A study on enhancing the learning capability of knitted garment export industry in tirupur: emphasis on influencing factors and opportunities

Abstract

The global business milieu today is turbulent than ever before and today’s organizations are forced to find innovative ways of managing business to cope up with the environmental pressures. Indian organizations are no exception. In the current scenario of economic recession and stringent  business challenges, they are forced to learn continuously and update their competencies to survive and grow in the long run. In this knowledge driven world, Learning has become a necessity. It is a never-ending process. It adds value, gives confidence and steers an organization along the road to prosperity. It is in this context, the concepts like Organizational Learning, Learning Organization, Knowledge Management etc. have gained momentum. This paper elaborates upon a study  conducted to examine the facilitating and inhibiting factors that influence the learning capability; and various learning opportunities of select knitted garment export units at Tirupur, one of the prominent knitted garment export hubs in India. The Research is descriptive in nature and survey  method is used for collection of data. Data was collected from a sample of 191 knitted garment export units in Tirupur. A judicial combination of relevant statistical tools was used to bring out useful findings. The major  findings of the study indicated that the extent of possession of learning facilitating factors and inhibiting factors; and utilization of learning opportunities in Tirupur knitted garment export units is moderate. There  are significant differences found across select categories of the industry in all learning aspects. Based on the results, the study proposes suggestions for improvement in areas like learning from external sources, promotion  of organization wide learning and implementation of learning oriented  Human Resource practices.