Learning organization: world experience and Ukrainian realities

Abstract

The concept of the learning organization is studied and the basic principles of its construction and operation are highlighted in this paper. The author emphasizes the need for constant updating of knowledge and professional skills in adulthood, in accordance with the concept of lifelong learning, recognized by UNESCO as a guarantee of sustainable human development. Based on the learning organization characteristics proposed by P. Senge (improvement of personal skills, shared vision, group learning, mental models and system vision), a new definition of this type of organization is derived, and it is compared with the definitions of other researchers. Examples of foreign companies that are appropriate to this definition (McDonalds, Walt Disney Company, Coca-Cola, Procter & Gamble, General Electric, etc.) and peculiarities of the learning organization concept introduction in Ukrainian realities are analyzed. The main ways, forms and tools of corporate learning depending on the goals and size of the enterprise – from creating its own educational platform or collaboration with leading educational institutions or service centers to webinars, trainings and distance training of the staff are considered. The author's vision of the life cycle of the learning organization, which in contrast to the life cycle of the normal organization do not consists of 5 phases (formation; growth; stability; decline; transformation), but of 4 (formation; growth; stability and transformation as the ability to respond to external and internal challenges facing the organization) is presented in this paper. Peculiarities of personnel management at such enterprise are offered (special attention is paid to planning of personnel career; flexible and transparent motivation system promoting the introduction of changes and innovations; formation of a certain corporate culture in which training and education are recognized as positive phenomenon at all levels of organizational structure; education of loyalty to the organization among the staff as guarantee of the personnel outflow reduction; attitude to personnel as talents, realized or unrealized, etc.). Prospects for increasing the number of learning organizations in Ukraine are analyzed in this paper.