Article 2015

People Passion programme: Implementing an innovative workplace learning culture through professional development – the case of KPMG Thailand

International Review of Education
Journal · Vol. 61 · Issue 6 · pp. 795-814
Abstract

With a vision that changes within the organisation could only happen through people, Chief Executive Officer Ms. Kaisri Nuengsigkapian led the creation of a successful workplace learning programme, People Passion within KPMG Thailand, which is part of a global network of professional firms providing audit, tax and advisory services. This article employs a case study methodology to describe the culture, the processes and the activities utilised such as creating a common culture, using a “strengths finder tool”, and encouraging individual growth. To develop the case study, data were collected from employees through in-depth interview, observations and document analysis over a four-year period. The findings of the study show that People Passion is effective in reducing communication barriers within the chain of command, between employees and top management, and in encouraging employees to construct group identity and transform themselves. People Passion also serves as a differentiation tool which allows KPMG Thailand to attract new employees, despite accountant scarcity and high competition from other auditing firms. The article concludes with a discussion of issues of transferability and leadership with this programme. © 2015, Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht and UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning.

Keywords

Author Keywords

workplace learning Thailand South-East Asia Identity transformation Organisational policy Social affordances

Index Keywords

Employment learning workplace leadership innovation labor market Thailand
Author Affiliations
Sasin School of Management, Bangkok, Bangkok, Thailand
Funding & Acknowledgements
No funding information
References 10 References
1 Series V Economic Sciences, (2010)
2 Bandura, Albert, Social cognitive theory: An agentic perspective, Annual Review of Psychology, 52, pp. 1-26, (2001)
3 Billett, Stephen Richard, Learning through work: Workplace participatory practices, Workplace Learning in Context, pp. 109-125, (2004)
4 Billett, Stephen Richard, Lifelong learning and self: Work, subjectivity and learning, Studies in Continuing Education, 32, 1, pp. 1-16, (2010)
5 Billett, Stephen Richard, Transformations at work: Identity and learning, Studies in Continuing Education, 26, 2, pp. 309-326, (2004)
6 Professional Development as Transformative Learning, (1996)
7 Elkjaer, Bente, Organizational learning: The 'third way, Management Learning, 35, 4, pp. 419-434, (2004)
8 Evans, Karen M., Rethinking work-based learning: For education professionals and professionals who educate, The SAGE Handbook of Workplace Learning, pp. 149-162, (2011)
9 Evans, Karen M., Improving workplace learning, Improving Workplace Learning, pp. 1-210, (2006)
10 Filliettaz, Laurent, Affording learning environments in workplace contexts: an interactional and multimodal perspective, International Journal of Lifelong Education, 32, 1, pp. 107-122, (2013)
Quick Actions
Full Text via DOI
Citation Metrics
4
Times Cited (Scopus)

References 10
Document Identifiers