Blog post 2_Siemens and Kolb

              I have been training employees from 58 different countries for the past three years at Samsung Electronics, one of the biggest manufacturing companies across the world. I have been training marketing and sales framework and the recent two weeks of discussion on adult learning in the class reminded me the importance of full attention to audiences’ motivation. Through such experiences, I think two theorists can meet each other and complement each one's theory when education at the workplace is changing from "training" to "learning". 

             As demands for organizational education grow, flexibility gets important. As a result, the concept of group and organizational education transforms from training to learning. Contexts of learning and experiences within the organization make the learning meaningful.  In that educational setting, each individual is seen as an active and self-motivated human. Therefore, relationship within organization and andragogy are most prioritized while individuals were perceived to be ‘human capital’ in ‘training’. Keenly catching education demands and stirring motivation are the main role of HRD department.

Table 1. Paradigm comparison of training and learning

	Training	Learning
Individuals	Passive	Active and self-directing
Theory in relation	Behaviorism & human capital theory	Human relations theory, andragogy, & humanism
Characteristics of education	Push-way and evaluate deficiency	Pull-way, learning organization, & informal learning
Main role of HRD	. Design &develop program . Execute training	. Grasp education demands . Promote learning motivation . Acknowledge each individual

Source: W.S. Chang & W.J. Shim(2005), The journal of vocational education research, 95p, Vol.24, No.1

Learning system is necessarily affected by system properties that act as barriers or supports to learning and sharing knowledge. I have experienced it when I worked on benchmarking competitor companies’ training systems in 2016. In order to research why Silicon Valley companies have grown so fast and profitable, I had an opportunity to participate in the research trip and interviews with representative companies there. What I discovered was that there is no single key factor in their way of training and selection of employees. Corporate culture definitely played a critical role, but again, it was also constituted of multiple factors. The only principle prominently appeared was their robust attempts to transform organizational education into tangible performance. In a nutshell, performance-based learning directly contributes to increasing individuals’ productivity and capability, and in the end, individuals’ salaries and corporate profits. There was the common assumption among them that company is performance system in nature and is sustainable only through its continuous prosperity.

             Therefore, another paradigm shift from learning to performance is required. Furthermore, online technology will contribute largely to connecting "dots" which is potentially learning opportunities for the people in this rapidly changing world.