Learning Organization Report: CommBank's Ethical Challenges Analysis

This report delves into the ethical challenges faced by the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, particularly concerning issues like money laundering and failures in preventing unethical practices. It examines the importance of organizational learning in addressing these dilemmas and preventing future occurrences. The report discusses the initiation of a learning organization process, structural roles, technology's role in knowledge sharing, and the potential benefits such as improvements to people, processes, products, and overall organizational performance. It also explores the existing problems, including employee resistance to change and ineffective training programs. Recommendations are provided, including designing effective training programs, involving customers in the learning process, and addressing ethical issues. The report concludes by emphasizing the need for Commonwealth Bank to embrace ethical principles through organizational learning and provides insights into the barriers that may be faced during this process. The effective implementation of these recommendations will help the bank become a more ethical organization.

Running head: LEARNING ORGANIZATION
Learning organization
Name of the student
Name of the university
Author note

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Executive summary
The aim of this report is to discuss about the ethical dilemmas being faced by Commonwealth
bank of Australia in the recent times. The initiation process of learning organization is being
discussed in this report with relation to the issues being faced by Commonwealth bank of
Australia. Potential benefits for the commonwealth bank due to initiation of learning process had
also been discussed in this report. However, this report has also discussed about the potential
barriers, which may be faced by Commonwealth bank of Australia in initiating the change
process to implement learning process. Thus, it can be concluded that prevention and avoiding
these issues will help the organization in initiation of effective learning process. Importance of
organization learning process is also been discussed here in this report. It is being concluded that,
in order to prevent the emergence of ethical issues in the organization, they have to initiate
effective organization learning process, which will further help them to enhance their
organizational effectiveness.

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Table of Contents
1.0 Introduction................................................................................................................................3
1.1 Company background............................................................................................................3
2.0 Learning organization process...................................................................................................4
2.1 Structural roles related to organization learning....................................................................4
2.2 Technology and knowledge sharing......................................................................................5
3.0 Benefits of organizational learning............................................................................................5
3.1 Improvements to people........................................................................................................5
3.2 Improvements to process.......................................................................................................6
3.3 Improvements to products.....................................................................................................6
3.4 Improvements to organization performance..........................................................................6
4.1 Corporate social responsibility..................................................................................................6
4.2 Existing problems......................................................................................................................7
5.0 Recommendation.......................................................................................................................7
6.0 Conclusion.................................................................................................................................7
Reference.........................................................................................................................................9

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1.0 Introduction
In the current business scenario, contemporary business organizations have to initiate
continuous process of organizational learning in order to cope up with changing business
context. Moreover, it also helps the organizations in preventing the issues of unethical initiations
of the organizational procedures. Organizational learning helps in effectively generating and
sharing of the knowledge among the internal stakeholders of the organization (Argote 2012).
This report will discuss about the initiation of the organizational learning process in preventing
the issue in Commonwealth bank of Australia.
1.1 Company background
Commonwealth bank of Australia is one of the leading and prominent financial
institutions, operating in Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, United States and England. It was founded
in 1911, as a government bank but it was converted to public company in 1991
(Commbank.com.au 2017). It is being headquartered in Sydney, Australia. As of 2015,
Commonwealth bank of Australia is the largest Australian organization being listed in the
Australian Securities Exchange.

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2.0 Learning organization process
2.1 Structural roles related to organization learning
Figure: 1
Argrys and Schon’s theory of organizational learning
According to theory of organizational learning being given by Argrys and Schon (1996).
Organizational learning goes through different stages to achieve the solution. This is due to the
reason that, in every stage, action plan is being initiated to solve the identified issue. In the next
stage, new issues that are being originated from the first action plan are being determined and a
new action plan is being implemented (Yardley, Teunissen and Dornan 2012). Thus, through
these steps, a final solution is being achieved. In the case of the Commonwealth bank of
Australia, they have faced the issues of money laundering by the offenders and they have being
accused for failing to prevent the offenders in using their money deposit machines.
Thus, in this case, the structural policies in the organization are being proved ineffective
in dealing with the issues. Thus, according to the above stated theory, they should have initiated
their organizational learning process in systematic process. This would help them in identifying
and classifying the issues and accordingly implement the learning process. In this case,

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organizational structure plays an important role due to the fact that; the upper level management
should initiate the organizational learning process. The employees should be equipped and
motivated enough to have the interest of learning from their coworkers or participate in sharing
of the knowledge.
2.2 Technology and knowledge sharing
Information Technology plays an important role in organizational learning due to the
reason that, it helps in gathering the information or knowledge from all the stakeholders
effectively (Wang 2012). The leadership skills are also enhanced due to the effective initiation of
the communication process in the organizations. One of the key technological tools being used in
the organizational learning is the learning management system. It helps in effectively organize
the structure in the organization to initiate a unified learning process.
Knowledge sharing is the concept of sharing of the knowledge and information among
the internal stakeholders to determine various options of opinions in solving a particular issue
(Holsapple 2013). According to the theory of Cognitivism, employees tend to process their
information gathered from others. This helps them in generating new ideas from them. In the
case of Commonwealth bank of Australia, they lacked in the process of knowledge sharing
process. Due to this reason, they did not able to prevent the continuous occurrence of the money
laundering by the offenders.
3.0 Benefits of organizational learning
3.1 Improvements to people
Organization learning process helps in improvement to the stakeholders due to the fact
that, employees get more equipped and informed with the effective sharing of the knowledge in

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the organization (Santos-Vijande, Lopez-Sanchez and Trespalacios 2012). They have more
access to the diverse information, which helps them in facing the challenges and enhance their
effectiveness.
3.2 Improvements to process
The organizational process also get enhanced due to organizational learning due to the
reason that, the more effective and equipped internal stakeholders help in more effective process
(Santos-Vijande, Lopez-Sanchez and Trespalacios 2012). The process will effectively adhere to
the changing business scenario.
3.3 Improvements to products
The products will be more effective in meeting the latest market requirement due to the
reason that, organizational learning helps in effectively determining the market requirement and
offering products accordingly.
3.4 Improvements to organization performance
The enhancement in the effectiveness of the employees as well as in the organizational
process helps in increasing the level of organizational performance. The more will be the
employee performance, the more will be the organizational performance.
4.1 Corporate social responsibility
Organizational learning will help in effective determination of the requirement of the
society (Crane, Matten and Spence 2013). Thus, initiation of the corporate social responsibility
by the organization gets easier and in accordance to the requirement of the society. It further
helps them in gaining goodwill and reputation in the market.

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4.2 Existing problems
One of the key existing issues being faced by Commonwealth bank of Australia is the
resistance of change by the employees. Due to the lack of effectiveness of the upper level
management, the employees are not aware about the benefits of the change in according to the
learning. Thus, they are resisting in initiating the change (Bartsch, Ebers and Maurer 2013).
Another issue is the ignorance by the higher-level management in preventing the issue. Thus,
that ignorance caused in inflation of the small issue in a big matter. The training program for the
employees and the leaders is also not effective as it should be. Thus, the process of
organizational learning is facing obstacles.
5.0 Recommendation
 Training program should be effectively designed and initiated in order to equip the
employees and the managers to lead the organization learning process.
 Customers should also be involved in the learning process to determine the market
requirement more effectively. On the other hand, it will enable the customers to identify
the value proposition of the products.
 Originated ethical issues in the organization should be effectively dealt with. It will
ensure the prevention of any future emergence of issues.
 Initiation of effective and extensive corporate social responsibility will help to convey the
image of the organization as a follower of ethical principles.
6.0 Conclusion
It can be concluded that, Commonwealth bank of Australia is facing ethical dilemmas in
the recent times. Their name had been indulged in the case of money laundering and in addition,

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inability of preventing the issue and not initiating corrective measures has further intensified the
emerged issues. In addition, they are also facing delay in initiating preventive measures for their
originated issues. Thus, in this report, it is being evaluated that initiation of organization learning
process will help them in reducing the probability of ethical dilemmas. Moreover, the benefits
for the organization from the initiation of learning process are also being discussed. However,
this report has also discussed about the potential barriers, which may be faced by
Commonwealth bank of Australia in initiating the change process to implement learning process.
This is due to the reason that, majority of the internal stakeholders is already accustomed
with the existing organizational culture and they will resist in type of change. In addition to this
issue, other potential issues are also being discussed here in this report. Thus, it can be concluded
that prevention and avoiding these issues will help the organization in initiation of effective
learning process. Recommendations are also being discussed in this report to help the
organization in initiating of ethical principles in the organization. It is being expected that the
effective and efficient implementation of the recommended steps will help them in becoming a
true blue ethical organization.

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Reference
Argote, L., 2012. Organizational learning: Creating, retaining and transferring knowledge.
Springer Science & Business Media.
Bartsch, V., Ebers, M. and Maurer, I., 2013. Learning in project-based organizations: The role of
project teams' social capital for overcoming barriers to learning. International Journal of Project
Management, 31(2), pp.239-251.
Commbank.com.au. (2017). About Us - Learn more about Shareholders, Careers - CommBank.
[online] Available at: https://www.commbank.com.au/about-us.html?ei=CB-footer_about-
commbank [Accessed 25 Sep. 2017].
Crane, A., Matten, D. and Spence, L.J., 2013. Corporate social responsibility in a global context.
Holsapple, C. ed., 2013. Handbook on knowledge management 1: Knowledge matters (Vol. 1).
Springer Science & Business Media.
Santos-Vijande, M.L., López-Sánchez, J.Á. and Trespalacios, J.A., 2012. How organizational
learning affects a firm's flexibility, competitive strategy, and performance. Journal of Business
Research, 65(8), pp.1079-1089.
Wang, J., 2012. Organizational learning and technology. In Technology and its impact on
educational leadership: Innovation and change (pp. 217-233). IGI Global.
Yardley, S., Teunissen, P.W. and Dornan, T., 2012. Experiential learning: transforming theory
into practice. Medical teacher, 34(2), pp.161-164.