Organizational learning is the process of creating, retaining, and transferring knowledge within an organization. An organization improves over time as it gains experience. From this experience, it is able to create knowledge. This knowledge is broad, covering any topic that could better an organization. Examples may include ways to increase production efficiency or to develop beneficial investor relations. Knowledge is created at four different units: individual, group, organizational, and inter organizational.
The most common way to measure organizational learning is a learning curve. Learning curves are a relationship showing how as an organization produces more of a product or service, it increases its productivity, efficiency, reliability and/or quality of production with diminishing returns. Learning curves vary due to organizational learning rates. Organizational learning rates are affected by individual proficiency, improvements in an organization's technology, and improvements in the structures, routines and methods of coordination.
Relevance Organizational learning happens as a function of experience within an organization and allows the organization to stay competitive in an ever-changing environment. Organizational learning is a process improvement that can increase efficiency, accuracy, and profits. A real-world example of organizational learning is how a new pizza store will reduce the cost per pizza as the cumulative production of pizzas increases. As the staff creates more pizza; they begin to make pizzas faster, the staff learns how to work together, and the equipment is placed in the most efficient location leading to cheaper costs of creation. An example of a more formal way to track and support organizational learning is a learning agenda.
Organizational learning is an aspect of organizations and a subfield of organizational studies. As an aspect of an organization, organizational learning is the process of creating, retaining, and transferring knowledge. Knowledge creation, knowledge retention, and knowledge transfer can be seen as adaptive processes that are functions of experience.Cyert, Richard; March, James G. (1992). A Behavioral Theory of the Firm (2 ed.). Wiley-Blackwell. . 172. Experience is the knowledge that contributes to the procedural understanding of a subject through involvement or exposure. Research within organizational learning specifically applies to the attributes and behavior of this knowledge and how it can produce changes in the cognition, routines, and behaviors of an organization and its individuals.
Individuals are predominantly seen as the functional mechanisms for organizational learning by creating knowledge through experience. However, individuals' knowledge only facilitates learning within the organization as a whole if it is transferred. Individuals may withhold their knowledge or exit the organization. Knowledge that is embedded into the organization, in addition to its individuals, can be retained. Organizations can retain knowledge in other ways than just retaining individuals, including using knowledge repositories such as communication tools, processes, learning agendas, routines, networks, and transactive memory systems.
As a subfield, organizational learning is the study of experience, knowledge, and the effects of knowledge within an organizational context. The study of organizational learning directly contributes to the applied science of knowledge management (KM) and the concept of the learning organization. Organizational learning is related to the studies of organizational theory, organizational communication, organizational behavior, organizational psychology, and organizational development. Organizational learning has received contributions from the fields of educational psychology, sociology, economics, anthropology, political science, and management science.Wikibooks:Learning Theories/Organizational Learning: Contributions by Discipline Wikibooks on Learning Theories and Organizational Learning
Communities of learning Organizations gain knowledge in one of the four organizational communities of learning: individual, team, organizational, and inter-organizational. Organizational learning "involves the process through which organizational communities (e.g. groups, departments, divisions) change as a result of experience." An example of organizational learning is a hospital surgical team learning to use new technology that will increase efficiency.Argote, Linda. "Intraorganizational Learning." UNC Classes. UNC. Web. 11 Dec. 2014. Individual learning is the smallest community at which learning can occur. An individual learns new skills or ideas, and their productivity at work may increase as they gain expertise. The individual can decide whether or not to share their knowledge with the rest of the group. If the individual leaves the group and doesn't share their knowledge before leaving, the group loses this knowledge. In their study of software development, Boh, Slaughter and Espinosa (2007) found that individuals were more productive the more specialized experience they had with a certain system. Group learning is the next largest communityArgote, L., Gruenfeld, D., and Naquin, C. "Group learning in organizations." Groups at Work: Advances in Theory and Research, ed., M. E. Turner (Lawrence Erlbaum, 2001). There are conflicting definitions of group learning among researchers studying it. One belief is that group learning is a process in which a group takes action, gets feedback, and uses this feedback to modify their future action. Another belief is that group learning happens when a member shares their individual knowledge with other group members. Others have suggested that group learning is primarily a process of error detection and correctionArgyris, C. and Schön, D. Organizational Learning: Theory, method and practice.(New York: Addison-Wesley, 1995) or that group learning is primarily about the processes of interpretation and integration. Once this happens, individual learning turns into group learning. Reagans, Argote, and Brooks (2005) studied group learning by examining joint-replacement surgery in teaching hospitals. They concluded that "increased experience working together in a team promoted better coordination and teamwork."Edmondson, A.C., J.R. Dillon, and K.S. Roloff (2007). Three perspectives on team learning: Outcome improvement, task mastery, and group process. In A. Brief and J. Walsh (Eds.), The Academy of Management Annals, Volume 1. Working together in a team also allowed members to share their knowledge with others and learn from other members. To sum up the different definitions cover following aspects: task independence (what one group member does affects and is affected by another group member); social psychological awareness (members perceive themselves as a group and are perceived as a group); and social embeddedness (the group exists in a larger social system).Argote, L., (2013). Organizational Learning:Creating, Retaining and transferring knowledge, Springer Science + Business Media New York, 115-146
Organizational learning is the way in which an organization creates and organizes knowledge relating to their functions and culture. Organizational learning happens in all of the organization's activities, and it happens in different speeds. The goal of organizational learning is to successfully adapt to changing environments, to adjust under uncertain conditions, and to increase efficiency. According to Argote (1993), managers in manufacturing plants saw organization learning occur when they found ways to make individual workers more proficient, improve the organization's "technology, tooling, and layout," improve the organization's structure, and determine the organization's strengths. Interorganizational learning is the way in which different organizations in an alliance collaborate, share knowledge, and learn from one another. An organization is able to improve its "processes and products by integrating new insights and knowledge" from another organization. By learning from another organization, an organization is able to cut time costs, decrease the risks associated with problem solving, and learn faster. Learning from another organization can mean either applying the same ideas used by that organization or modifying these ideas, thereby creating innovation. Inter-organizational learning occurs frequently in fixed business models, such as franchising. The franchisee looking to use the franchisor's brand has to learn how to use the organization's business model before starting a franchise.
History of study The origin of the focused study of organizational learning can be traced to the late 1970s, when researchers studied it from a psychological viewpoint. Key advances in the field include: Behavioral psychology and organizational development: In their 1978 work on organizational learning, Chris Argyris and Donald Schön developed the concepts of single-loop and double-loop learning.Argyris, C. and Schön, D.A. (1978), Organizational Learning: A Theory of Action Perspective, Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA. Single-loop learning is the process in which a mistake is corrected by using a different strategy or method that is expected to yield a different, successful outcome. Take, for example, a person who acts a certain way to accomplish a certain goal. If this person's actions fail in accomplishing the goal, with single-loop learning, this person will reflect on their previous actions and, going forward, they will take a different set of actions to accomplish the same goal. Double-loop learning, on the other hand, is a more complicated process in which a mistake is corrected by rethinking the initial goal. In the previous example, the person would show double-loop learning if they chose to reevaluate their goal and beliefs instead of simply reassessing their failed actions. They will then take a set of actions that are aligned with their reevaluated goals and beliefs. Argyris and Schön explain that both single-loop and double-loop learning processes are present in organizations and are two types of organizational learning. Single-loop learning occurs when an organization detects a mistake, corrects it, and carries on with its present policies and objectives. Double-loop learning occurs when an organization detects a mistake and changes its policies and objectives before it can take corrective actions.YMCA George Williams College. "Chris Argyris: Theories of Action, Double-Loop Learning, and Organizational Learning." Infed. Infed.org. 30 Nov. 2014.Romero Pereda, Arturo. "Single-Loop and Double-Loop Learning Model." ICL Blog. AFS Intercultural Programs. Web. 30 Nov. 2014.