Social Learning and Knowledge Management in the Australian Defence Organisation

This paper reports on research conducted by the Enterprise Social Learning Architecture team of the Defence Science and Technology Organisation. Two preliminary studies were conducted. The purpose of the first study was to determine the feasibility of observing and documenting social learning processes and trial the use of ethnographic techniques for this purpose. The study provided multi-layered findings about social learning, and validated the use of ethnography for this purpose. The second study was conducted in a Branch of the Australian Defence Headquarters, a strategic headquarters. In this study, supplementary methodologies were used which highlighted the hindrance to organisational learning when system thinking is not part of an organisation’s culture