The general goal of this paper is to relate learning processes and learning mechanisms used by employees of irrigated fruit culture companies, located in the navigable waters of São Francisco river to understand how they deal with the changes in the working conditions from being family farmers and becoming corporate workers as well as those that result from competitive challenges of organizations to entry into international markets. Therefore, we conducted a cross section survey based on an accessibility sampling that consisted of 32 companies and 950 employees. This particular productive sector and region were chosen because they illustrate paradigmatic situations of changes in traditional production practices and work organization and also because rural workers' learning processes have been little explored in studies in the administration field. Individual learning was identified - difference between the current work experience and the previous experience - associated to the use of a few informal mechanisms instead of structured learning mechanisms. The results obtained did not validate the first hypothesis that the acquisition of work related knowledge is associated to variety, intensity, and interaction of learning mechanisms. On the other hand, the second hypothesis - that the internal and external learning mechanisms are associated to the amount of knowledge - was validated. The gap between the reviewed studies' results and those reported in this present study is related to the differences in companies' characteristics, market structures, products, and work organization.
Learning at work; Organizational change; Learning mechanisms; Irrigated fruit culture; Rural enterprises; Rural workers
