The United Nations as a Knowledge System

Nanette Svenson

• Editorial: Routledge
• Año: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781317354314
• Edición: 1
• Categoría: Politique et relations internationales
• Categoría: Politique

This book seeks to explore how the UN has generated, warehoused, disseminated, structured, packaged, expanded, transferred and leveraged its vast resources of accumulated information and experience throughout the decades and, particularly, since the start of the 21st century with the introduction of more connective information and communications technology. It examines the overarching objectives that have guided such activity and divides UN knowledge management into three distinct, but often overlapping and intertwining, categories:

• knowledge for social and organizational learning;
• knowledge for norm setting; and
• knowledge for creation of products and services.

Svenson brings together these multiple aspects of UN knowledge management to present a holistic view of how the organization utilizes its global intelligence to educate, advocate and serve member countries' development. Instead of looking at the UN as an international bureaucracy or as a peacekeeping, policymaking, humanitarian or development entity, this work studies the UN as a generator and purveyor of information, learning and experience in all of these areas. This book will be key reading for all students and scholars of international organizations.

Part I Knowledge for organizational and social learning

Education is the most powerful weapon we can use to change the world.

Nelson Mandela

1 Internal learning initiatives

DOI: 10.4324/9781315666174-2

• Organizational learning
• Training
• UN training institutions
• Conclusion

Throughout the years, the UN has launched a number of educationally oriented programs designed to instruct UN staff, member states, the general public or all of these on issues related to UN objectives and activities. Part I of this book looks at how the UN has approached the development of organizational and social learning opportunities. The first of the three chapters in Part I reviews internal learning initiatives at the UN.

This chapter begins by exploring the core concepts associated with organizational learning and their application to international organizations. It goes on to look specifically at training and at several of the institutions the UN has developed and utilized to train its own personnel and other associated partners. It concludes by analyzing some of the successes, missed opportunities and future potential for using UN knowledge to train and develop professionals within the organization and in member states. Given the breadth and scope of the different UN agency and department activity, this chapter does not attempt to capture all internal learning initiatives carried out by the UN system. Rather, it aims to discuss some of the more formalized and permanent system-wide programs and projects, with a view to extracting lessons and examples for continued learning and development.

Organizational learning

For almost as long as scholars have been studying human organizations, they have also been studying how processes of learning take place inside them. Within the broader realm of organizational theory that seeks to explain the functioning of formal social organizations—principally businesses and bureaucracies—organizational learning (OL) examines how organizations collectively utilize knowledge to transform and adapt their activities and results. This encompasses a broad range of individual and group investigation, training and application—in both formal and informal structures and situations. Moreover, it represents the larger discipline within which the newer conceptualization of knowledge management has been developed. (Knowledge management, specifically, in the UN will be discussed in more depth in Part III.)

Theorists and practitioners alike appear to agree on the importance of OL, especially now with the advent of technological progress that has intensified the speed and magnitude associated with organizational change of any kind. What is more ambiguous, however, is the determination of what actually comprises OL, which processes are involved, what propels organizations to learn and how this is accomplished and measured. Though OL became part of the mainstream corporate dialogue as early as the 1950s and 1960s, there is still not a great deal of consensus on much of the theory and many of the issues related to the discipline.¹ Nevertheless, certain principles advocated by some of the seminal thinkers in this area have had a pervasive influence on how the field has developed and are broadly applicable across sectors and circumstances.

For example, Peter Senge, director of the Center for Organizational Learning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and one of the early OL scholars, describes what distinguishes “learning organizations” from the rest: they are organizations where people are constantly developing their capacities to create the results they desire by learning how to learn in different ways and where new patterns of thinking are facilitated and innovative aspirations are encouraged. To this end, Senge describes five disciplines that are fundamental for creating such an environment: 1 systems thinking—taken to be the cornerstone for all the other disciplines that allows for perception of the organization as a whole rather than the sum of its parts; 2 personal mastery, or the lifelong learning process associated with continuous development of individual capacity; 3 mental models, the assumptions, generalizations and images that guide working constructs for solving problems—and how to keep these in a constant state of reflection and development; 4 building shared vision, which allows for direction of effort toward collective objectives; and 5 team learning and the art of dialoguing and thinking together. These disciplines are widely cited as building blocks for guiding operational OL development.²

Likewise, Chris Argyris’s discussion of “single-loop” and “double-loop” learning is useful for differentiating between simple, linear technical learning processes and more complex, transformational learning processes. Argyris explains the two with the following analogy: a thermostat that automatically turns on the heat when the temperature in a given space drops below 68 degrees Fahrenheit is a good example of a single-loop learning mechanism, whereas a thermostat that could actually question the relevance of the 68 degrees and explore options and possibilities for other temperature settings that might achieve the goal of heating the space more efficiently and effectively would be a good example of a mechanism capable of double-loop learning. Argyris goes on to assert that while most professionals and organizations are adept at single-loop learning, they struggle with double-loop learning. Additionally, organizational incentives are not often designed to foster double-loop learning as it necessarily involves questioning of the status quo and current methodologies employed.³ The struggle with double-loop learning is likely to be even more difficult for public entities and international organizations because of their entrenched bureaucratic structures.

Aspects of the organization that may limit learning include corporate culture, management practice, reward systems and processing times. Specifically, weak institutionalization of accountability for results; minimal empowerment of middle and lower management; ingrained routines that correspond to traditional, unchallenged ways of working; and faulty communication between different units or limited access to important information all have considerable potential to thwart transformational learning. Thus, leadership, vision, and information and communications systems are critical for creating environments that stimulate thinking, learning and productive change.⁴

Most of the work in OL has been produced on and for private sector organizations; there is still relatively little academic application of OL to international organizations. More research on OL in international organizations would be helpful as the organizational and external environments are different to those of typical private sector corporations in important ways. First and foremost, the lack of a bottom-line, profit orientation complicates the institutionalizing of accountability. This impacts incentive structures as well. Whereas in the corporate world incentives tend to be monetary in nature and linked to financial accomplishment, this is seldom the case in international organizations. Also, the objectives do not generally correspond to the timeframe of a fiscal year; rather, they tend to be longer-term, spanning years and even decades. Added to this, instead of operating in a primarily competitive external environment, international organizations often, by necessity, must seek collaborative arrangements. This further complicates issues of accountability. Hence, what is likely to advance learning successfully at all levels in a private sector organization may not be as likely to produce results in an international organization. While the corporate research can provide helpful input on general organizational patterns and tendencies, the particular nuances of the international organization must also be studied and analyzed for more precise analysis and prescription.

Training

One of the more visible and tangible facets of OL in any type of entity is its approach to training. The OL literature oriented toward training examines the topic from various angles—its inherent benefits, potential shortcomings, advantages of internal versus external, comparison between formal and informal, how-to guidance and cost-benefit analyses, among others. Perhaps most relevant to the discussion of training within the UN system are studies related to the effects of training on job quality and employee engagement, as well as those related to training results within multinational contexts.

Scholars have found almost universally that increased opportunity for training in the workplace is a key ingredient for job quality—in terms of both employee perception and reflection in external evaluations of positions.⁵ Shifts in employment trends and labor market structures over the past three decades have only accentuated this; with increasingly rapid technological progress and the more frequent organizational change this propels, continuous adaptation and evolution of employee knowledge and skills has become crucial to operational survival.

Training can also be a powerful impetus to employee engagement. For this to happen, however, the types of training and means of delivery are important. Stephen Billett’s extensive work in this area indicates that several key elements help to propel purposeful engagement through training. How the participation of individuals or groups of individuals is “invited” (that is, encouraged or inhibited) becomes a vital concern for understanding and implementing learning, especially because workplaces have a tendency to be contested environments. The tailoring of the learning curricula to the specific needs of the enterprise is also, understandably, a major concern. Relevance and applicability of learning must be readily apparent to ensure not only results from training but also perception of its worth. Similarly, appropriate selection and preparation of training and learning guides (manuals and instructors) affect the ability of training to prove effective for enhancing employee engagement. Finally, encouragement of participation by both those leading the instruction and those learning is important; when learners can contribute to content and pedagogical methods, training and engagement are positively affected. Attention to these details seems to foster the construction of foundations upon which places of work can become effective sites for developing the kind of knowledge and skills that benefit individuals and organizations.⁶

In an international, multinational context, training becomes a more complicated maneuver. Differences in education, cultural norms and physical experiences of workers and multiple international workplace locales conspire to make internal human resource development a more complex task. In this environment, training also becomes more fundamental for creating common standards, references and philosophies within the organization. Inability to adapt to different physical and cultural environments is the principal cause of managerial failure to perform adequately in international situations. Consequently, key factors contributing to successful performance in global organizations include extensive training programs to prepare employees for work in international locations as well as comprehensive support structures and a long-term perspective on planning and performance assessment.⁷

Workforce and workplace diversity is often considered to be a competitive advantage in today’s globalized society and is a general necessity for organizations operating globally. The diversity must be well managed, however, as it increases job complexity on many levels. Training is a critical component in mitigating this since in addition to transmitting technical job-related knowledge and skills, it can go beyond to influence employee attitudes, values and interpersonal relations. This ultimately serves to develop internalized controls among those receiving training and facilitates the creation of a set of shared organizational norms and values, which is important for international organizations. Results from this type of training tend to be more widespread and sustainable when they are supported by top management attitudes and practice, and corresponding corporate policies and mechanisms.⁸

UN training institutions

Almost from the start, the UN began to develop its own programs and institutes for different types of training. These initiatives have been directed primarily at UN professionals at various levels and at relevant member country government entities and organizations. Over the years, individual UN agencies have designed and implemented a multitude of thematically and organizationally specific programs and certifications—too numerous to recount here. This chapter examines the system-wide initiatives of the UN that focus exclusively on training and instruction for internal UN staff and member state affiliate professionals. These entities are relatively well established and cover a range of subjects in their educational focus. They are also geographically scattered, in terms of their bases, and report to different UN supervisory bodies. Nevertheless, the learning in all of the UN training institutes is presumably available to all relevant UN units, staff and affiliates.

Interestingly, in spite of the longevity and diversity of established UN training structures and programs, relatively little research or evaluation has been done—internally or externally—to determine the degree of their effectiveness. Whether from the standpoint of employee engagement and job attractiveness or from the perspective of training’s relationship with productivity and achievement of desired goals, the UN invests little in trying to determine the precise results of its training endeavors. Some exceptions to this generalization are described below with regard to specific institutions; however, overall, the UN investment in evaluating the outcome and output of its training seems to be disproportionately low compared with its continued investment in training. Some of this can be explained by the tendency of many of the UN training institutes to work on a fee-based structure. Thus, if their educational offer is not perceived by clients to be relevant and productive, demand will likely diminish. Still, within the UN system, perhaps more than in any other corporate, public or international organization, there appears to be a general belief in the necessity and intrinsic worth of training—without the need or desire to confirm this affirmation with extensive quantifiable evidence. The belief may be well founded (as theoretical constructs from the literature would seem to suggest), but hard data to substantiate this are less available.

The UN institutions described in the following sections were all established explici...