Management and Leadership

Management and Leadership

Many consultants and organizations have recognized the commercial significance of organizational learning - and the notion of the 'learning organization' has been a central orienting point in this. Writers have sought to identify templates, or ideal forms, 'which real organizations could attempt to emulate' (Easterby-Smith and Araujo 1999: 2). In this sense the learning organization is an ideal, 'towards which organizations have to evolve in order to be able to respond to the various pressures [they face] (Finger and Brand 1999: 136). It is characterized by a recognition that 'individual and collective learning are key' (op. cit.). 

Two important things result from this. First, while there has been a lot of talk about learning organizations it is very difficult to identify real-life examples. This might be because the vision is 'too ideal' or because it isn't relevant to the requirements and dynamics of organizations. Second, the focus on creating a template and upon the need to present it in a form that is commercially attractive to the consultants and writers has led to a significant under-powering of the theoretical framework for the learning organization. Here there is a distinct contrast with the study of organizational learning.

Although theorists of learning organizations have often drawn on ideas from organizational learning, there has been little traffic in the reverse direction. Moreover, since the central concerns have been somewhat different, the two literatures have developed along divergent tracks. The literature on organizational learning has concentrated on the detached collection and analysis of the processes involved in individual and collective learning inside organizations; whereas the learning organizations literature has an action orientation, and is geared toward using specific diagnostic and evaluative methodological tools which can help to identify, promote and evaluate the quality of learning processes inside organizations. (Easterby-Smith and Araujo 1999: 2; see also Tsang 1997).

We could argue that organizational learning is the 'activity and the process by which organizations eventually reach th[e] ideal of a learning organization' (Finger and Brand 1999: 136).

On this page we examine the path-breaking work of Donald Schon on firms as learning systems and then go on to explore Peter Senge's deeply influential treatment of the learning organization (and it's focus on systemic thinking and dialogue). We finish with a brief exploration of the contribution of social capital to the functioning of organizations.

The learning society and the knowledge economy

The emergence of the idea of the 'learning organization' is wrapped up with notions such as 'the learning society'. Perhaps the defining contribution here was made by Donald Schon. He provided a theoretical framework linking the experience of living in a situation of an increasing change with the need for learning.

The learning organization

It was in this context that Peter Senge (1990) began to explore 'The art and practice of the learning organization'. Over 750,000 copies of The Fifth Discipline (1990) were sold in the decade following its publication - and it is probably this book that has been the most significant factor in popularising the notion of the ...