Summary: The Relationship between Organizational Learning Practices and the Learning Organization
Name: Patricia A. Machun
Date: May 1, 2010

Reference: Tseng, C &McLean, G (2008). The relationship between organizational learning practices and the learning organization. Retrieved April 29, 2010, from ERIC #:
ED501670.
http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/custom/portlets/recordDetails/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=ED501670&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=ED501670

Problem

By not recognizing the importance of the organizational learning process, the learning/training department will not be able to meet the needs of the organization nor allow for its employees growth and development. Companies need to have a more conceptual understanding of how the training department prepares, presents and reviews its learning objectives.

Context

The authors performed an integrative literature review from 48 sources that included journal articles, papers and online entries.

The goal of the research was to answer three questions:

1. What is the relationship between organizational learning practices and the learning organization?
2. What are the components of organizational learning practices for fostering the learning organization?
3. What is the conceptual framework for connecting organizational learning practices and the learning organization?

Findings

Organizational learning occurs by using a blend of concepts and notions.

The first notion of learning is experiential, where a learner builds a basis of new skills or information using existing knowledge and experience as the foundation. Second is action learning where real problems are solved within the context of learning.  Third is informal learning, where the learner takes the organizational knowledge a step further by going outside the formal structure to keeps themselves abreast of updates in their field of expertise. The final notion is communities of practice. Members of the community or team are brought together by common activities and learn through mutual engagement.

 There are a number of interactive relationships on how an employee learns new concepts, what the company’s learning practices are and the training department’s structure.

What should be important for the organization is recognizing learning is a collective experience based on single-lop learning and double loop learning. With single loop learning, goals, values, frameworks and action strategies are taken for granted the organizational learning practices are based on the individual level with continuous learning with dialogue and inquiry being the main ingredient. Double loop learning recognizes an organization needs to be good at knowledge generation and understand the flow of know-how will keep the company viable and successful.

Recommendations

For a company to transform itself from a traditional organization to one that is orientated toward the growth and development of its employees, upper management must embrace learning in individual, team and across all organizational levels. In the process of strengthening their employees, an organization will also strengthen itself.

I completely agree with the findings. Part of any organization’s success is tied to the quality of their employees. Even the best employee can improve with knowledge. Non-learning based organizations do not understand that learning needs to be measured, reviewed and analyzed while recognizing the different types of training and what roles they play in successful training. How a learning organization is set up is as important as the organizational learning.