Organizational Learning

Abstract

Organizational learning is a construct employed to depict a set of rational and non‐rational processes relevant to the creation, retention, and transmission of knowledge in organizations. The concept has been linked to organizational performance, sustainable competitive advantage, organizational transformation and corporate renewal, organizational and technological innovation, and entrepreneurship among other themes. Change, adaptation, and learning have all been used to denote the process by which organizations adjust to their environments; organizational change is often understood as a manifestation of learning. Various conceptions of learning have been advanced in the field; for instance, learning as improving, learning as recording knowledge, and learning as the evolution of knowledge. Research in the area seeks to understand how learning in formal organizations takes place, what its sources are, and what its effect is on the performance and maintenance of organizational stability. For quite some time organizational learning and learning organization were used interchangeably; lately, a somewhat tentative agreement has been established that the two terms are not to be confused. Whereas in the former the emphasis is on learning, and more specifically on the process of learning in organizations, the latter stresses the organization per se. Among the questions addressed by the scholars of organizational learning are: what are the essence and the bases for organizational learning – rational, subconscious, or experiential? Who is the agent of learning – the individual, the organization, or both? How does organizational learning manifest itself? How is knowledge in organizations acquired, retained, and transferred? What affects the ability of organizations to learn?