Learning Analytics in the Corporate Sector: What Business Leaders Say?

The widespread adoption of digital tools for learning enables extensive data collection about employee learning activities. This article analyzes how corporations use data to inform and support their learning needs. This article presents a qualitative analysis of what managers and executives overseeing learning and development initiatives in their respective organization's value in learning analytics (LA) at the workplace. The interviews were analyzed through a framework that combined lenses of value-sensitive design and value creation to uncover the values underpinning current applications of LA in the corporate sector. We found that corporations vary in their strategic LA orientations when it comes to organizational learning and development. However, although aspirational narratives of executives are diverse, their activities are not. The implications of the rich qualitative findings suggest that learning sciences can support organizational learning by creating diagnostic tools to identify organizational orientations for LA. Computer scientists can also support decision-making and research on corporate LA by creating tools that can help map organizational aspirations and activities in relation to the various data sources, stemming from different organizational units. We conclude by outlining these recommendations.