The Role of Human Resource Development in Continuous Improvement:
Facilitating Learning and Change : 
⭐ Continuous Improvement (CI)
✅ Biazzo & Bernandi (2003) - organisational capabilities for sustainable & incremantal innovation can only developed by a number of behavioral routines.
✅ Key to Success CI:
✅ McAdam, Stevenson and
Armstrong (2000) - CI culture by companies is strongly
associated with the development within companies of an innovation culture.
🖊 Bessant & Caffyn (1997) - suggest these routines:
🏁 Ability to generate sustained involvement in CI.
🏁 Ability to link CI activities to the strategic goals of the company.
🏁 Ability to move CI activity across organisational boundaries.
🏁 Ability to manage strategically the development of CI
🏁 Ability to articulate and demonstrate CI values
🏁 Ability to learn through CI activity
✒ Ongoing process of plan (planning improvement.
✒ Do (implementing improvements
✒ Check (whether expected performance achieved)
✒ Act (standardize the new practice)
⭐ Learning & Work
✅ Nonaka (1991) - tapping the tacit and often highly subjective insights, intuitions, & hunches of individual employees and making these available for testing.
✅ Nonaka & Takeuchi (1995) - Knowledge creation is a spiralling process of interaction between explicit and tacit knowledge
✅ Leonard (1992) - "knowledge set that distinguishes and provides a competitive advantage". 4 dimensions typified this knowledge set:
✏ Employee knowledge and skills
✏ Technical systems
✏ Managerial systems
✏ Value & norms
✅ Berman & Woodland (1999) - Knowledge ca be recorded, archived and distributed. 1 of the primary formats or vehicles for the transport and distribution of knowledge is information.
✅ Davenport, Sikka & Beers (1996) - knowledge as information combined with an individual's or organisation's experience, context, interpretation & reflection.
✅ Myburgh (2000) - whatever an organisation may do, it must generate, acquire, process and use this information to develop knowledge.
⭐ Integrating Learning & Work
🖊 For organisation to learn, knowledge captured by individuals must be :
🏁 Shared
🏁 Disseminated throughout the organisation and applied to modify current practices
🏁 Creating a culture embracing constant change and improvement.
🖊 Hedberg (1981) - knowledge must be readily available to all members of the organisation.
🖊 Schein (1985) - major organisational challenge is the internal integration of individuals within a shared culture that facilitates learning.
✅ The HR function can play a significant role in any change process but their involvement needs to be supported with both time and money and the senior management team needs to be committed to involving all functions in a culture of continuous improvement.
✅ To be competitive, organisation must engender an environment where CI is the focus and individuals are trained, encouraged and rewarded for their learning behaviors and sharing of knowledge.