BNET Business Dictionary
Business Definition for: Learning Organization
- an organizational model characterized by a flat structure and customer-focused teams, that engenders the collective ability to develop shared visions by capturing and exploiting employees' willingness, commitment, and curiosity. The concept of the learning organization was proposed by Chris Argyris and Donald Schön as part of their work on organizational learning, but was brought back to public attention in the 1990s by Peter Senge. For Senge, a learning organization is one with the capacity to shift away from views inherent in a traditional hierarchical organization, toward the ability of all employees to challenge prevailing thinking and gain a balanced perspective. Senge believes the five major elements of a learning organization are mental models, personal mastery, systems thinking, shared vision, and team learning. Because of the requirement for an open, risk-tolerant culture (which is the opposite of the corporate culture of most organizations today) the learning organization remains, for many, an unattainable ideal.
Additional Resources
- Managing Organizational Change
- The external and internal environment of an organization is in a state of constant change. The organization has to re-adjust itself to this changing scenario in order to sustain competitive advantage in the market. Learning is a tool, which the organization uses for re-aligning itself according to the change. Learning...
- Presentations 2003-01-01
- Organizational Change
- An organization is subjected to constant changes in its external and internal environment. To stay afloat in the market, it is imperative for the organization to adapt itself to these changes. Change management is the concrete methodology followed by an organization in adapting to an environmental or otherwise change. Learning...
- Presentations 2003-01-01
- Change And Development
- In a business environment subjected to constant change, an organization has to quickly and efficiently adapt itself to the changed scenario. Learning is a tool, which the organization uses for re-aligning itself according to the change. Learning enables the organizational systems to refrain from committing past mistakes. It helps in...
- Presentations 2003-01-01
- The Rise of the High-Performance Learning Organization
- The Accenture Learning 2004 Survey of Learning Executives has delivered a set of compelling insights into today's learning organizations, both in business and in government. The learning functions at most of the organizations participating in the Accenture Learning survey clearly face heightened expectations to deliver value, prove the business impact...
- White papers 2004-10-19
- Linking Performance Into Your Learning Management System
- Learning is the process by which an individual identifies the mistakes done in the past and refrains from repeating the same in future. An organization also undergoes learning with time. The measurement of employee performance is critical for operationalizing the ‘learning’ behavior in the organization. The aforesaid endeavor is also...
- Presentations 2003-01-01
- Measuring Organizational Learning
- Organizational learning takes place when the organization constantly learns from past mistakes and refrains from repeating them in the future. It is imperative to measure organizational learning to assess the progress made by the organization. The Balanced Scorecard BS framework measures performance of the organization by effectively measuring organizational learning....
- White papers 2003-01-01
- Learning & Performance Management
- In a business environment subjected to constant change, an organization has to quickly and efficiently adapt itself to the changed scenario. Learning is a tool, which the organization uses for re-aligning itself according to the change. Learning enables the organizational systems to refrain from committing past mistakes. It helps in...
- Presentations 2003-01-01
- The Learning Organization In Practice
- Modern business environment witnesses a perennial change. To survive and grow in such environment organizations need to adopt a learning culture. A learning organization is one, which analyzes and evaluates its past mistakes and acts appropriately towards ensuring that those mistakes are not repeated in future. The paper examines the...
- White papers 2000-01-01
- Learning Management: A Key Business Driver
- This article manly consists of several parts which are essential for the organization. The first part deals with implementing a business-based learning approach. Historically, many workplace learning programs have been created using one of two design approaches: a drawn-out pedagogical design process, or a hodge-podge of information consolidated into a...
- White papers 2003-01-01
- Knowing Vs. Doing
- It is not as fashionable as it once was to talk about the "Learning organization." The challenge to keeping the appealing idea alive and propagating was simply this: No one really could define a learning organization, much less tell one how to successfully create and sustain one. Still, the capacity...
- White papers
- Evaluation of Capacity-Building Programs: A Learning Organization Approach
- This article is the first step in designing a learning-based approach to program evaluation. The learning organization approach offers the promise of providing extension educators with mechanisms to demonstrate the value of the work that they are doing in improving the long-term stability and effectiveness of organizations. Many extension programs...
- White papers 2003-10-01
- Does Your Organization Learn?: The Difference Between Organizational And Individual Learning
- Organizations that are good learners continually adapt successfully to a changing environment. An organization cannot read a book or attend a course, so how does it learn? One thing an organization can do is regularly assess what's working and what's not, and then make changes accordingly. This is learning from...
- White papers 2007-02-28
- Business Drivers for Real-Time Learning
- The business drivers for real-time learning are strategic in nature, not tactical. Alignment of the learning functions, whether it's embedded in the human resources organization or not, is a current mantra of learning professionals. Before a person can implement effective change, it is essential to understand what drives the enterprise....
- White papers 2006-05-01
- E-Learning Hubs: Affordance, Motivation and Learning Outcomes
- From its inception, e-learning hubs have been closely linked to learning activities and resources. However, there is hardly any research in examining the impact of e-learning hubs on learning outcomes, specifically how to design online learning activities to attain the desired learning outcomes. This paper first shows how to use...
- White papers 2004-07-02
- HBR IdeaCast: Learning Organizations
- If your company's rate of learning isn't greater than the rate of change in your industry, you will fall behind. David Garvin and Amy Edmonson talk about how companies can create, acquire, interpret, and retain knowledge, then modify their behavior to respond to those knowledge insights. They also use examples...
- Blog posts 2008-03-10
- Strategic Learning Contracts - Maximizing Training & Learning Results
- A good deal of learning (eg. from training) is wasted because the goals are ill- defined, and the workplace supports to apply the learning are missing or absent. Therefore, Learning contracts are designed to help develop shared expectations about the purpose, process and results that are to come from any...
- White papers 2003-01-01
- Sustainable Innovation And The ‘Learning Drive’
- Innovation is the ability to apply creative solutions to problem to enhance organizational productivity. For building and sustaining a culture of innovation, the organization has to orient itself towards learning mode. Knowledge Management KM is the collection, analysis, and propagation of precise and relevant information towards knowledge enhancement. KM systems...
- White papers 2003-01-01
- 10 Steps In Presenting An Effective Business Case For A Learning Management System
- So you already know the value a learning management system brings. Perhaps you already have one that is delivering everything you promised, or maybe you're considering this investment for the first time. Unfortunately, most organizations don't emphasize the importance of learning and development as much as they should. The need...
- White papers 2007-08-09
- Maximizing Learning Processes in Your Organization
- In cost-cutting efforts associated with a down economy, learning and knowledge initiatives moved high on the list of "overhead" items. Although most organizations realize that learning and training are mission-critical corporate functions, many have not achieved the anticipated return on their investments in this area. Learning programs are proving to...
- White papers 2003-01-01
- Learning Tradeoffs In Organizations
- Learning-curve research has found that rates of learning can vary across similar settings, such that cumulative experience is a necessary but insufficient predictor of learning-curve slope. One explanation for this finding is that how the learning process is managed affects rates of learning. At any point in time, organizations can...
- White papers 2006-05-02
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