LEARNING AND DEVELOPMENT

Learning and Development

Understanding Learning And Various Approaches To The Learning Organization

Discussions of organizational learning and learning organizations are characterized by heterogeneity and multilayeredness as well as by the absence of a uniform, generally accepted theory. How one defines organizational learning depends on one's underlying understanding of learning itself. Learning needs to be seen as a multifaceted and dynamic process. Basically, learning is the acquisition of competencies that make it possible to modify patterns of thinking and acting that help the learner to develop goal-oriented behavior for dealing with changes or new orientations. According to Peter Vail (1996), ultimately learning represents a way of being, a holistic attitude that takes all experiences as a learning opportunity or learning process.

There are different orientations for approaching learning. A behaviorist orientation uses experimental procedures to study behavior in adaptive relation to the environment, while a cognitive orientation examines the individual's mental information processes and changes in cognitions (that is, changes in preferences, assumptions, knowledge, and judgments). According to a constructionist perspective, learning results from self-productive, autopoietic (self-forming) processes, by which meaning and reality are created. According to social constructionism, learning emerges not based on single individuals, but as a social process that occurs in community: As members create reality by sharing and coordinating certain values, thinking traditions, and interpretation practices, learning occurs. Generally, learning takes place when new facts and knowledge are acquired and transferred, opinions and beliefs are modified, or new paradigms are developed.

The scholar Gregory Bateson (1904-1980) developed a multidimensional view of learning that recognized different types and levels of learning. The researchers Chris Argyris and Donald Schön (1978) adapted this view to an organizational context by differentiating single-loop learning, double-loop learning, and deutero-learning. According to them, an organization learns through the agency of its individual members, who are changing their theories of use. In single-loop learning, errors are detected and corrected in an adaptive process of continuous improvement. In double-loop learning, the organization's success formulas and the values, assumptions, and action strategies that it has taken for granted are questioned and challenged, leading to a deeper level of collective understanding of those values and assumptions. Deutero-learning, the “learning of learning,” occurs when organizations learn how to carry out single-loop and double-loop learning. Deutero-learning means that organizations reflect on and inquire into previous episodes of organizational learning and modify the learning system, which may enhance the learning process and culture itself.

In addition to the cultural approach of Argyris and Schön, there are other models of the learning organization. According to the adaptive approach, learning takes place as an experience-related adaptation to the environment, while the functional-interpretative approach sees learning based on information processing as the development of organizational knowledge. According to an integrative-systemic approach, learning represents the incorporation and practice of specific learning disciplines, including personal mastery, systems thinking, mental models, team-orientation, and shared vision. Others have stressed the necessity for “unlearning” or for considering informal learning. Meanwhile, typologies have been developed to systemize the different ...