Do training institutions learn from experience?

Abstract

This essay is concerned with organisational learning and, in particular, policy learning. Sometimes, organisations learn; sometimes they do not. Sometimes they use their acquired knowledge, but this is, not always the case. Inside organisations, particular values, rules and incentive systems are developed. In addition, organisations need to structure their responses to the outside world. The main challenge of this essay is to make sense out of a web of interests, prizes, penalties, habits and inertia that may drive the impulse to learn. Individual creativity and the types of organisational climates that stifle or stimulate learning are also be considered. The paper will present a number of concrete cases studies of both policy learning and non-learning situations. In some cases, the focus is on the learning that takes place within multinational agencies. In others, learning inside national training institutions is examined. The following lessons stand out: (i) Organisational culture matters. (ii) The critical issue is not learning but using what was learned. (iii) The chances of learning are greater if the payoffs are positive. (iv) Power inside institutions influences learning and non-learning. To sum up, there is logic to the system but no single and simple pattern emerges.