Verification of Reliability and Validity of the Japanese version of the Organizational Learning Scale

Abstract

Organizational learning (OL) differs from individual learning and is a process by which an organization acquires new information and knowledge, establishes routines, and changes its range of potential behaviors. OL is necessary for organizations to respond to complex situations and environmental changes throughout an entire organization.

The purpose of this study was to develop a Japanese version of the Measurement Scale for the Organizational Learning Subprocesses by Flores et al. (2012), a scale to measure the organizational learning taking place in a company, and to test its reliability and validity.

After obtaining permission from the authors, the scale was translated into Japanese and a back translation was reviewed and approved by the original authors. Subsequently, to verify reliability and validity an anonymous self-administered questionnaire survey was conducted for nurses in medical facilities. The survey was distributed to 266 nurses working in nine departments of a Japanese hospital, from August to September 2018. Responses were obtained from 239. Confirmatory factor analysis showed that the same five-factor/23-item structure demonstrated a reasonably good fit. The five factors were information acquisition, information distribution, information interpretation, information integration, and organizational memory. All of Cronbach's coefficient alpha for the subscales were over 0.7. Criterion-related validity, discriminant validity, and time stability were also confirmed. Thus, this Japanese version can be used as a scale of a Japanese version of organizational learning subprocesses.