The Relationship Between Organizational Learning and the Learning Organization

The first few pages of the article emphasize on the importance of the meaning, measurement and management of a learning organization. The rest of the article focuses on the main Building blocks that aid an organization to improve and become a learning organization. Garvin gives a lot of examples to elaborately explain his theory on a learning organization. The article also emphasizes on the stages of knowledge, and the half-life curves that can be used to compare between the performances of a company’s divisions.

Many companies are very keen and ready to clinch Work Base Learning in an organization, not mainly because it provide you with lifelong learning, but also it is an important ingredient of what Senge (1990) has termed as the ‘learning organization’. A learning organization is a place in which the learning and flair of persons is backed and promoted so that the organization itself be able to form its future and it also very important to gain competitive advantage.

Bond is the network for over 290 UK-based non-governmental organizations working in the international development and development education. The organization stresses the barriers to organizational learning as due to bias for action, failure to hold discussions, and lack of commitment. On the other hand, organizations may fail to grow due to political issues and these are most common in the United States. The writer then gives the solutions to these barriers, which among them are; changing the ways of thinking, transfer of

For most companies, identifying what a learning organization should be and actually becoming one is tricky at best, impossible at worst. One way that manager's and companies can promote the concept of being a learning organization is to assess whether the company is in need of a short-term fix or whether it is more focused on long-term results. Organizational learning is a long-term activity that will build competitive advantage over time and requires sustained management attention, commitment, and effort. Learning organizations maximize their competitive positions during strong economic times and they prudently train their employees and prepare for change even in turbulent times. As a result, learning organizations and learning

Learning at an organization is more of a self-conducted activity, and is a continuous process that lasts the entire cycle of the organization and the tenure of the employee. Nevertheless, each organization must effectively employ certain training and development activities for new as well as seasoned employees in order to accomplish different objectives:-

Just as students are learning at Post, organizations and the personnel within them need to continue to learn. Organizations need to continue to refine processes and focus on innovation. Organizational learning gives companies the ability to create, remember, and share knowledge within an organization. In order for an organization to be an effective learner they need to make it a focus on everyday work, practice it through all levels of the organization, create a focus on the creation, retention and transfer of knowledge through the organization, and solve problems where they begin, Organizational learning provides an opportunity to effect positive change throughout the organization. A company that is an organizational learner is one that is innovative, continually refining its processes and learns from its mistakes. Personal learning within an organization greatly enhances the organizations core competencies. It can be done through education and training programs. Such programs consist of schooling, training seminars, mentorships and on

I believe that Organizational learning is an area of expertise within an organizational system that studies models and philosophies about the method an organization understands and acclimates (Vasenska, 2013); Organization-wide on going logic which heightens its collective ability to accept, make sense of, and respond to internal and external change. Organizational learning is more than the totality of the intelligence understood by employees. It involves orderly

Learning organizations today must be adequately able to readily adapt to change the mind-sets and behaviors of the people within. Although this sounds like a unified joint statement for each and every organization however, there are so many organizations that yet do not acknowledge the actual truths and current trends that illustrate particular dysfunctional behaviors that exist and occur each day. Learning organization aid and enable companies and business to run, operate, and function with efficiently. As organizations learn together, they attain knowledge, acquire skills and information and evolve at a faster rate. Culture begins to be created after learning organization are established and they are placed

There have four characteristics in the supportive learning environment: Psychological safety, appreciation of differences, openness to new ideas, and time for reflection. The four steps of learning processes: First, generation. Company need to develop and test new products or services. Second, collection. Company need to collect customers, technological and information about competitors. Third, interpretation. Through rigorous analysis to identify and solve problems. At last, dissemination of information. Company should move information into customers' hand and heads quickly and efficiently. Leadership reinforcing learning means leaders should get some feedback from employees in order to motivating employees ask and discuss problems. The authors use learning organization survey to determine the organizations. After survey, authors conclude four principles about learning organization: "Leadership alone is insufficient" - Leaders need open their minded for questioning, cogitative listening, consider a

Organizational learning promotes: adaptability, participation and information openness. Consequently, not only employee performance will be enhanced, but also the increase of organizations effectiveness and efficiency.

An organization’s capability to learn and convey that learning into action quickly, is the supreme competitive advantage. The learning organization is the structure that eases the realization of such competitive advantage, it empowers employees, it deepens and enhances the customer experience and cooperation with main business partners and eventually improves business performance. Organizational learning is considered as the suitable process to develop knowledge resources and capabilities/core competencies (human capital, social capital and organizational capital) that engender ongoing values; which in turn yield persistence superior performance; which lead to sustainable competitive advantage within the context of the strategic management.

There is the need for the organisation to acquire knowledge from outside environment and build its knowledge base and also contribute by sharing knowledge with its business partners; these constitute the seventh and eight step. Finally, as the organisation continues in its learning process, there is the need to build an organisational memory so that learning can be constantly upgraded and to avoid loss. This is also consistent with the seminal work by Huber (1991) who elaborates four constructs linked to organisational learning-knowledge acquisition (the process by which knowledge is obtained), information distribution (process by which information from different sources is shared and thereby leads to new information or understanding), information interpretation (process by which information that has been distributed is commonly understood) and organisation memory (means by which knowledge is stored for future use).

In effect, the model shows at the macro level how personal knowledge is converted into organizational knowledge, and vice versa, in processes for active and continuous organizational learning. The fourth section discusses some key challenges in managing each of the five learning cycles so that active learning processes are maintained at the individual, group, or organizational levels. I also suggest some ways in which managers can help to prevent breakdowns and dysfunctions from occurring in each of the Five Learning Cycles, and thereby help to sustain overall organizational learning processes. Examples drawn from recent research into knowledge management practices help to illustrate the nature of such managerial interventions. I conclude with some comments on the ways in which the knowledge management processes discussed here reflect a fundamental shift in management thinking and practice from traditional concepts of command and control to more contemporary concepts of facilitation and empowerment.

Jashapara (2011) defines organisational learning as the processes of improving organisational actions through better knowledge and understanding.

Peter Senge argues that not only we humans learn, but organizations also. However, learning itself may not be enough for the organization to survive in this ever-challenging era. In his book, The Fifth Discipline, Senge introduced five ‘disciplines’, namely systems thinking, personal mastery, mental models, building shared vision, and team learning, that characterizes an organization as a learning organization.