Organizational Learning and Change: A Detailed Essay (BUS101)

This essay delves into the concepts of organizational learning and change, defining them as processes of acquiring, creating, and sharing knowledge, and adapting organizational structures to environmental shifts. It identifies key barriers to organizational learning, including resistance to change, lack of leadership, short-term focus, emphasis on individual success, and lack of value for learning, exemplified by challenges faced by Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) in India. The essay then proposes several strategies to enhance organizational learning, such as championing learning by leaders, linking learning to performance, providing innovative and low-cost learning methods, and offering comprehensive training programs. These strategies aim to foster a culture of continuous improvement and knowledge sharing, ultimately leading to increased organizational performance and adaptability.

Running Head: Organizational Learning and Change
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Organizational Learning and Change
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Essay on organizational learning and change 1
Organizational learning and change is an approach which is based on the values to
the system change in organizations, individuals and communities. Organizational learning
refers as a process to acquire, create and share knowledge within the organization.
Organizational change refers as changes in the structure and culture of the organization to
respond to the environmental changes in the organization (Smith & Smith, 2012). It helps in
examining how changes within an organization inform the effective leadership, improving
abilities of the organization related to further learning in order to the achievement of their
goals and objectives and also helps in understanding the relationship among individual,
society, organization, small group and community. Organizational learning and change focus
on how organization can promote various practices related to effective leadership, socially
approaches related to business and how to maintain effective environment within an
organization, so it will help the organization in supporting and implementing changes in
individuals for the benefits to the organization, community and country (Argote & Miron,
2011).
There are various barriers to the organization learning in the organization as
resistance to change, no motivation for enhancing the growth of organization, lack of direct
leadership within the organization, focus on the individual success rather than the success of
team, short term focus related to any problems in the organization and too much control of
the manager on their employees. Employee resistance to change is a common barrier to the
organizational learning and change. Members of the organization as employees and other
stakeholder’s resist adopting the change or new technologies in the organization because they
don’t want to learn new technology or new process which is necessary for increasing the
performance and productivity of the organization (Anlesinya, 2018). Every organization faces
the above challenge in their organization as in Tata Consultancy Services, there are also
many barriers to the organizational learning and change as company transform its business
and such transformation is called Business 4.0TM. Tata Consultancy Services is an IT services,
outsourcing organization and business solution with high level of certainty and which helps
in delivering actual results to the global business. TCS is a part of the Tata group which is the
largest company in India. The company has more than 3, 00,000 employees in more than 42
countries in the world (About US, 2019). So, due the changes in the structure and culture of
the TCS as rise of the digital technologies, change in the supply chain management and
collaboration of ecosystem, so minority employees ready to implement the above changes
and other members of the company resist in adopting such change (Business 4.0TM: The

Essay on organizational learning and change 2
behaviors of digital transformation, 2019). Lack of direct leadership in the organization is
also barriers to organizational learning. Effective leadership is an essential part in
implementing the organizational changes because it helps in guiding, leading and supporting
to the employees of the organization related to any changes for the benefit of the organization
and the achievement of their goals and objectives. It includes involvement of leaders with
their team members while performing of their tasks and to motivate them in increasing their
performance. But there is lack of leadership in the organization, so it results in decreasing the
performance of the employees as well as organization.
Third barrier to organizational learning is to focus of the organization only for short
term period. Many organizations do not focus on any changes in the organization for the long
term benefits of the organization. They only focus on the short term problems related to the
organization and they do not focus on the learning skills for the long term benefits of the
employees as well as organization. Forth barrier to the organizational learning is to focus of
the organization on individual rather than success of team in their organization. Teamwork is
an essential element for the effective organizational learning related to any changes in the
culture and structure of the organization. For the successful of organizational learning, team
unity and success must be in the organization. So, if organizations only focus on the
achievement of their goals and only focus on the individuals then it is barriers to their
learning (Smith A. , 2012). Lack of value for the learning is also key barriers to
organizational learning in the organization. If the members of the organization do not value
for the new learning and knowledge for their growth, so this results difficulties in
implementing changes and organization learning within the organization. In Tata
Consultancy Service, embracing risk organizational behaviour is difficult to implement in the
organization because business leaders do not want to adopt such behaviour as they are
familiar with the existing approach or structure of the organization. The company does not
have effective consulting team and lack of direct leadership, so it results in decreasing the
performance of the organization (Kholkar, 2018).
There are various ways or strategies which can be adopt by the organization to
improve their organizational learning. First strategy of the organization should be champion
learning of the both heads of the organization as well as managers of different departments.
Every employee needs effective leader who can lead as how to adopt changes within an
organization and how to increase performance of the organization. So, champion learning not
only encourage to the employees to utilize learning in the organization but also it will create

Essay on organizational learning and change 3
channel related to how learning can be utilized by the employees. Manager should motivate
and encourage to their team members in order to increasing their performance towards the
organization and they should help their employees in acquiring new knowledge, skills and
practices related to enhancing their performance and growth (Cho, Song, Yun, & Lee, 2013).
So, effective leadership helps the organization in improving learning of the organization
because it helps in acquiring new knowledge for the employees, implementing changes
within an organization, creating effective culture as per the employees and effective structure
of the organization (Cheng, Niu, & Niu, 2014). Second strategy which can be adopted by the
organization to improve their organizational learning is performance linked learning. As per
the above strategy manager should connect the learning with the performance rather than
only for the sake of learning and agree with that acquiring essential skills and knowledge of
the employees will contribute to the growth and success of the organization. They can
identify the learning needs of the employees by conducting skills gap analysis and
understanding the needs of the employees. They should also provide rewards and other
benefit to their employees for their best performance, so it will help in increasing their
productivity and performance towards the organization. So, by linking learning with the
performance of the employees or learners helps the organization in understanding the
capabilities of learners and helps in achieving the objectives of the organization (Kuo, 2011).
Third strategy which can be used by the organization in improving their
organizational learning is providing learning to their employees in innovative ways with low
cost and high level of frequency. The above strategy includes conducting various programs
related to learning and development for the employees as well as organization, implementing
daily learning video for their employees to support in implementing changes of the
organization, manager can send weekly email to their employees related to learning and they
can also provide training to them which will help them in acquiring new knowledge and skills
within an organization (Chiva, Ghauri, & Alegre, 2014). Forth strategy which can be used by
the organization to improve organizational learning is to provide training to their employees.
Training and development play an important role in professional networking, career
development and enhancing the performance of employees as well as organization. If
organization has lots of formal training then manager should use this opportunity and helps to
their employees in their learning and adopting new process of the organization. Although
training reduced their time in performing their work but it will help the organization to
increase productivity and satisfaction level of employees, customers and organization. So,

Essay on organizational learning and change 4
training will help the organization to improve organizational learning (How to enhance
organizational learning: Some factors that influence creativity competency, 2017)
Hence, organizational learning and change is an essential for every organization for
increasing their performance and productivity and also helps in increasing their growth.
Organizational changes refer as change in the structure and culture of the organization and
organizational learning refer as a process of acquiring, creating and sharing knowledge within
the organization. It helps the organization in supporting and implementing changes in
individuals for the benefits to the organization, community and country. But organizations are
facing various barriers to organizational learning such as resistant to change, no motivation
for enhancing the growth of organization, lack of direct leadership within the organization,
focus on the individual success rather than the success of team, short term focus related to
any problems in the organization and too much control of the manager on their employees.
So, due to the above barriers many companies faces various challenges and it effect in
reducing their performance and productivity. So by implementing strategies such as
champion learning, performance linked learning, training programs and provide learning in
innovative ways by the organization will help in improving their organizational learning.

Essay on organizational learning and change 5
References
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https://www.tcs.com/about-us
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Kholkar, D. (2018). CREATING GAME-CHANGING INSIGHTS FROM AN ABUNDANCE
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Essay on organizational learning and change 6
Smith, A. (2012). The importance of organizational learning for organizational sustainability.
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