Sub-topic 1: Organizational learning
SUMMARY:
Organizational Learning is not a new concept implemented in the globalization era, but it has earlier origins in 1920. However, is has been really considered since 80’s decade with the constant growth of organizations that had been increasing with the concept of free trade and commercialization between different regions and countries. This concept brings more requirements for the organizations and their members because the need for survive in a changing world. For this reason, Kavita Singh says in their document, that “Organizations are operating in an environment of complexity and uncertainty where the only constant is change” (An analysis of Relationship between the learning organization and organization culture in Indian business organization).
Nowadays the organizations make part of “The knowledge Society”, where the person or organization that has knowledge and knows how to apply it, has the power to compete with other direct and indirect actors: this is one of the reasons because people, workers and organizations in general have more challenges in order to compete in a globalized world where the expectations are increasing: people need to be more prepared to change and to learn even more and this process requires certain level of commitment and desire to change.
However, not all the people within an organization are trained for change and innovate in the processes and that’s why this desire of change and the creation of strategies to motivate the employees has to start by the management innovation, using technological techniques, innovating processes, etc.
Saljo (1979) after a deep research of organizational learning proposes five steps to achieve a structured learning and change in organizations:
- Acquiring information
- Memorizing
- Acquiring facts, skills and methods to be used later in the process of implementation
- Making sense and building connections
- Interpreting and understanding reality (comprehension)
“Lievers and Lubberding (1996) discuss the problems of organizational change in depth. They state that organizational change might require not just a change in structures, procedures, or systems, but also a change in behavior or even a change in the norms and values that guide organizational behavior—norms and values represented by cognitions” (EBSCO Database: “Learning barriers: a framework For the examination of Structural impediments to Organizational change, Remco schimmel and dennis r. Muntslag”).
Many countries and their organizations have been applying organizational learning in order to compete with others: India and China for example, had economies damaged by political or social conflicts in the past, however, they are implementing this kind of processes in the organizations and nowadays they are becoming powerful countries with strategies according their competitive advantages.
1. Learning organization and its key characteristics:
Learning organizations are defined by Pedler et al. (1991) “as an organization which is in a continuous process of transformation through the learning of all members within and outside the organization”. This concept has a strong tie with the concept of change and its implications: We have to take into account that learning organization needs the proper climate and environment in order to obtain good outcomes. This climate involves some aspects such as new ideas from employees within the company, research of social framework, proper training of employees to be pro-actives, taking a deep feedback of the company and the sector.
But this is not a concept that can be applied for one or several persons, even all the persons by their own because it would not work and would not bring the expected outcomes from change and learning. For this reason, we saw the need of interaction, communication and sharing of information within the organization and outside the organizations in order to fit the strategies to the context.
The following chart will show the key factor of learning organizations and their linkage in the process:
Learning organization is well interrelated with the concept of organizational culture: as we already know in earlier topics, the culture of the organizations influences many common behaviors and lifestyle of workers specially in the workplace. For this reason, the degree of acceptance to change of one organization is going to depend of the strength of weakness of organizational culture and Pareek (2004) proposes some dimensions of the organizational culture that are related with learning organization directly:
- Openess
- Confrontation
- Trust
- Authenticity
- Proactivity
- Autonomy
- Collaboration
- Experimentation
The learning barriers have their roots in the following causes:
- Organizational structure (division of labor)
- Information systems (communication processes)
- Strategy (scope)
- Information systems (limited cognitive capabilities of human decision makers),
- Information systems (communication processes)
- Information systems (media)
- Organizational culture (emergence of subcultures)
- Organizational structure (standard operating rules).
2. Informal Learning chart by Jay Cross:
Available at: http://elearningargentina.wordpress.com/page/2
“A company has a great influence on planning, structuring and controlling the learning activities of their employees with that way of learning. But it shows that formal learning alone is not flexible enough to react on fast changes taking place in today’s companies’ surroundings. Learning at the workplace needs both formal and informal learning approaches.” (EBSCO database: Supporting Informal Learning at the Workplace, Pieter De Vries, Heide Lukosch: Delft University of Technology, Delft, Netherlands)
I agree with this affirmation made by the author, because nowadays we have to understand that we are living in a constant changing world that cannot wait for our reaction to changes until we are prepared or until we are trained enough. This concept of training are well formed in the formal learning as the principal key of success with this formal structure, and we can see how the companies spend much money in order to give key concepts or show right ways for conflict resolutions or change reactions. However, sometimes they do not realize that what their employees need is a complete training, mixing both kind of learning structures: formal and informal learning.
As we can see in the chart, an organization needs both sides: they need old people who train and guide new people in the company that come with new ideas but need to be oriented. Also, the company needs some structured patterns that orient the organization to the accomplishment of the company’s vision and proposed goals, however, the company needs a degree of flexibility and openness to new changes and proposals from the changing world through a learning process.
There are other topics from the structures that have to be taken into account in order to address a company for a good way with strong goals, but adapting and fitting the organization according the changing requirements in order to compete and survive.
Informal learning is a cooperative action while formal learning often takes place as an individually (or lonely) activity. Many activities at work require collaboration with other people, so employees are used to this way of working and learning
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