This is a brief summary of my research on organisational learning and change as published in Teaching Public Administration in February 2020.
In this article I spoke to a wide range of public sector managers about their experiences of being involved in a public leadership degree programme. I was interested to know what they saw as being the benefits of this learning experience and how it had influenced their practice.
In this article I discuss the nature of the budget cuts that took place across public sector organisations and particularly how learning and development budgets were seen to be an easy target. I then discuss how the participants had encountered barriers to change and what they felt needed to happen to enable innovation and change.
One aspect highlighted was the extent to which it was seen as important that any learning and development was sector specific as the following extract highlights:
The full Open Access (free) article is available here: https://doi.org/10.1177/0144739420903783
I have provided a 2 minute summary of the research here:
This research has been referenced in an Institute for Government report into civil service skills development and in a literature review for the UK Government on organisational effectiveness and collaboration.
More research related to learning and development in public service organisations can be found here:
Gibb, S., Ishaq, M., Elliott, I.C. & Hussain, A.M. (2020) Fair and decent work in Scotland’s local authorities: evidence and challenges, Public Money & Management, DOI: 10.1080/09540962.2020.1723262
Elliott, I.C., Sinclair, C. and Hesselgreaves, H. (2020) “Leadership of Integrated Health and Social Care Services”, Scottish Affairs, 29 (2): 198-222. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3366/scot.2020.0316.
Dr Ian C Elliott 