Virtual human resource development in the United States Navy : a qualitative study of how Navy Service Members advance their professional knowledge through informal learning using Navy-related social media tools

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to explore how Navy active duty service members advance professional knowledge through informal learning using Navy-related social media tools. Two research questions were utilized: a. How do Navy service members advance their professional knowledge through informal learning by interacting with peers within Navy-related social media tools?, b. How do Navy service members advance their professional knowledge through informal learning interacting with digital objects within Navy-related social media tools? Data included ten semi-structured, in-depth interviews and field notes. Data analysis was conducted through general inductive analysis and constant comparison. Findings showed that service members advanced professional knowledge by interacting with their peers through reducing organizational hierarchy barriers, learning vicariously through others, recognizing who has credible information, and translating Navy-speak. Interacting with digital objects encouraged service members to advance professional knowledge through following learning pathways enabled by links, adding incremental additive knowledge through visuals, adopting transmitted culture, and not reinventing the wheel for posts and templates. From the findings, three prominent conclusions were drawn: Social media facilitates many types of informal learning characteristic of VHRD that are critical for service member professional development; A hybrid of Navy culture and the specific social media group's values supports cultural relevancy and flexibility to assist informal learning and developing into VHRD; A media-rich environment enables informal learning through Navy-related social media leading to professional development of self and others outside of the platform through learning transfer.

Dancing in the Paradox: Virtual Human Resource Development, Online Teaching, and Learning

“…Transfer of learning into VHRD, embedding learning from an external source into organizational systems, has at least three main types: proximal, intermediate, and distal (Bennett, 2010). Greenlund's (2019) aforementioned study found subtypes of intermediate transfer reported by Navy personnel, such as integrating new knowledge from social media to similar or more removed work contexts and systems. Transfer can stem from both formal learning and informal learning, which are fundamental learning processes defining VHRD (Bennett, 2009).…”

“…Virtual human resource development shows that a dynamic relationship between culture and technology is isomorphic, or mutually influencing (Bennett, 2009(Bennett, , 2014b. For example, Greenlund's (2019) recent VHRD study found that Navy-related social media created a place for informal professional development that was characterized by a hybrid culture. The hybrid culture had many aspects of Navy culture as well as new facets that broke down traditional barriers of rank and hierarchy.…”