Learning Organizations

11 Pages 2743 Words

learning is so insinuated into the fabric of life”. Also, he defines Learning Organization as “a place where people continually expand their capacity to create results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective aspiration is set free and where people continually learning how to learn”.
David Garvin in the August 1993 Harvard Business Review defines a learning organization as “ an organization skilled at creating, acquiring, and transferring knowledge and and at modifying its behavior to reflect new knowledge and insights.
In his book “Notes on Continuous Learning, Culture and Organization”, Bob Mingie defines the Learning Organization as “an enterprise that focuses on the continuous improvement of its processes, products and service; that facilitates the learning of its members, both individually/independently and as groups/teams; that continuously transform itself in order to meet its strategic goals”
The learning organization can be better explained with the aid of a figure prepared by Kai R. Larsen:
According to these definitions and the figure above, it can be said that the Learning Organization:
· Is not just a collection of individuals who are learning- instead, learning also occurs simultaneously at various collective levels within business units and within an entire company.
· Demonstrates organization’s capacity of change
· Accelerates individual learning capacity but also redefines organizational structure, culture, job design, and mental models
· Involves widespread participation of employees, and often customers, in decision making and information sharing
· Promotes systematic thinking and building of organizational memory.

What is Adaptive Learning versus Generative Learning?
The current view of organizations is based of adaptive learning, which is about coping. Senges notes that the increasing adaptiveness is only the first stage; com...