The Impact of Organizational Culture on Organizational Learning (An Empirical Study on the Education Sector in Damascus City)

With the development of science and technology and expansion of educational environments, the educational environment has become competitive and challenging. And new paradigms have emerged that have made survival difficult for many universities. In such an environment, the transformation of competitive advantages is natural. Learning is the greatest competitive advantage in the new educational paradigms. Therefore, those universities that learn sooner faster and better than their competitors are more successful. Meanwhile, organizational culture has an impact on all activities of the universities. Since the organizational culture includes a complex part of the values and beliefs of the staff, any changes will lead to the change of learning in the universities. If all the factors of organizational learning are provided but there is no appropriate culture, the organizational learning will not be successful. Hence it is necessary for universities to understand their organizational culture and use the learning as a tool to create competitive advantage. In this paper, the concepts of organizational culture, organizational learning and the effect of organizational culture on organizational learning are discussed at the public and private universities in Damascus.