Religious Community as a Learning Organization: A Case Study of the Bahá'í Community of Singapore

By Check Woo Foo and Abdus Sattar Chaudhry.

Published by The International Journal of Knowledge, Culture and Change Management

Format	Price
Article: Print	$US10.00
Article: Electronic	$US5.00

Understanding and practices of the Bahá’í community of Singapore were reviewed via survey and interviews of the active members of the community within the framework of Senge’s (1990) model of a learning organization. The study indicated that the Bahá’í community of Singapore would be able to sustain growth at least for the near future. The study participants considered the community to be relatively stronger in personal mastery and shared vision but weaker in mental models, systems thinking and team learning. Discussion of the weaker core disciplines identified reluctance to question assumptions as a major gap, which most likely had cultural roots. Interactions between core disciplines were indicated and discussed by referencing the literature. Best practices culled from literature and management tools available to the Bahá’í community to implement these best practices were recommended by the researchers to improve the performance of the community. The need for a more rigorous evaluation of the key characteristics relevant to a religious community was also highlighted.

Keywords:	Learning Organization, Knowledge Management, Religious Community, Bahá'í Faith

International Journal of Knowledge, Culture and Change Management, Volume 8, Issue 3, pp.15-30. Article: Print (Spiral Bound). Article: Electronic (PDF File; 934.477KB).

Check Woo Foo

Graduate Student, Division of Information Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore

Check Woo Foo has just completed his M.Sc in Information Studies from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He is a chemist by profession with a M.Sc in Chemistry from the National University of Singapore and work as the Group Manager for Food Science & QA in a MNC R&D Center in the food industry. Check Woo is currently serving as an honorary director of the Spiritual Assembly of the “Bahá’ís” of Singapore Ltd.

Abdus Sattar Chaudhry

Head, Division of Information Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

Abdus Sattar Chaudhry is currently Head, Division of Information Studies at Nanyang Technological University of Singapore. He holds a Master’s from University of Hawaii and a PhD from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He teaches in the areas of information organization and knowledge management. His current research focuses on use of taxonomies and metadata for knowledge management.

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