A Case Study: Toyota As A Learning Organization

Learning is a way for us to gain new information and knowledge, and it helps us advance and evolve. A Learning Organization is a concept that defines an organization that is in constant change and adaption to new ideas and creativity. This essay will discuss the factors that affect on the ability of an organization to become a Learning Organization, and how systems thinking are effective for management, problem solving, and decision making. Moreover, it will evaluate whether Toyota is a learning organization. Discussions and examples in this essay are based on the case study The Learning Organization ten years on: a case study and Toyota.

The term “Learning Organization” was popularized by Peter Senge, he clarifies his vision of the “Learning Organization” vividly in his book The Fifth Discipline (1990) where he describes the term as: “…organizations where people continually expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective aspiration is set free, and where people are continually learning to see the whole together” (Senge, 1990). As simple as that sounds, applying the Learning Organization method is nevertheless complicated. It depends on many factors, including the managers’ mindsets, the structure of the organization, its culture, and its climate. However, organizational learning is an area of knowledge within organizational theory that studies models and theories