This study investigates what kinds of obstacles schools face in transforming into learning
organizations. Recently, schools in Korea had to adapt to a totally new college admission
system policy when the Admission Officer System(AOS) was introduced by the government
in 2008. In order to cope with the AOS, the schools had to learn about the system, and to
change their curriculum to provide students with opportunities succeed within this system.
The researcher concerned on schools which were attempting to adapt AOS. Cases for the
study were chosen using purposive and snowball sampling strategy. Finally, 11 high schools
were chosen as the participants in this study and in-depth, semi-structured interviews were
conducted with the change agent at each school.
Six barriers to transform schools into learning organizations were drawn from the case
schools. (1)Inflexibility: Due to their inflexibility, some participants were unconcerned about
the AOS, therefore unwilling to learn further about the new admission system. Instead, they
stuck to the familiar pre-existing entrance system. (2)Lack of principal’s support: In most
cases in this study, the principals were open to changes and supported the teachers’
adaptive learning. However, in one case, although the change agent was a renowned expert
on AOS in Korea, he failed to promote organizational learning in his school due to the
indifference of the principal. (3)Insufficient interaction: the teachers did not share their
knowledge enough because there were few opportunities to interact related to AOS.
(4)Overwork: One of the most serious and practical obstacles is the work overload required
to adapt to the AOS. (5)Bureaucratic culture: teachers were unwilling to tolerate one
particular teacher taking a leadership role in reforming the school due to collectivistic
cultural influences. (6)Turnover of change agents: A change agent’s knowledge of AOS was
often lost from the organization in his/her turnover.
In conclusions, this study provided some suggestions to transform schools into learning
organizations.