Factors of Student Formal and Informal Organizational Learning.

The aim of the current paper is to present theoretical findings of a part of a PhD thesis that is being prepared by PhD students in education. An increasing number of researchers and practitioners now point to the necessity for the higher education institutions to not only develop students' subject matter knowledge and capabilities, but also various transferable skills, such skills that would allow students to successfully blend in with the contemporary organizations. These contemporary organizations aim to utilize knowledge to maintain competitive advantage in the market, thus they are often referred to as knowledge organizations. Knowledge creation and dissemination processes in such organizations rely on organizational learning (OL) capabilities of their employees. Therefore, universities that educate future professionals for such organizations should be interested in including organizational learning into their learning agenda. But do universities create conditions for students to learn organizational learning in the study process, i.e. do they teach it explicitly? Perhaps, students can experience organizational learning through other activities on and off campus, i.e. learn it implicitly in informal settings? These are the questions discussed in the current paper. Further inquiry into the topic allowed distinguishing factors of student organizational learning at universities in various settings (formal, non-formal and informal) which will be used for drafting a questionnaire. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]