Fostering the Learning Capacity of Small-Scale Ethnic Chinese Business Organizations: An Exploratory Study

Business leaders who enable learning whether through regular training needs assessments or externally sourced scientific advice to support product development efforts contribute to organizational effectiveness. While the drivers of learning capacity and their effects on the business are well documented in large firms, little is known about this issue in Asian small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Therefore, this paper is aimed at exploring some of the antecedents of organizational learning capability of small-scale ethnic Chinese business organizations with particular reference to knowledge-intensive SMEs in Singapore. By utilizing Asian family business and organizational behavior concepts with regard to knowledge, leadership, absorptive capacity, fair process and knowledge transfer as well as qualitative data obtained through a case study of a small-scale ethnic Chinese SME which provides IT-enabled trading solutions for financial institutions, several hypothesized relationships between knowledge leadership, firm attributes, organizational learning and firm performance are developed into an organizational learning capability model to be tested in the context of a future empirical SME study. The model's implications are discussed with special reference to CEOs of SMEs and SME promotion agencies interested in facilitating the development of a culture of learning and innovation in small business organizations in an era of rapid globalization.