Digital Age: Intellectual Capital: Learning Organization

Learning Organization

• Overview:  The concept of Learning Organization is increasingly relevant given the increasing complexity and uncertainty of the organizational environment. The concept of Learning Organization is increasingly relevant given the increasing complexity and uncertainty of the organizational environment.

Argyris defines organizational learning as the process of "detection and correction of errors." In his view organizations learn through individuals acting as agents for them: The individuals' learning activities, in turn, are facilitated or inhibited by an ecological system of factors that may be called an organizational learning system.

Senge defines the Learning Organization as the organization in which you cannot not learn because learning is so insinuated into the fabric of life. Senge notes that increasing adaptiveness is only the first stage; companies need to focus on Generative Learning or "double-loop learning". 

Generative Learning, unlike adaptive learning, requires new ways of looking at the world. In contrast, Adaptive Learning or single-loop learning focuses on solving problems in the present without examining the appropriateness of current learning behaviors.

Argyris argues that the overwhelming amount of learning done in an organization is single loop because the "underlying program is not questioned": it is designed to identify and correct errors so that the job gets done and the action remains within stated policy guidelines.

More...............................  Organizational Learning and Learning Organizations: An Overview