The Australian Army seeks to foster a culture that will continuously enhance their learning capability in order to remain innovative, agile, flexible and responsive to operational challenges and strategic goals into the future. To assist the Army in this effort the Defence Science and Technology Group developed the Army Learning Organisation (ALO) research program. The aim of the ALO program was to provide Army with a profile of their learning culture, and to assist Army in monitoring their progress towards improving as a learning organisation (at individual, team and organisational levels). In doing so, insights into Army work practices, processes, beliefs and behaviours that support or inhibit effective organisational learning were also provided. This presentation will focus on the ALO research design, methods and approaches which empirically measure and monitor the Army’s learning culture. It will also highlight how this research program has uniquely contributed to the scientific and Defence communities (i.e. by including a representative sample of an organisation, focusing on Army, and conducting testing over two time periods).

Guided by fundamental organisational learning, sociological and social psychology theories, as well as the science-practitioner and action research approaches, this research design was specifically developed for the Australian Army and its long term objectives. The ALO research program used a repeated cross- sectional design and mixed methods, including the following phases:

Phase 1: Conducted a literature review, then a sense making workshop. The workshop had key Army stakeholders that developed ALO definition and supporting characteristics.

Phase 2: Developed and administered the ALO Questionnaire (ALOQ) to a representative sample of Army’s population (N=3890).

Phase 3: Conducted a series of focus groups (N=350) to provide more detailed insights and interpretation of the ALOQ findings, and possible areas for interventions.

Phase 4: A revised ALOQ was administered to a representative sample of Army’s population (N=3989).

Phase 5: Using data from phase 2,3 and 4, the ALO Model is being developed by using Structural Equation Modelling.

Phase 6: Conducted triangulation of theoretical literature, Army’s/Defence documents, the ALOQ and case study findings.

This research program provided the Australian Army with a reliable and valid empirical tool, methods and model that measured and monitored Army’s specific learning organisational culture. In addition, to the authors’ knowledge, the study outlined above is unique and it is anticipated that the findings and the model will further develop learning organisation theories for military and other hierarchical organisations.