This research investigates how organisations where e-learning is already
firmly established experience the adoption of mobile learning. Drawing on
responses from training managers and sales and service staff, it investigates
key aspects of mobile learning, as understood in organisations; how they
perceive the relationship between mobile learning and e-learning provision;
their key objectives for deploying mobile learning; and the dynamics of mobile
learning practice as it is emerging.

The project uses a multi-case study methodology with data collected from
three corporate organisations in different sectors (healthcare, computing, and
financial services). In each case, data is drawn from interviews with training
managers and questionnaire responses from sales and service staff.
Sharples’ framework for mobile learning, which focuses on the mobility of
learners and learning as ‘conversations’, forms the analytical basis for the
study. Three case reports are first presented, and then a cross-case analysis
is conducted to draw out points of commonality and difference between the
cases.

My findings show that mobile learning is understood in the organisations
through the lens of e-learning: while the two are not perceived as the same
thing, the relationship is perceived to be close. While some barriers to
adoption are technological, most concern social factors (stakeholder
resistance and lack of leadership support). There is also a lack of use of
collaborative aspects of mobile learning in emerging practices, even though
respondents were aware that such possibilities existed. Most importantly,
actual practices of mobile learning are driven more by the organisations’
business needs and how they have previously used e-learning, rather than
their specific perceptions of mobile learning.

The work contributes to existing research on mobile learning in the corporate
sector (especially the perceived advantages and effectiveness of mobile
learning, and challenges in adopting it), and in particular, the influence of
context (social factors) on integrating mobile learning in organisations.