Organizational Learning the Concept of Organizational Learning

Organizational Learning

The concept of organizational learning has been around for a long time now but it was fully accepted and passionately pursued in the 1990s. It was at this time that many organizations recognized it and started involving it into their organizational systems. Due to this wide acceptance in this period, there were two consequences that came with it. The first being that it attracted the interest of many scholars especially of disciplines that there before had indicated to interest at all in this field. This meant that scholars attempted to outdo each other on which discipline gives the correct interpretation of organization learning. Secondly there was a scramble by organizations as well as consultants especially to display the commercial side of this concept. There have been efforts to try and give the correct and the ideal representation of organizational learning to the present times since the 1990s (William R. King, 2009).

There was a lot of interest vested on this idea of organizational learning that two camps of views directed to it emerged; the technical view and the social view, and these were the slim differences that divided the two camps (Mark Smith, 2001).

The technical view holds that organizational learning has to do with the ability to properly process, interpret and respond to information within and without the organization. The information herein may be the qualitative information or the quantitative type.

The social perspective on organizational learning fronts that the most important aspect in organizational learning is the way the employees make sense of their surrounding and experiences they come across at their places of work. The social view looks at these experiences as the explicit ones like the knowledge on book keeping or filing of books, and also as tacit sources like the intuition a great strategist within the organization may develop with time. Which means learning is a result of daily social interaction usually in the natural work setting, while in the explicit case it entails joint process of making sense of the data available.

There are two major models of learning that are used in the contemporary organizations while applying the organizational learning. These are the single and the double-loop learning.

The single loop learning has more concentration on the detection and correction of errors within the context of governing variables that is tied to the incremental change in an organization.

On the other hand, the double-loop learning entails thorough interrogation of the governing variables and more often than not involves radical changes like the overhaul of the system or change in strategies.

It is paramount therefore to note that organizational learning should concentrate on the active process of organizing the cognitive aspects around the individual and not just on the static entity in the name of an organization. There is the central aspect of continued efforts to make better their skills and testing their knowledge always. Organizational learning can therefore be seen as a reflective process that requires calibration from external sources for constant improvement.

In order to have a tangible improvement therefore, there is need to get to know some organizational learning theories against which the employees can constantly gauge their achievements and points that need improvement.

The four major theories on organizational learning are:

The behaviorist theory -- looks at the behavior of the employees in relation to the environment that is provided within the organization and the consequent performance of the employees. Here, the behaviorists look at what the environment provided can help teach an individual within the organization.

The cognitive theory- cognition deals mainly with the act of knowing. It concerns itself with the individual employee's mental process, that is, the cognition as a means towards organizational learning.

The humanist orientation -- this places main concern over the human growth and progress within an organization. Organizational learning can be enhanced through ways that will ensure the growth of the individual employee.

The social/situational theory -- this emphasizes that it is not so much that the employees within an organization need structures and the rigid models to learn, but the frequent participation in the frameworks that have structures. It portends that learning entails participation in a community of practice.

There are then several benefits that a business can derive from having a thorough knowledge of organizational learning. With the employees understanding their organization and the internal and external forces that combat it, there is a possibility of them handling the organizational processes better than when they had not imbibed the organizational process. The organizational learning also allows the growth of the organization as each learning step propels or is aimed at propelling the organization to greater heights. From the learning process, the company is bound to come in touch with other organizations in the same field or even diverse fields. In this manner they have a lot to learn from these organizations in terms of the strong points that make them better hence at the end sharing and borrowing of ideas take place and strengthening each other.