Importance Of Leaning Organization

Different researchers coined different definitions of leaning organizations but the most famous definition is given by Peter M. Senge: “Leaning organization is defined as organization where people continually develop their capacity to achieve results they desire, whereby new patterns of thinking are nurtured, collective aspirations are freed and people learn to learn together[2]”. Leaning organization culture have different effects on organizational performance and organizational innovativeness, potentially leading to long – term success[3]. As mentioned above the five main features of leaning organization are discussed here.

Systems thinking clearly focus in reducing classical relations between independent and dependent variables of organization.

Marquardt[6] added a new features along with the above five,

Dialogue promotes individuals collective thinking in the groups and develops effective communication of individuals.

Benefits and Barriers of learning organization:

Learning organization benefits in maintaining levels of motivation and remaining competitive[7], being better placed to respond to external pressure[7], having the knowledge to better link resources to customer needs[8], improving quality of outputs at all levels[8], improve corporate image by becoming more people oriented[8], increasing the pace of change within the organization[8].

However, there are lot of barriers which strongly affects the adaption of learning. Even within or without learning organization, the problems can stall the process of learning

TØL4021 Management and Leadership for Sustainability and cause it to regress. So to avoid barriers of learning one should understand the origin of the problem and develop a plan to get rid of them. Some companies feel personal mastery as intangible and the benefits can’t be qualified. Personal mastery can even be seen as threat to organization because individual develop their own vision and concentrate on the career growth rather than organizational growth. Lack of learning culture is also a barrier in some organizations. So, organizations should adapt a learning culture where individuals can share learning without being devalued. Compensation of benefits besides barriers is one of the toughest

Knowledge may be gained from diverse resources and different time frames but if groups are unable to retrieve knowledge the organization faces bad consequences. So knowledge management system is very important for a learning organization.

The technology subsystem is the technical network needed to gain access and to exchange information and learning. This subsystem include; information technology, technology based learning (learning though audio and video visuals) and electronic performance support system (to capture, storage and distribution of information).

This systems linked learning organizational model is applied to explore and describe the learning organization profile of Ohio State University Extension (OSUE)[9]. This case study is also interested in studying factors that may account for variation among the learning organization profile on specific groups.

Case Study:

Note: Some debate has arisen from an existing dichotomy in the use of terms “organizational learning” and “the learning organization”. Both concepts are so intimately related that sometimes they are interchangeably in the