viduals to expand their view beyond their single scope. Organizations need to work on investing all individuals in the greater goals and vision to ensure a successful learning process. Finally, organizational learning is complicated and there seems to be a common underestimation of its complexity. There needs to be a greater understanding at all levels about the complexity of the learning process. To best accomplish organizational learning, groups must fully realize the challenges they must overcome to ensure the greatest outcomes in the learning process.
Morgan (2006) Chapter 4 - Organizations As Brains
Gareth Morgan uses the brain metaphor because of several characteristics.
The brain displays holographic qualities. That is, multiple areas of the brain are able
to reproduce multiple functions, at least to some level of precision. The brain also has
areas that specialize in particular skills. The complexity of brains raises many
possibilities when viewing organizations as brains. Morgan discusses these possibilities
in the three interconnected areas outlined below. For a detailed summary of Morgan's chapter on the organization as brains and definition of key terms, click BRAINS.
Katz & Kahn (1996) - Organizations and the System Concept
|Common Characteristics of Open Systems:
|Importation of Energy
|Systems as Cycles of Events
|Information Input, Native Feedback, and the Coding Process
|The Steady State and Dynamic Homeostasis
Classroom discussion with Katz & Kahn
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Kezar (2005) What Campuses Need To Know About Organizational Learning and the Learning Organization
Organizational Learning (OL): study of whether, how and under what conditions organizations can learn (Fiol & Lyles, 1985).
Learning Organization (LO): An organization that can be adaptable, flexible, experimental, and innovative
|Shared concepts between organizational learning and learning organizations:
|Differences between organizational learning and learning organization:
|Evolution of OL and LO in Higher Education:
|Current uses of OL:
|Lessons for Higher Education
|Glossary of Terms
Senge (1990) - The Leader’s New Work: Building Learning Organizations
|Building Learning Organizations (287-288)
||Humans are designed for learning. Infants learn walking and talking on their own and have an insatiable drive to explore and experiment. Society in which we live tries to control, rather than promote organic learning. By focusing on performing for someone else’s approval, corporations create a mediocre achievement level. Superior performance depends on superior learning.|
|Adaptive Learning and Generative Learning (288-289)
||Learning organizations are those that are fit to grow and survive and are characterized by adaptive learning (coping) and generative learning (creating). Adaptation is essential for ever-changing business environments and also includes perceiving future needs of customers. Creativity is cornerstone to competitive advantage and output and requires new ways of looking at the world.|
|Creative tension is the ability to recognize “vision,” or where one wants to be, and “current reality,” the truth of where one is. The gap between the two generates natural tension. Solutions to creative tension include raising current reality towards the vision or by lowering the vision towards current reality. Without vision there is no creative tension.|
|New Roles for Leaders (290 - 293)
||The traditional authoritarian image of a leader is inadequate for learning organizations. As Edgar Schein recognized, “Leadership is intertwined with cultural formation” and should represent the culture of the organization.|
Leader as Designer: craft the ideas of “purpose, vision, and core values by which people will live.
Leader as Teacher: Define reality and act as a coach for the organization. Identify mental models and guide those to restructure views on reality. Influence people to view reality at three distinct levels: events, patterns of behavior, and systemic structure.
Leader as Steward