Identifying The Organizational Learning Issues

Identifying the Organizational Learning Issues

Organizational learning is a complex concept, and there is no agreement on what organizational learning is. Various scholars have come up with varied definitions of organizational learning. Transitioning a company from individual learning to organizational learning requires the firm to understand aspects surrounding this concept.

Some of the aspects include understanding the culture of the company regarding knowledge sharing and disconnect between the culture and organizational learning based on the mystifications of organizational learning, current organizational learning mechanisms, and the norms surrounding organizational learning.

Organizational culture and organizational learning

The company’s culture mirrors one company, one team, and one passion. In this company, employees are free to share their ideas and thoughts, support the company and inspire it to grow. The company encourages the employees to share knowledge for propelling the company forward. Additionally, the organization believes that pushing the company forward is dependent on the vision, innovation as well as the passion of every employee thereby the company focuses on building a healthy relationship with the employees creating a free environment for sharing knowledge.

Also, the company has an inclusive workplace that acknowledges and respects diversity. Further, it has a policy that discourages discrimination of people against race, religion, gender, age, ideas, and thoughts and therefore all the employees can share their views, thoughts, and ideas without fear. However, there are significant issues within this culture particularly with sharing information as knowledge sharing in some departments is reserved. There is a disconnect between the company’s culture and organizational learning based on the mystifications of organizational learning including the ever-increasing conceptual diversity, anthropomorphism, and reification of terminologies (Friedman et al., 2005).

The ever-increasing conceptual diversity makes organizational learning obscure. There is inconsistency in defining organizational learning as there is no agreement on what constitutes organizational learning. Different researchers and firms have different viewpoints about organizational learning (Friedman et al., 2005). For example, the company‘s culture mirrors organizational learning as creation and transfer of knowledge within the company to facilitate productivity. Therefore, the company’s culture regarding organizational learning is only based on one among the many definitions of the concept.

Another disconnect is anthropomorphism referring to attribution human features or behavior to a non-human entity. In this case, anthropomorphizing organizational learning means an organization having the learning capability. Humans have the capability to share knowledge and learn from experience, but it is impossible for the organization to do so. Treating the company as a human being adds to mystifications of organizational learning (Friedman et al., 2005). For example, the company’s culture is based on the belief that organizational learning occurs through training its employees.

However, this is a disconnect as learning of individual members of the organization does not translate to organizational learning. Also, the company‘s culture incorporates new terminologies pertaining to organizational learning without conveying the exact meaning. Organizational learning has led to the upsurge of new terminologies including systems thinking, organizational memory, defensive routines, and creation of knowledge. The issue is that the terms are widely used without conveying precise meaning or showing a considerable change in application (Friedman et al., 2005). For example, the company uses double-loop learning to refer to all kinds of far-reaching organizational change in the company when its original meaning is to refer to a particular kind of learning in a specific context.

Organizational learning mechanisms (OLM)

Organizational learning mechanisms are vital to organizational learning. However, OLMs including the company culture, leadership, and systems and structures are some of the hindrances to organizational learning. Culture involves the shared values, knowledge, and assumptions regarding organizational learning (Sambrook & Stewart, 2000). The company lacks a collective culture as each unit in the organization has its own culture thereby hindering organizational learning. Also, the company’s leadership does not motivate, facilitate feed-forward and experimental learning, and encourage wide involvement thereby establishing the processes and systems essential for organizational learning is a challenge (Graham et al., 2008).

Also, the company’s systems and structures do not externally and internally collaborate to the firm and discourage evaluative success hence do not support organizational learning processes (Graham et al., 2008). A training program for training employees on the new information system software was ineffective since after a week of training majority of the employees did not know how to use it and this is attributed to non-collaborative culture between company units, poor leadership, and inadequacy of company systems and structure.

Offline/external organizational learning mechanism

The best OLM to replace the above-identified OLMs hindering organizational learning is off-line/external OLM. According to Lipshitz et al., (2006), offline/external OLM involve learning carried by the experts. An organization assigns the experts to the task pertaining to organizational learning on a around the clock basis, have particular analytic skills, and are based in centralized units which are organization-wide knowledge repositories and centers for knowledge dissemination. Hiring the experts to work in the organization on a full-time basis would certain there availability to handle all aspect relating to organizational learning thereby facilitating the process.

Norms in organizational learning

Organizational learning is based on norms, understanding, and shared experiences which foster positive behavior as well as learning techniques. Norms of the learning culture of the company hinder productive learning as these norms are not in line with the culture of organizational learning.

The company needs to re-evaluate the inquiry and transparency norms (Lipshitz et al., 2002). For example, currently, there is a limited application of the inquiry norm in the company, and that explains the issues of innovation and poor decision-making the corporation is experiencing. The company can foster the inquiry norm through the adoption of the inquisitive style culture which would enhance the process of learning and knowledge sharing (Lipshitz et al., 2002). Also, application of the transparency norm is low. For example, regarding knowledge sharing is some of the departments is reserved and share best practices only among the unit members rather than sharing with the entire organization.

This has hindered the emergence of creative and innovative ideas and further hindered organizational learning. The company needs to foster the wide application of the transparency norm to facilitate organizational learning.

Conclusion

Despite lack of agreement on organizational learning concept, organizations continue to embrace it. Companies have developed cultures and systems and structures that support organizational learning. Fostering organizational learning necessitates an understanding of the company’s culture, organizational learning mechanisms, and norms of organizational learning.

References

• Friedman, V. J., Lipshitz, R., & Popper, M. (2005). The mystification of organizational learning. Journal of management inquiry, 14(1), 19-30.
• Graham, C. M., & Nafukho, F. M. (2008). Exploring Organizational Learning Mechanisms in Small‐Size Business Enterprises. New Horizons in Adult Education and Human Resource Development, 22(1), 4-23.
• Lipshitz, R., Friedman, V., & Popper, M. (2006). Demystifying organizational learning. Sage. p.35
• Lipshitz, R., Popper, M., & Friedman, V. J. (2002). A multifacet model of organizational learning. The journal of applied behavioral science, 38(1), 78-98.
• Sambrook, S., & Stewart, J. (2000). Factors influencing learning in European learning oriented organizations: issues for management. Journal of European Industrial Training, 24(2/3/4).