The facilitating factors for organizational learning in the ceramic sector

The factors that facilitate organizational learning have traditionally been analysed by organizational learning and, in particular, the learning organization literature. Following a literature review, we have identified fifteen factors. However, these factors have been considered as universal, in other words, applicable to any sector or industry. In this paper we determine the combinations of organizational learning facilitating factors in a specific sectoral context: the Spanish ceramic tile sector, through an exploratory and comparative case study of four companies that illustrate this sector. In addition, we relate the companies' combinations of factors to their strategies (Miles and Snow 1978). The study mainly reveals that: each business strategy category is related to certain factors; the organizations with the most facilitating factors are the most innovative (prospector and analyser); and becoming a prospector implies the distinctive existence of factors 1 and 2, which encompass openness to and capacity for innovative change, a culture that favours the contribution of discerning ideas and maximum attention to the environment.