Are We Ready for Knowledge Economy in Jordan?

Abstract

With the development of modern science and technology, knowledge economy, a new economic form, is now advancing the transformation of the world economy revolutionarily. At the same time, the rise of knowledge economy is severely defying the conventional economic and management theories. According to the analysis of production process, knowledge economy brings about the challenge to the former system of “capital employs labor” and puts forward the assumption of “labor employs capital”. During the transition process to knowledge economy, the learning organization will emerge as one of the most effective theories that would guide the construction of a new organizational and management model. It is the purpose of this study to examine and investigate the realities of our enterprises regarding their readiness to transform into learning organizations. To provide an answer to this question, a questionnaire was developed in order to assess our readiness. The mean values indicate that organizations in Jordan have scored a low to moderate on all dimensions used to investigate the readiness to be a learning organizations. This suggests that organizations in Jordan do have the necessary seeds to be a learning organization and consequently transform the Jordanian economy into a knowledge economy. But much work is needed and government policies must be formulated in a way to support those organizations to be a learning organization.