QUESTION: ELECTROCELL BATTERIES

Electrocell Batteries



Electrocell Batteries

Introduction

As the competitive environment has become more dynamic, strategic management as a discipline has widened its scope to include the internal resources of firms and how these might create competitive advantage. De Geus (1988) argues that learning is the key internal resources of the firm. He argues that learning is a fundamental strategic process and the primary way in which sustainable advantage can be secured in the future. The 1990s has seen an increasing interest in the dynamics of the learning organization as a means of configuring value. Senior managers in many organizations have come to believe that the way in which an organization learns is key to its effectiveness and potential to innovate and grow (Garvin, 1993, pp.78-91). However, the concept of organizational learning is by no means clear or consistent (Tushman, Romanelli, 1985, pp.97-101) and finding work which builds cumulatively is very difficult indeed. Different authors use different concepts or different terminologies to describe learning. This entry outlines the key authors and approaches in the field and presents an overall framework by which we might interpret and understand organizational learning.

Organizational Learning

Senge (1990, pp.56-59)suggest that learning is both an adaptive process and a generative process. Adaptive learning describes the processes whereby an organization can adapt to its environment and to accelerating or decelerating rates of change. Adaptive learning can thus best be described as the processes organizations engage in to cope with changing external conditions. But the learning process is much deeper than a desire to respond and adapt to external changes. Such responses may render an organization more efficient or effective in the short term, but cannot generate increased or new capabilities - the bedrock of innovation and creativity. Only generative learning can provide this. Generative learning requires new ways of looking at the world whether making sense of the external environment or understanding how to manage internal business processes better. Such learning is important for the visionary aspects of strategy formulation. To achieve new ideas, an organization needs to develop its capacity for strategic thinking, which is the generative (or creative) learning to which Senge refers. However, in order to understand an organization's capacity to implement strategy as well as to formulate it (thinking and acting strategically), it is necessary to engage and develop both adaptive and generative learning.

These two types of learning originate from what Argyris, Schon (1987, pp.89-109) termed single- and double-loop learning. This has been variously referred to in the literature as first- and second-order learning, exploitation, and exploration, or convergence and reorientation. When learning enables the organization to carry out its present activities and goals without distu-loop learning. Single-loop learning is important for increasing effectiveness in implementing strategy because it ensures that organization is becoming better at undertaking its existing strategies. In the terminology of Peters and Waterman (1982) this form of learning helps an organization to “stick to the knitting.” Single-loop learning is embodied in the experience curve of an ...