gathering websites of medical representatives and to let
them freely participate.
Page
16
Exclusion criteria have been set to allow only those medical representatives working in Saudi
Arabia and have at least 6 month experience to participate in this survey.
3.7.
Limitation
Medical representative in Saudi Arabia are 90% or more from Egypt and so do the participants
in this survey, so there is a lot in common between the participants which may affect the survey
results.
Due to specific circumstances in Saudi Arabia, there is very few females who work as medical
representatives, so female participation in this survey is nearly absent which gave us a male
sample.
Page
17
Variables are measured from the employees' point of view which is susceptible for human bias.
Chapter-4: Research results

Research participation target have been 150 individual. Some criteria have been set to allow
include those how work as a pharmaceutical sales representatives in Saudi Arabia with at least 6
month experience in the country. Survey replies have reached 103 out of the targeted 150
participants only which makes our response rate 69%.
Response rate
Declined
responded
declined
Responded
Figure 4.1
The first discrepancy criterion is whether they work in a multinational or local pharmaceutical
company which has an implication to our analysis later on. Out of the 103 participant 22 are
working for a local companies and the rest are working for multinational companies.
The second discrepancy criterion differentiates between medical representatives based on their
years of experience as medical representatives in Saudi Arabia. It is meant to differentiate
medical representatives into three groups. One for those who has an experience less than one
year, second for those who has an experience between one and four years and the third group is
for those who has an experience more than four years.
Page
18
Out of these 103 participants only one female and the rest are males which comes in line with
the Saudi regulation which constrict females' ability to work in professions such as sales. In our
analysis later on, this discrepancy criterion has to be neglected as it is hard to infer some data to
differentiate between males and females due to the small size of the female sample.
Local or Multinational company
Local
Local
multinational
Multinational
Figure 4.2
The rest of the questions are set in two sets one for the measurement of how the front line
employees perceives their company to be as a learning organization based on HBR "learning
organization building blocks" model which is composed of 7 questions and the other set of
questions are designed to measure these employees' satisfaction based on "job characteristics
model" JCM which is composed of 6 questions. Participants are asked to show their opinion
about the question if it is very agreeable, agreeable, somewhat agreeable, somewhat
disagreeable, disagreeable or very disagreeable. Questions 4 to 10 which were for the
measurement of the LO concept are answered as indicated in Figure 4.3 which shows the
percentage of participants who voted for each rank in addition to the total answers for the whole
participants .
Q4 - People in your organization are free to share their own ideas, without the fear of being
mocked or blamed.
Q5 - Your organization's culture gives enough chance for opposing points of view to be
expressed through productive discussions.
Q6 - People in your organization are encouraged to try new ways of doing business, through
new ideas, without the fear of being blamed.
Q7 - Work load in your organization is in balance to the extent that employees have enough
time to think analytically about their daily activity.
Q10 - Leaders in your organization gives a good example of behaviors such as accepting
different point of views, dialogue between employees, reflective thinking, and taking initiatives.
Page
Q9 - Leaders in your organization encourage behaviors such as accepting different point of

views, dialogue between employees, reflective thinking, and taking initiatives.
19
Q8 - Sharing information inside your work unit is an active process that takes place through
official channels which insure the availability of the data to whoever needs it.
Total
Q10
very agreeable
Q9
agreeable
Q8
somewhat agreeable
somewhat disagreeable
Q7
disagreeable
Q6
very disagreeable
Q5
Q4
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
Figure 4.3
Same as the first set of questions, questions 11 to 16 were for the measurement of the ES
concept and percentage of participants who voted for each rank are shown in Figure 4.4.
Q11 - Your superiors and coworkers gives you enough feedback about how well your work is
being done.
Q12 - There is a lot of people in your organization can be affected by how well your work is
done.
Q13 - Your job provides you with enough feedback about how good or bad your work is
progressing.
Q14 - Your job gives you the chance to finish the work pieces that you begin.
Q15 - Your job is not simple and repetitive.
Q16 - You have enough freedom and independence while you are doing your job
Total
Q16
very agreeable
Q15
agreeable
somewhat agreeable
somewhat disagreeable
Q14
Q13
disagreeable
very disagreeable
Q12
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
Figure 4.4
Page
0%
20
Q11
answers are scored from 1 for (very disagreeable) to 6 for (very agreeable). Employee
satisfaction and how he perceives his company as a learning organization is considered to be the
accumulative sum of questions' scores for each questions set. For instance a participant who is
very agreeable with the whole 6 questions of ES is given 30 as a score while another employee
who is very disagreeable with the whole 6 questions of ES is given a score of 6 only. The same
is done for the LO score of each participant. At the end, for each participant there is two scores
one for the LO and the other for ES, so, it is easily plotted on a scatter chart. Scores for each
participant are plotted against each other where the X axis was for the independent variable
(Learning organization) and the Y axis was for the dependant variable (Employee satisfaction)
as it is shown in Figure 4.5.
Figure 4.5
Page
21
Both axis have been modified to show the minimum units starting from 10 for better
presentation of the data. As it clear from the data series on the chart there is a positive
relationship between how medical representatives perceive their companies as a learning
organization and their own satisfaction as employees in these companies. This relationship will
be clearer after the addition of a trend line which is a result of scattered data regression to
represent it as a linear relationship as it is shown in Figure 4.6.
Figure 4.6
Trend line slope is obviously positive which indicate the positivity and linearity of the
relationship between these two variables. To be more confident about this relationship the trend
line equation which is a mathematical equation that describes the steepness of trend line which
in turn, describes the nature of the relationship between these two variables - has been added as
it is shown in Figure 4.7.
Page
y =16.59 + 0.351x
22
Figure 4.7
As it is already known for linear relationships between two variables the relationship equation is
as follow ( Y = a + b X ) where (a) is the intercept when X equals zero and (b) is the trend line
slope or the relation coefficient, in our case the employee satisfaction increases by 0. 35 with
one unit increase of these employees' perception of their organizations as a learning
organization. R squared indicates that 42% of the variability of the employee satisfaction is a
result of their perception of their learning inside their organizations. For more clarification of
this relationship a regression analysis of the data have been done. The following is the
regression analysis table and its interpretation as it is shown in Figure 4.8.
Figure 4.8
From the regression table the correlation coefficient is 0.65 which is the root of R square which
indicate that 42% of Y variability can be explained by X. In our case R square is the most
important statistic as we are studying a simple regression model. Adjusted R square is more
important in multiple regression models. Standard error is 3.07 and the number of the studied
observation in our research is 103 observations.
Page
From the coefficients table and as it is indicated from the trend line equation the intercept equals
16.598 which is the value of Y when X equals Zero and the slope is equal to 0.351 which
indicate the relationship between these two variables. So we can say that: Y = 16.598 + 0.351 X.
Another point is the P values where in both case of the slope and the intercept it is much less
than 5% so we can say that we are more than 95% confident about the slope and the intercept
23
From the ANOVA table K or the degree of freedom equals 1 as we are studying a simple
regression (a relationship between two variables only). Residual equals n-k-1=101 and the sum
of both is 102 which is the total. Most importantly the significance F where it is much smaller
than 0.05 and this can indicate that we can neglect the null hypothesis and to increase our
assurance about the significance of the relationship between these two variables.
values according to our chosen confidence level. For the relationship coefficient we can say that
we are 95% confident that the intercept lies between 14.26 and 18.92. Also for the Slope we can
say that we are 95% confident that it lies between 0.27 and 0.43.
Using the first question as a discrepancy tool to differentiate between those who work for
multinational and local company, a significant difference in the slope of the trend line has been
found as shown in the following two figures for local and multinational companies respectively
as it is shown in Figure 4.9 and figure 4.10 respectively.
35
y = 15.08 + 0.420x
R = 0.442
Employee satisfaction
30
25
20
15
10
10
15
20
25
30
Learning organization
35
40
Figure 4.9
Where the trend line equation for the participants form local companies is (y = 15.08 + 0.420 x)
which indicate that the slope and the intercept are 0.42, 15.08 respectively. The slope here is
higher than the slope of the total participants as it is shown in Figure 4.10.
Employee Satisfaction
40
y = 0.331x + 17.20
R = 0.335
30
20
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
Page
10
24
10
Figure 4.10
While the trend line equation for the participants from multinational companies is (y = 17.20 +
0.331x) which means that the slope and the intercept are 0.331, 17.2 respectively. The slope
here is lower than the total participants.
If we compared these two trend line equations, those in local companies in case of the increase
of LO by one unit will let the ES increase by 0.42 unit while in multinational companies
increasing the LO by one unit will increase the ES by 0.33 unit.
The second discrepancy criterion is years of experience where participants are separated to three
different groups; one for those who has experience less than one year as a medical
representative in Saudi Arabia, second for those has experience between one and four years and
the third for those who has experience more than four years. Since the participants from the first
group were too few, it would give no sense to do regression analysis for this group separately,
so, the first and the second groups are summed together to form one group. This means that the
comparison here is between those who have four years or less experience as medical
representatives in Saudi Arabia and those who have experience more than four years. The
following two figures (figure 4.11 and figure 4.12) represent these two groups of data
respectively.
35
y = 0.298x + 18.19
R = 0.378
30
25
20
15
10
10
20
30
40
50
Learning Organization
Page
25
Figure 4.11
40
y = 0.423x + 14.33
R = 0.488
35
30
25
20
15
10
10
20
30
40
50
Figure 4.12
Trend line equation for the first group is (y = 18.19 + 0.298x) which means that the intercept
and the slope are 18.19 and 0.298 respectively, while the equation for the second group trend
line is (y = 14.33 + 0.423x) which means that the intercept and the slope are 14.33 and 0.423
respectively. For the first group one unit increase in LO will let ES increase by 0.298 unit while
for the second group one unit increase in LO will let ES increase by 0.423 unit.
Page
26
The last discrepancy criterion is whether the participant is male or female and as it previously
mentioned, out of the 103 participants there is only one female. So, there is no sufficient data to
differentiate between the relationships of LO and ES in both genders.
4. Chapter-5: Discussion and conclusion

4.1.
Discussion
Survey results show that LO as perceived by employees is in positive relationship with ES. In
total, 68% of the survey population agree that they are working for a learning organization
versus 32% who does not agree on that, on the other hand 83% of the survey population are
satisfied of their job nature while 17% are not as per figure 4.3 and 4.4 respectively.
Q4, 5, 6and 7 are good example of what Senge (1990) mentioned as shared vision, mental
models and personal mastery disciplines where these questions measures the appreciation of
differences and diversity between employees, challenge common assumptions, time for
reflection and the empowerment of employees through the encouragement of new ideas and
protection against blame. These four questions represent the supportive learning and its four
parameters: psychological safety, appreciation of differences and openness to new ideas. Q4
results shows that 78% agree on the question compared to 22% disagree, Q5 results shows that
67% agree versus 33% disagree, Q6 results shows that 72% agree while 28% disagree and Q7
results shows 64% agree versus 36% disagree as shown in figure 4.3. As ES is in positive
relationship with learning organization as per scattered diagram in figure 4.6 this emphasize that
these three disciplines has a strong influence on employee satisfaction. Also as per figure 4.3 Q8
results shows that 68% of the population agree while 32% disagree where it looks for the
institutionalization of learning processes through effective collection and transfer of data which
is equivalent to what Senge (1990) have described as Team learning discipline. Q9 and 10 are
looking for the role of the leadership in all of the above where 62% and 68% agree versus 38%
and 32% disagree respectively leadership role here is equivalent to what Senge (1990)
mentioned as system thinking discipline where it emphasize the importance that all of the LO
building blocks should exist together which is the leadership role to insure.
Research results were able to prove that LO as described by Senge (1991) are in a positive
relationship with ES -see figure 4.6- and that all the five disciplines are major contributors to
these employees satisfaction.
ES in our case has been measured based on situational rather than dispositional parameters, this
means that as per survey results 83% of the survey population are satisfied of their job based on
situational factors. As per (Jurgensen, 1978) study, nature of work is one of the major
contributors to ES. Again in (Jurgensen, 1978) study employees reported that nature of the job
is most important facet that contributed to their satisfaction. As the development of the LO state
is about the modification of the job nature to better utilize the employees potential, so this
research results comes in line with what the job characteristics model (JCM) proposed, as the
better the job nature and its characteristics is, the higher the employees are satisfied.
Recommendation
Page
In order to achieve what we can call LO state as the independent variable that will in turn reflect
on employee satisfaction, organization leaders have to work on the improvement of certain
aspects which can be extrapolated from Senge (1990) LO five disciplines or from the LO
building blocks model (David A. Garvin, Amy C. Edmondson and Francesca Gino, 2008):
27
4.2.
1. Creating a learning culture as an opposite to a blame culture that provides employees with
psychological safety, effective debates and discussions that not only appreciate every employee
different personalities and skills but also can find a better way to get use of these differences
and improve these employees ability to come up with new ideas without the fear of being
mocked or blamed.
2. Allow for work life balance and a reasonable work load that saves employees time and give
them enough space to think about their day to day activity which in turn will improve their
effectiveness and their ability to come up with new ideas that enhances organizational
performance.
3. Institutionalize learning processes throughout organizations by implementing an effective way
of data collection, analysis and transfer and by giving enough space for experimentation to
improve business through trial and error.
4. Leadership should be concerned about the implementation of all of the above either by active
interference or passive pulling out to give a space as it requires.
4.3.
4.4.
Conclusion
This research was able to find a positive relationship between employee satisfaction (ES) as a
dependant variable and learning organization (LO) as an independent variable. LO and ES
relationship is mediated through a subliminal leadership that provide enough support for its
employees through an effective learning culture that empower employees, give them enough
space and allow for effective debates and discussions while letting these employees feel safe
against blame. Organization leaders should also bear in mind that in order to institutionalize
learning and to allow for double loop learning, organizational policies should provide the base
that learning processes and practices to be embedded in.
Activities, or the way it is perceived, vary too much between participants this is the reason why
we have a scattered set of data that gives a trend line with a positive slope. Reasons of that
phenomenon and the way it varies requires more research beyond our research.
Regarding employee satisfaction, as LO is about the improvement of the organizational culture,
what this research aimed to measure is the situational aspect of satisfaction rather than the
dispositional one.
As employees now are more concerned with their career security rather than their job security
this usually stimulate their eagerness to earn more experience and to learn new skills to improve
their competitiveness in the marketplace.
28
However this research shows the connection between learning organization and employee
satisfaction but it does not give us the detailed mechanisms that mediate this relationship. More
investigation in this area will provide us with precise details of how to achieve a sustainable ES.
Concepts like employees' turnover, absenteeism loyalty and performance has a relationship to
both of these two concepts so a more comprehensive study that connect all these concepts
together will provide us with a lot of details.
Page
Recommendation for further researches
Page
29
Employee satisfaction can be a target on its own or it could be a step to achieve further goals
such as to enhance employee performance, increase their loyalty, decrease turnover and to
increase their retention.
Self-reflection
From the beginning of my sales career as I work in sales for 7 years now and before I even start
my MBA, I was wondering why companies are so short term planned to the extent that it is only
derived by numbers. Relationship between employees and companies only depends on salaries
and incentives provided to employees and sales numbers achieved by them. In some cases,
when a pharmaceutical company is looking after the development of its people they depend on
formal learning such as trainings which of course considered as an important learning tool but
we as a front line employees are looking for the practical side of learning which comes from job
design and enrichment to learn new skills and gain new experiences. After studying human
resource in my MBA and getting exposed to new concepts in HR I thought that I should find out
the answer of my question, and to find out if this is a need only for me or it is a common need in
pharmaceutical sales field. This research was my way to answer these two questions. It was not
a surprise that participant connected between the two studied concepts through their survey
results however most of the research participants are naturally not aware of both and they may
be do not know such a connection exist.
Unless I was time constrained to finish my graduation project before the first of September, I
would have done some one-to-one interviews with some of the participants to find out more
about variations between one company and another to know how those on the top of the scatter
chart became up there and how those in the bottom of the scatter chart became down there, to
find out which of my recommendations matter most to them in terms of learning and
satisfaction, or as an alternative for one-to-one meeting I should have asked every participant
for his company name and to choose a larger sample to represent all pharmaceutical companies
working in Saudi Arabia in order to identify which companies are perceived by employees to be
a real learning organization to give me a chance to dig more in order to know how practically
they have reached for such a state. Also if more time is available I would have done some
interviews to some of the senior managers in sales department in gulf region to know how they
see how learning organization can be developed and to take their opinion about the research
recommendations.
In terms of personal learning out of this research, it was always a challenge for me during my
whole MBA program to be able to filter and prioritize the abundant secondary data that is
available online and to find out what is suitable to my research objectives, and I think this
research taught me a lot about this. Prioritization and filtration depend on type of the paper
itself, the publisher, the credibility of the authors and the date of publication.
Page
modification, scoring and sampling. My advice for anyone starting a graduation project is
proper preparation and planning where the more effort you do prior to your project the less
confusion and hesitation you will face during it.
30
Another learning point came from the data analysis part where I did not practice regression
analysis and how to come up with some results from a scatter chart data set from a live example
before this research. Also in terms of choosing which measurement model to correctly express
what is meant by this research and what is able to reach for the research objectives. Survey
formulation was a big challenge for me, in terms of proper questions wording, testing,
In this learning process I have to mention the benefits an author of a research paper can gain
from his supervisor when his supervisor is willing to help and cooperate and to be willing not to
delay the process through prompt response and I have a great experience about that point.
Being stressed under a time frame and engaged in so many work projects taught me how to
better manage my time. At the beginning I had to delay one time after another till I started three
months late to my schedule, in my literature review part I took much longer time than planned.
Then I decided to manage my project differently. Time management have started by proper
adjustment of my planning and scheduling, allocation of specific time per day plus one of the
weekend two days for the project. I even deactivated my accounts on many social media website
for months to reduce the lost amount of time while leaving the same time allocated for workout
as I know that it is the only thing that is able to reduce my feeling of being stressed.
Page
31
One of my objectives from undergoing this research was to gain some knowledge about HR
field in order to help me know more about the proper way of managing people in lower
organizational level and on higher levels through setting the proper strategy and I think this
research gave me a big chance specially during the development of the literature review part to
achieve this objective. But what I have discovered during this research is that I am too much
interested in industrial psychology and organizational behavior to the extent that I will seek for
an opportunity to learn more about this field of science.
References
Alan Mumford, (1995) "The learning organization in review", Industrial and Commercial
Training, Vol. 27 Iss: 1, pp.9 16.
Ashok Jashapara, (2003) "Cognition, culture and competition: an empirical test of the learning
organization", Learning Organization, The, Vol. 10 Iss: 1, pp.31 50
Baek-Kyoo Joo, Sunyoung Park, (2010) "Career satisfaction, organizational commitment, and
turnover intention: The effects of goal orientation, organizational learning culture and
developmental feedback", Leadership & Organization Development Journal, Vol. 31 Iss: 6,
pp.482 500
Catherine Dawson (2002) Practical research methods, a user-friendly guide to mastering

research, P 14-50. Darling, M, Parry, C, & Moore, J. (2005), "LEARNIING IN THE THICK
OF IT" Harvard Business Review, 83, 7/8, pp. 84-92.
Deb Stewart, (2001) "Reinterpreting the learning organisation", Learning Organization, The,
Vol. 8 Iss: 4, pp.141 152
Edwin A. (1969) " What is Job Satisfaction? " Organizational Behavior and Human
Performance. 4, 309-336.
Frans M. van Eijnatten, Goran D. Putnik, (2004) "Chaos, complexity, learning, and the learning
organization: Towards a chaordic enterprise", Learning Organization, The, Vol. 11 Iss: 6,
pp.418 429.
Garvin, D, Edmondson, A, & Gino, F (2008) "Is yours a learning Organization?" Harvard
Business review, 86, 3, pp. 109-116.
Jennifer Rowley, (2000) "From learning organisation to knowledge entrepreneur", Journal of

Knowledge Management, Vol. 4 Iss: 1, pp.7 15
Joy Cullen, (1999) "Socially constructed learning: a commentary on the concept of the learning
organisation", Learning Organization, The, Vol. 6 Iss: 1, pp.45 52.
Jozef Loermans, (2002) "Synergizing the learning organization and knowledge management",
Journal of Knowledge Management, Vol. 6 Iss: 3, pp.285 294
Keith Thomas, Stephen Allen, (2006) "The learning organisation: a meta-analysis of themes in
literature", Learning Organization, The, Vol. 13 Iss: 2, pp.123 139.
Liz Lee-Kelley, Deborah A. Blackman, Jeffrey Peter Hurst, (2007) "An exploration of the
relationship between learning organisations and the retention of knowledge workers", Learning
Mark Saunders, Philip Lewis, Adrian Thornhill (2009) Research methods for business students,
fifth edition, P 106-258.
Page
32
Organization, The, Vol. 14 Iss: 3, pp.204 221
Mil Terziovski, Andrea Howel, Amrik Sohal, Michael Morrison, (2000) "Establishing mutual
dependence between TQM and the learning organization: a multiple case study analysis",
Learning Organization, The, Vol. 7 Iss: 1, pp.23 32
Neil A., Deniz S. O.,Handan K. S. & Chockalingam V. (2001) " Handbook of Industrial, Work
and Organizational Psychology - Volume 2 - Organizational Psychology" London: SAGE
Publications Ltd.
Orlando V. Griego, Gary D. Geroy, Phillip C. Wright, (2000) "Predictors of learning

organizations: a human resource development practitioners perspective", Learning
Organization, The, Vol. 7 Iss: 1, pp.5 12.
Peter A.C. Smith and Paul Tosey (1999) " Assessing the learning organization: part 2 exploring
practical assessment approaches" The Learning Organization Volume 6. Number 3. pp. 107-115
Peter A.C. Smith and Paul Tosey (1999) "Assessing the learning organization: part 1
theoretical foundations" The Learning Organization, Volume 6 Number 2 pp. 7075
Peter Y.T. Sun, John L. Scott, (2003) "Exploring the divide organizational learning and
learning organization", Learning Organization, The, Vol. 10 Iss: 4, pp.202 215
Raili Moilanen, (2001) "Diagnostic tools for learning organizations", The Learning
Organization, Vol. 8 Iss: 1, pp.6 20
Roland K. Yeo, (2005) "Revisiting the roots of learning organization: A synthesis of the
learning organization literature", Learning Organization, The, Vol. 12 Iss: 4, pp.368 382
Rysia Reynolds, Anne Ablett, (1998) "Transforming the rhetoric of organisational learning to
the reality of the learning organisation", Learning Organization, The, Vol. 5 Iss: 1, pp.24 35.
Senge, P. M. (1990). The leader's new work: Building learning organizations. Sloan
Management Review, 32(1), 7.
Stephen A.W. Drew, Peter A.C. Smith, (1995) "The learning organization: change proofing
and strategy", Learning Organization, The, Vol. 2 Iss: 1, pp.4 14.
Stephen J. Porth, John McCall, Thomas A. Bausch, (1999) "Spiritual themes of the learning
organization", Journal of Organizational Change Management, Vol. 12 Iss: 3, pp.211 220.
Teresa Manuela Rebelo, Adelino Duarte Gomes, (2008) "Organizational learning and the
learning organization: Reviewing evolution for prospecting the future", Learning Organization,
The, Vol. 15 Iss: 4, pp.294 308
Organization, The, Vol. 4 Iss: 1, pp.18 29
Vana Prewitt, (2003) "Leadership development for learning organizations", Leadership &
Organization Development Journal, Vol. 24 Iss: 2, pp.58 61.
33
Thomas Garavan, (1997) "The learning organization: a review and evaluation", Learning
Page
Will Rifkin, Liz Fulop, (1997) "A review and case study on learning organizations", Learning
Organization, The, Vol. 4 Iss: 4, pp.135 - 148
Yang, B., Watkins, K. E. and Marsick, V. J. (2004), The construct of the learning organization:
34
Dimensions, measurement, and validation. Human Resource Development Quarterly, 15: 31-55.
Page
Appendices
Page
35
1. Survey questions
36
Page
37
Page
38
Page
39
Page
Page
40
Figure 1
Page
41
2. Survey results
42
Page
43
Page
44
Page
45
Page
Page
46
Figure 2

The Impact of A Well Established Learning Organization On Employees' Satisfaction in The Pharmaceutical Sales Field

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

You might also like

The Impact of A Well Established Learning Organization On Employees' Satisfaction in The Pharmaceutical Sales Field

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Description:

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

The Impact of A Well Established Learning Organization On Employees' Satisfaction in The Pharmaceutical Sales Field

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

THE UNIVERSITY OF

The impact of a well established

Moustafa Abdulaziz Aboelela

"The impact of a well established learning

THE UNIVERSITY OF STRATHCLYDE

Project by: Moustafa Abdulaziz Aboelela

Statement of Academic Honesty

Data for participants with more than four years experience

"The impact of well established learning organization on employee satisfaction in

Saudi Arabian pharmaceutical Market

2. Chapter-2: Literature review

2.1.2. LO a variable or metaphor.

2.1.3. What is an Organization in the context of LO Literature?

2.1.4. The nature of the learning process

2.1.5. Single and double loop learning

2.1.6. Adaptive and generative learning

2.1.7. Who is responsible of creating the LO?

2.1.8. Assessing the learning organization

2.1.9. LO building blocks

1. Supportive learning function: under this block there is four characteristics

Employee satisfaction (ES)

2.2.1. What is ES?

Social information processing

Job characteristics model

3. Chapter-3: Research methodology

Research approach and philosophy

Questionnaire design and measures

Learning organization questions theoretical background is based on learning organization

Q1 - The pharmaceutical company you work for is (local; multinational)

Q9 - Leaders in your organization encourage behaviors such as accepting different point of

Primary and secondary data

Chapter-4: Research results

Local or Multinational company

Q9 - Leaders in your organization encourage behaviors such as accepting different point of

4. Chapter-5: Discussion and conclusion

Recommendation for further researches

Catherine Dawson (2002) Practical research methods, a user-friendly guide to mastering

Jennifer Rowley, (2000) "From learning organisation to knowledge entrepreneur", Journal of

Organization, The, Vol. 14 Iss: 3, pp.204 221

Orlando V. Griego, Gary D. Geroy, Phillip C. Wright, (2000) "Predictors of learning

Organization, The, Vol. 4 Iss: 1, pp.18 29

You might also like