Strategic Alignment of Learning & Development at Dow Chemical

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Dow Chemical's approach to workplace learning and development. It begins by describing Dow's business, organizational strategy, and the alignment of its learning and development programs with its overall goals, including the Leadership in Action program. The report then explores Dow's sustainability goals, the concept of sustainable business, and the role of learning and development in supporting these goals. It discusses Dow's 2025 Sustainability Goals, emphasizing the company's commitment to environmental and societal well-being. The analysis covers the increasing popularity of sustainable business practices and how Dow leverages learning and development to achieve its objectives, highlighting the importance of employee training, leadership development, and the integration of sustainability into its operations. The report concludes by emphasizing the significance of sustainable practices in modern organizations and Dow's leadership in this domain.

WORKPLACE, LEARNING & DEVELOPMENT

Table of Contents
Part 1..........................................................................................................................................3
Question 1..................................................................................................................................3
Describe the type of business conducted by Dow Chemicals. Explain the connection between
an organisation’s strategy and its approach to learning and development. Discuss how and
why Dow’s Leadership in Action program is considered be ‘strategic’ for Dow Chemicals....3
Question 2..................................................................................................................................5
Explain Dow’s goals of ‘Sustainable Business’. Discuss the concept of ‘sustainable business’
and why this is becoming increasingly popular for organisations. Discuss how learning and
development supports sustainability goals.................................................................................5
Reference list..............................................................................................................................8
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Part 1
Question 1
Describe the type of business conducted by Dow Chemicals. Explain the
connection between an organisation’s strategy and its approach to learning
and development. Discuss how and why Dow’s Leadership in Action
program is considered be ‘strategic’ for Dow Chemicals.
Dow Chemical Company, popularly known as Dow, is a 120 years old multinational
chemical corporation based in Michigan, USA. From a theoretical point of view, the business
of Dow Chemicals can be categorised as a ‘company’, as legal entity of Dow is distinct from
its shareholders. Abdulwahab (2017, p.2) has defined a company as a legal entity formed by a
group of individuals in order to pursue an industrial or commercial enterprise. The company
is engaged in a wide range of production activities, spanning their business in seven major
segments - plastics (both performance and basic), chemicals (both performance and basic),
water purification, agricultural science products, and hydrocarbon and energy business
(Dow.com, 2017).
Organisational mission of Dow is to passionately build innovation for their stakeholders at
the junction of chemistry, physics and biology (CS). Their vision is to maximise the long-
term value obtained from each share by becoming the most respected and valuable science
company in the globe (CS). Based on this mission and vision, their organisational strategy is
to invest in such portfolio businesses that are driven by market demand and have the
advantage of technology at their disposal. Through this corporate strategy, the company aims
create value for both their customers not shareholders alike (Dow.com, 2017).
Now, the learning & development program conducted at Dow is also aligned with the
aforementioned organisational strategy. The company perceives that ensuring development in
their workforce is the key factor in achieving the vision of having world’s best people under
the company's umbrella. Therefore, employee development model practiced at Dow is a
reflection of continuous learning cycle, embedded in daily operations, professional
relationships and learning framework. For maximising the value obtained from their shares,
the company make investments in employee training and development programs and also
promoted them to take up the leader in their respective fields. As Dow is aimed to expand
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their global presence, they require employees who are capable of networking and blessed
with the abilities of building relationships with local governmental as well as commercial
leaders (CS). Therefore, it can be stated that the current employee development program at
Dow is properly aligned with their organisational strategy.
In order to make their employees more effective and competent in different scenarios, Dow
practices a wide range of activities under their learning and development program. Such
activities include daily learning, active participation on global teams, cultural training,
mentoring, online learning and so on (Dow.com, 2017). In this way, employees are able to
seek opportunities from a wide range of context and excel their personal as well as
professional skills.
In this context, it is imperative to critically discuss the current leadership development
program at Dow. The company has identified employees with high-potential and sends to
take part in a leadership development program at the company headquarter located at
Midland, Michigan. There, they are coached and mentored on different approaches and
techniques of leadership. On completion of those classes, selected employees are then
delegated to spend a week in different international locations such as China, Brazil or Dubai.
These locations are regional headquarters of Dow and therefore employees can easily work in
similar work environments compared to corporate headquarters (CS).
In the opinion of Caligiuri and Thoroughgood (2015, p.139), such programs have definitive
advantages both on the employees as well on Dow. As employee re-sent to different countries
to apply their learned skills, they get the opportunity to understand the influence of different
cultures in business. Furthermore, exposing employees to different cultural grounds also aids
them to practice self-reflection and introspection the gravity of their actions in respective
cultures. As contradicted by Pless and Borecká (2014, p.530), this program lacks the element
of hands-on experience that could help designated employees to understand different cultural
contexts.
From this point of view, leadership development program, as a wing of learning &
development approach practice at Dow, is an effective organisational practices as its helps the
company to deploy business leaders in different cultural contexts and thus maximize the
scope of business expansion. In addition, this approach also helps leaders to ascertain most
suitable course of actions required in different cultural contexts for magnifying business in
those situations. Thus, it can be postulated that learning & development approach followed
by Dow is perfectly connected with their organisational strategy.
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Question 2
Explain Dow’s goals of ‘Sustainable Business’. Discuss the concept of
‘sustainable business’ and why this is becoming increasingly popular for
organisations. Discuss how learning and development supports
sustainability goals.
As a global chemical production manufacturing giant, Dow takes sustainability factors in
their business seriously. The company seeks to engrave their signature their legacy in the
field of sustainability, besides the established acclaim in innovation and leadership practices.
They are committed to stretch their current capabilities associated with production and
solution in order to incorporate sustainable actions in these two activities. As opined by
Bocken et al. (2013, p.490), Dow aims to aims to enhance the holistic well-being of human
being in earth by ensuring the existence of a sustainable planet and society. Based on these
noble intentions, the company have entered in the third stage of their sustainability journey,
key milestones of which are mentioned in the 2025 Sustainability Goals (Dow.com, 2017).
They are-
Goal 1: Under this goal, Dow aims to develop a societal blueprint, integrating elements of
science and technology, solution provided by public policy makers and innovative value
chain practices. This blueprint would help the company to facilitate the act of building a
sustainable planet and society.
Goal 2: Dow aims to deliver revolutionary innovations under this goal. The innovations
would incorporate sustainable chemistry practices and would augment the development of
humanity towards a better future.
Goal 3: In order to close the resource loops existing in key marts, Dow envision assisting the
development of a circular economy by delivering effective and sustainable solutions.
Goal 4: The value of nature is protected under this goal. As Dow seeks to provide better
accounts through their decision making processes, they can deliver valuable business
solutions to the market. In this way, value of natural capital that is significant both to the
company as well as ecosystem will be protected.
Goal 5: Dow envisages increasing the confidence in chemical technology through this goal.
They also aim to enhance this confidence through transparent practices.
Goal 6: Under this goal, the company aims to engage their employees to create a tangible
impact on people's’ lives and nature. Employees at Dow are in constant effort to implement
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their passion and professional expertise for building such an environment that would facilitate
holistic well-being of both humanity and planet earth.
Goal 7: Finally, Dow intends to maintain their leadership position in terms of sustainable
performance. The sustainable operations here include efficiently using natural resources and
ensuring health and safety factors.
Now, it is important to discuss the concept of sustainable business for understanding the
implications of Dow’s 2025 Sustainability Goals. As per Boons (2013, p.5), an enterprise
having minimal negative consequences of local as well as global ecosystem can be referred as
a sustainable business. Here, ecosystem incorporates natural environment, immediate as well
as remote community and economy. In other words, a sustainable business is easily
characterised by progressive human rights as well as environmental policies.
Sustainability practices are becoming an increasingly crucial and popular element in modern
organisations for several reasons. Such reasons are enumerated below:
Firstly, sustainable business policy such as calculated utilisation of natural resources helps in
the practice of environmental sustainability (Bocken et al. 2015, p.70). As organisations such
Dows practice environ mentality sustainability, they constantly review their business
processes for identify better solutions and thus promotes innovative practices.
Secondly, organisation that practices sustainability can pay their employees better financial as
well as non-financial rewards. In this way, such organisations, through their practices of
sustainable employment, thrive better in the long run.
Thirdly, Kolk (2016, p.25) has commented that sustainable business also help business
corporations in managing their corporate risks as processes that can damage the corporate
reputation in future are discarded, irrespective of their immediate returns or implications.
The issue of sustainability is confronted by almost all business corporations in contemporary
world, irrespective of their size, nature of operations or position in respective market.
Therefore, modern business organisations are embracing sustainable practices not only for
strengthening their corporate culture, but also to help in to build a better world in future.
In this way, new approached for learning and development, as adopted by organisations such
as Dow have helped them to embrace growth and success while adhering to their
sustainability goals. Propelled by these beneficial factors, Dow has continued to practice
sustainability in the business practices and retain their leadership position in this arena.
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Reference list
Abdulwahab, A., (2017). Definition of Joint Stock Company. Journal of Applied and Social
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Bocken, N., Short, S., Rana, P. and Evans, S., (2013). A value mapping tool for sustainable
business modelling. Corporate Governance, 13(5), pp.482-497.
Bocken, N.M.P., Rana, P. and Short, S.W., (2015). Value mapping for sustainable business
thinking. Journal of Industrial and Production Engineering, 32(1), pp.67-81.
Boons, F., Montalvo, C., Quist, J. and Wagner, M., (2013). Sustainable innovation, business
models and economic performance: an overview. Journal of Cleaner Production, 45(8), pp.1-
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Caligiuri, P. and Thoroughgood, C., (2015). Developing responsible global leaders through
corporate-sponsored international volunteerism programs. Organizational Dynamics, 2(44),
pp.138-145.
Dow. (2017). Dow 2025 Sustainability Goals and Iconography. Available at:
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Dow.com. (2017). About Dow | Dow. Available at: http://www.dow.com/en-us/about-dow
[Accessed on 19 Aug. 2017].
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http://www.dow.com/en-us/investor-relations/financial-reporting [Accessed on 21 Aug.
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Dow.com. (2017). Learning & Development | Dow. Available at: http://www.dow.com/en-
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Dow.com. (2017). Mission & Vision | Dow. Available at: http://www.dow.com/en-us/about-
dow/our-company/mission-and-vision [Accessed on 16 Aug. 2017].
Kolk, A., (2016). The social responsibility of international business: From ethics and the
environment to CSR and sustainable development. Journal of World Business, 51(1), pp.23-
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Pless, N.M. and Borecká, M., (2014). Comparative analysis of International Service Learning
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The Dow Chemical Company. (2017). The Dow Chemical Company 2015 Sustainability
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