Organisational learning and learning organisation

This report explains the concepts of Organisational Learning and Learning Organisation, and critically evaluates the differences between them. It covers the meaning, learning, and differentiation between the two concepts.

Organisational learning and
learning organisation

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
EXPLAINING WHAT IS ORGANISATIONAL LEARNING .....................................................1
EXPLAINING WHAT IS A LEARNING ORGANISATION.......................................................2
DIFFERENTIAL AMONG ORGANISATIONAL LEARNING AND LEARNING
ORGANISATION ..........................................................................................................................5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................9
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................10

INTRODUCTION
Learning and development are practices of human resource management for improving
effectiveness among employees (Anttila, Oinas and Mustosmäki, 2019). Learning activities and
development programs encourages professional development within workforce of a company
through aligning goals and performance of individua with that of business concern. It engrosses
evaluation of each staff members for potential gap of skill and then developing then through
suitable sessions. Purpose of present project is to analyse difference among organisational
learning and that of learning organisation.
The report covers explanation of organisational learning concept and learning organisation
concept. Further, it critically evaluates differentiation between organisational learning and a
learning organisation.
EXPLAINING WHAT IS ORGANISATIONAL LEARNING
As per Howells and Scholderer (2016), Organisational learning is said to a concept of
devising, retaining along with transferring knowledge across the company. It is measured
through a learning curve that shows the ways an organisation produces a commodity by
increasing its reliability, productivity and quality with diminishing returns. Rates of
organisational learning are generally impacted by proficiency of an individual, improvements
within technology of company and improvements in routines, coordination methods along with
structures. Study of organisational learning contributes towards applied knowledge management
and happens in the entity where change is sub set.
Concept of organisational learning was developed by Donald Schon along with Chris
Argyris who states that organisational learning takes place via process that detect as well as
correct errors and is an outcome of organisational inquiry (Martínez-Costa, Jiménez-Jiménez and
Dine Rabeh, 2019). It is a complex mechanism which encourages a process of change through
developing new behaviour from part one. Some organisational learning kinds are as follows:
Double Loop Learning: It is type of organisational learning which results to change in a
theory that was in use till date. For example, use of double loop type in a company such as
Implement Consulting Group, superior authorities often change while of procedure of particular
department for the purpose of avoiding any mishaps or fluctuations in future dealings (van
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Nieuwerburgh and Passmore, 2018). The cultural perspective activates people and devise a
situation wherein human resources look for learning moments at workplace.
Single Loop Learning: The category of organisational learning is linked with error
correction. It comprises of individual feedback loop at the time of unexpected or undesired
outcomes which requires modification in tactics or strategy. For example, use of single loop
learning at Mukamas, organisation makes attempts to find causes along with changes the
approach accordingly to rectify error and continue working on desired track. Detection and
correction of error do not result in any effects on essential features of organisational practices.
Deuterolearning: It includes process of learning system for making improvement in
system itself. It often comprises of behavioural addition to structural components which looks
towards learning ways to learn at organisation (Wennergren and Blossing, 2017). For instance,
use of Deuterolearning in a company is often called as transformational learning that defines
context wherein proto earning occurs.
Organisational learning permits team members to acquire skill se and knowledge that is
related to their tasks as well as specialities. With this, groups of a company perform together for
assisting each other learning together with ensure that there is no one who is left behind in
overall progress, development and attaining target goals. It is important as it increases
productivity through application of suitable learnings strategy that reduces time to learn at
workplace. It also benefits in enhances customer satisfaction as organisational learning climate
motivates manpower to understand customers and offer them something that meet their
satisfaction level which leads to happiness (Ashbridge and Josephidou, 2018). Moreover,
organisational learning improves skill level as manager expect workforce to learn addition to
develop more than past through nurturing leadership potential and enhance personal
responsibility.
EXPLAINING WHAT IS A LEARNING ORGANISATION
In accordance to Thakur, Chaudhuri and Patel (2017) , learning organisation is
delineated to a business which facilitates learning and development of its members addition to
continuously transform itself. The concept of learning organisation was coined by Peter Senge
who says that learning organisation is workplace wherein people continually develop and expand
their potentials for producing results which they truly desire and nurtures expensive along with
innovative thinking. Organisations with ingrained philosophy to forecast, react together with
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respond change uncertainty as well as complexity is a learning organisation. It enables change
behaviours addition to mind sets as outcome of experience. For the purpose of reaching desired
goals, it is essential to learn to see issues or complexities as interconnected wholes rather than
breaking them into small pieces to be resolved, further making attempts for fitting them back into
system solution. Focus of learning organisation is towards high philosophy together with grand
themes that sweeps metaphors despite of gritty details of practice. For example, Tesco is a
learning organisation as it is skilled at creating, developing addition to transferring skill set by
modifying behaviours with the hope of reflecting new insights addition to knowledge.
Peter Senge have discussed the process of building a learning organisation (Steps of
learning organisation, 2015). Moreover, as the pace of society along with business are
increasing, there is real need for enhancing capacity of people at origination to build a
competitive capacity. Steps or principles related to learning organisation are as mentioned:
Figure 1: Steps of learning organisation. 2015
(Source: Steps of learning organisation. 2015)
Systems thinking: It states that all features should be apparent at once in a company for
becoming a learning organisation. In other words, idea of learning organisation is developed
from a body of work that is called as systems thinking. It permits individual to study businesses
as bounded things (Pradhan, Jena and Singh, 2017). For example, Tesco being a learning
organisation that uses the concept to think at the time of assessing the entity as well as having
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information system which have potentials for measuring organisational performance as whole
together with its various components.
Personal mastery: It refers to a discipline of an organisation being able to carry out task
continuously by clarifying addition to deepening vision, developing patience, honestly seeing
realities and emphasising on energies. There are competitive benefits for a company whose staff
members have possibilities to learn quickly than employees of another organisations (Diaz-
Fernandez, Pasamar-Reyes and Valle-Cabrera, 2017). Within Tesco, researchers believes that
most of learning at workplace is incidental than element of formal training so it is essential to
build a culture in which personal mastery is practices or performed on daily basis. The step
makes all possibilities of outcomes including self-efficacy, sense of responsibility, commitment
and focus towards work life balance.
Mental models: It is all about assumptions addition to generalisation that are associated
with people and organisation. In order to become a learning organisation, mental models are
required to be challenged. Furthermore, individual is required to espouse theories that they are
intended to follow as well as make theory in use. Likewise, Tesco is an organisation which tends
to have memories that preserves certain norms, values together with behaviours. While creating
learning environment, managers are required to replace confronting attitudes with open culture
which promotes trust as well as inquiry. For this, a learning organisation requires mechanisms
for locating addition to assessing theories of action (Martin, Bedford and Raison, 2017).
Building shared vision: Developing shared vision is significant for stimulating employees
to learn because this creates common identity which emphasises on focus addition to energy for
learning. Most successful vision are built on shared vision of employees at all organisational
levels. It is determined that creating shared vision is hindered through structure of entity wherein
vision is imposed form top authorities. Within Tesco, decentralised organisation structure is
followed that often succeed against rivals. It is stated by Senge that there are some transitory
goals as well as suggests that long term goals must be intrinsic within the venture for being
learning organisation (Kaatrakoski, Littlejohn and Hood, 2017).
Team learning: Accretion of individual learning together constitutes team learning. It refers
to a process of aligning addition to developing capacities of a team for developing the outcomes
that its members truly deserve and have desires. It starts with a communication or process to
think together. Within Tesco, benefit of team learning is that employees grow with quick speed
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and improves tehri problem solving potentials by accessing knowledge and expertise. Moreover,
learning organisation have effective structure that foster learning of a team with characteristics
including openness addition to boundary crossing (Noguera, Guerrero-Roldán and Masó, 2018) .
It requires people to engage in discussion which develop open communication, shared
understanding along with shared meaning. Learning organisations permits creation, acquisition
addition to dissemination of knowledge.
Within learning organisation, learning is central and offers competitive advantage. It is
founded on various tactics along with strategies. One of the ways to gain competitive benefit is
through strategic flexibility. In a learning organisation, for example, Tesco, learning organisation
is important as it engages people in disciplined thinking to develop critical eye for looking
towards details as well as act as basis for making decisions on factual information.
DIFFERENTIAL AMONG ORGANISATIONAL LEARNING AND
LEARNING ORGANISATION
Basis of differentiation Organisational learning Learning organisation
Meaning Organisational learning refers to
development and acquisition of
knowledge through detections
and corrections.
Learning organisation is termed to
letting manpower improve their
skills, competencies along with
capacity at workplace with the
help of different aspects
(Setyanto, Mayasari and Kiritin,
2017).
Learning Within organisational learning,
learning depends of business
situation in which necessary
decisions are devised and
implemented to work or errors
or issues.
In context to learning
organisation, learning occurs
through training sessions along
with methods that are facilitated
by top administrators of the
entity.
Purpose In Tesco, key purpose of
organisational learning is to
implement a process by which to
Within Tesco, major purpose of
learning organisation is to
encourage along with facilitate
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improve itself with duration via
gaining experience together with
using the experience in
developing knowledge and
transferring it across the
premise.
learning for continually
transforming staff for survival
addition to excel in rapid
competitive business
environment.
Focus Main focus of organisational
learning is towards outcomes
and attainment by the venture
(Perera and Abeysekera, Kuger
and Et Al., 2016).
Major focus of learning
organisation is on purposes as
well as processes.
Advantages Advantages of organisational
learning are as follows:
 Increase employee
engagement:
Organisational learning
brings valuable returns in
form of engagement
together with
commitment of
employees across the
organisation.
 Succession planning:
organisational learning
assist in succession
planning through
creating, developing and
transferring knowledge
among managers and
leaders at all levels.
 Promotes ongoing
Advantages of learning
organisation are underneath:
 Learning from mistakes:
Despite of playing blame
game and looking towards
what happened, why
happened as well as ways
to do things better,
employees learn from
mistakes in learning
organisation.
 Innovativeness: Culture
within learning
organisation encourages
new things in exiting
process and products. In a
company, learning
organisation promotes
innovative department in
three areas that are
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improvement: Concept
of organisational learning
creates a mindset which
results in promotion of
continuous improvement.
 Employee turnover: It
minimises and works to
manage errors that
reduces rates of
employee turnover
within the premise.
 Creates strong culture:
Organisational learning
devises an effective
culture which encourages
sharing of knowledge
addition to adaptive
capacity.
commercially, socially
and technologically
(Cunningham and Dawes,
2016).
 Achieving competitive
advantage: Learning
organisation benefits in
attaining competitive
advantages through
recognising better options
for further investments
and adaptability to change
(Lozano, Ceulemans and
Seatter, 2015).
 Acceptance of rapid
changes: In learning
organisation, adaptability
for rapid change is
strongest predictors within
internal along with
external business
environment.
Limitations Limitations of organisational
learning are as follows:
 Insufficient incentives:
There are lack of
incentives for people as
well as team to take part
in organisational learning
activities (Diaz-
Fernandez, Pasamar-
Limitations of learning
organisation:
 Complicated process: It
is a complex process to
change setting of an
organisation into a
learning organisation.
 Fear of participation of
employees in decision
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Reyes and Valle-
Cabrera, 2017).
 Uncertainties: Within
organisational learning,
huge number of
uncertainties about most
effective process to
capture along with share
learning exist.
making: Within learning
organisations, higher
authorities hesitate to
stimulate employees to
take part in decision
making.
It is critically evaluated that learning brings flexibility addition to competitiveness to an
organisation. Through learning organisations, human resources continuously carry out tasks
within a learning culture to develop skills through an experience so to tackle complex
circumstances or situations. However, in context to organisational learning, complex situations
are tackled through competencies including quick decision making, technical expertise along
with problem solving abilities. In Tesco, managerial role within learning organisation is to
develop subordinates along with develop a successor for replacing key roles with contingent
situations. In contrary, there are no roles of managers in organisational learning as it depends of
organisational potential to gain vision along with understand from investigation, examination,
observation as well as willingness for examining success and failure.
It is also critically evaluated that organisational learning entails developing, enhancing
and managing standards of functioning, adjusting and improving efficiencies through making
better utilisation of wider skills of employees. Whereas, learning organisation intentionally
creates plans and work within frameworks to improve learning of all members of an
organisation. Organisational learning concentrates towards practices and methods of learning
within the premise of organisation (Martin, Bedford and Raison, 2017). While, learning
organisation concentrates on prescriptions addition to development strategies, culture and system
in context to a company. In aspect to organisational involvement, learning organisation looks
towards total involvement of all members comprising leadership, reward system, learning of best
practices and cultural development. Though, organisational learning is segmented into
individual, team addition to organisational levels that are known as attributes.
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Learning culture also plays crucial factor in differentiation among learning organisation
and that of organisational learning. While culture of organisational learning leans towards setting
and attainment of goals, then learning culture depends of performances. Creating learning culture
through creative thinking, building confidence through adaptation, encouraging systems
thinking, etc it reaps huge benefits (Thakur, Chaudhuri and Patel, 2017).
CONCLUSION
From the presented information, it is concluded that learning and development are methods
for accruing values and knowledge in human resources. Rising complexity, increasingly
competitive landscape and digital revolution plays great role in reshaping acquisition of skill and
potentials within organisation. Prime role of learning and development is to manage
improvements among people and for this support from key business priorities is essential. Key
areas of learning and development are attracting as well as retaining talents, building employer
brand, creating value-based culture and developing people capabilities. Organisational learning is
seen as an ongoing process of boosting abilities along with responding changes within external
and internal environment. It entails complete information that is held by workforce, integration
along with interpretation new knowledge which leads to appropriate action so to improve
performances. Whereas, learning organisation develops as an outcome of pressures that are being
faced by the company to enable for remaining competitive within present day of business
environment. it is coined through work and encourages towards wider interconnected thinking
aspects. It is found as being inspiring but very complex to implement.
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REFERENCES
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Online:
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through: < https://www.howspace.com/resources/3-great-examples-organizational-
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organisations/>
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