Dynamic organizational learning: a conceptual framework

Kris M.Y. Law and Angappa Gunasekaran

Kris M.Y. Law is based at the Department of ISE, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Hong Kong, China. Angappa Gunasekaran is based at the Department of Decision and Information Sciences, Charlton College of Business, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, North Dartmouth, Massachusetts, USA.

Abstract Purpose Organizational learning (OL) has been considered to be an effective developmental initiative in organizations that have a mission to develop, to sustain and to advance. There is a wide range of beliefs of thinking about what organizational learning is, how it occurs, and how it is applied and how it inuences organizational development. Different perspectives are used to study OL by researchers from different disciplines. There is no clear and widely accepted depiction of the linkage between OL and its enabling factors. Such a comprehensive concept covering many aspects, such as organization science, organizational knowledge and learning, is difcult to achieve. The purpose of this paper is to determine the applicability of a conceptual model to describe OL as a continuous process. Design/methodology/approach This paper proposes a conceptual approach describing OL as a continuous process. Selected literature on various OL theories is reviewed. Findings The model not only describes OL as a continuous goal-driven process, but also allows the understanding of the relationships with various inuencing factors and facilitating the effectiveness of an OL framework. Originality/value The authors introduce a variant of a classic approach to analyze the OL process by describing OL as a continuous process. A model for successful OL by placing emphasis on the facilitative learning framework (FIF) is proposed. Keywords Learning organizations, Continuing development Paper type Research paper

1. Introduction
The inuence of innovation and learning on the achievement of a sustained competitive advantage for the rm in the knowledge-based economy has been receiving increased interest. Change and development is at the heart of what leaders of organizations know all about and what they do. Organizational learning (OL) has been considered to be an effective developmental initiative in organizations that have a mission to develop, to sustain and to advance. The concept of OL has attracted considerable attention from researchers, including Senge (1990), Argyris and Schon (1996) and Wang and Ahmed (2003). Some have asked for clarity of denition as varied perceptions of what an ideal learning organization (LO) is have produced a variety of interpretations.
The authors are most grateful to the anonymous reviewers and the Editor, Dr Bryan Smith for their constructive and helpful comments which helped to improve the presentation of the paper considerably.

There is rarely an integrated treatment of OL as an ongoing process. LO cannot be prescribed precisely because of the uniqueness of each single organization. There is no overarching framework, which cohesively pulls together all theoretical advances into a unied theory. DiBella et al. (1996) proposed that learning is an innate, ongoing process in organizations.

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DOI 10.1108/00197850910983901

2. Research aim and objectives

The concept of OL has been one of the principal concepts for organizational competitiveness in management literature since 1990. Various types of process- or product-related knowledge, such as new product development and new process technologies can be generated through OL activities (Nonaka, 1994). The culture built within the organization thus drives the continual devotions to improve. As a result, continuous development and competitiveness is more likely to be achieved. This paper proposes a conceptual approach describing OL as a continuous process. The purpose of this study is to determine the applicability of a conceptual model to describe OL as a continuous process. Selected literature on various OL theories is reviewed. The study rst examines the various factors inuencing the OL process at different stages. These stages are driving, enabling, learning and outcome. Since the focus of this study is on the dynamics of OL process, it is essential to pay attention to the need for more research into the pathways or tracks taken by organizations during the processes of changes. Thus, in addition to the model, description of the model by referring to real cases will be provided.

3. A model for the successful organizational learning

The literature research provides grounds and underpinnings for the understanding of OL as a continuous process (Law, 2007). Evolved from the OL model developed by Law (2007), a model for successful OL by placing emphasis on the facilitative learning framework (FIF) is proposed (Figure 1). The model in Figure 1 describes OL as a continuous process by incorporating the Driver, Enabler, and Learning and Outcome. Each of these components is further exploded to allow description on sub-level factors. Furthermore, the importance of a facilitative learning framework (FIF) is emphasized. The following sections discuss each of these components. 3.1 Leaders drive organizational learning The driving factors of OL consider various factors such as top managements leadership and vision within an organizational context. Drivers of organizational learning refer to the leaders, who have the vision and mission of implementing OL. The development of competency has been a strategic issue for development-inspired companies. To initiate OL, the need and desire of organizations to advance and the will of management have been described as critical drivers. This will of management can be in the form of a facilitative leadership with strategic thinking and vision, which is crucial in the Figure 1 Framework for successful OL

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process of transformation into a learning organization. The importance of strong leaders to build shared visions and the facilitating processes has been recognized (Teare, 1997). Researchers have identied various roles, such as driver, advisor and facilitator, of a leader in learning organizations (Nonaka, 1991). Among these roles, the leader has a role as a designer that involves creating a foundation of purpose and core values within the organization. To summarize, a strong leader who is committed to building a shared vision and empowering and inspiring people is needed to drive in the process of OL. 3.2 Enablers With driving forces provided, enablers are the inuencers of subsequent OL process. To enable OL, willingness to learn is the key. Learning motivation and the willingness to learn are undeniably an individualistic decision. Individual values form collective mindsets within a company, that is, the mutual belief of organizational culture. A positive learning culture not merely affects the individuals by affecting their mindsets and job values, but also promotes the cooperative culture within the company. 3.2.1 Organizational culture. Organizational culture has been an important area in the study of organizational behaviour and OL. Literature linking organizational culture and OL includes the work on contextual factors and Cook and Yanows (1993) cultural approach to learning that incorporates the concept of tacit knowledge. The study of how culture affects modern organizations has been going on for decades (Chatman and Barsade, 1995). Traditional organizational models did not always help to understand disparities between goals and outcomes, as well as between strategy and implementation (Fang and Wang, 2006). In the OL context, process-oriented versus result-oriented cultural dimension is applied. The process-oriented epistemology is widely used as a knowledge management perspective (Christensen and Bang, 2003). Companies adopting process-oriented epistemology are focusing on human relations, and by the fact that while learning is taking place and knowledge is collected. 3.2.2 Individuals. Organizational culture and individuals are correlated. An individuals mindset that interacts with facets of situations within an organization is crucial to the learning (Gabriel and Grifths, 2002). Argyris and Schon (1996) noted the paradoxical nature that OL is more than the cumulative sum of individual learners. In recent years, human resource professionals have been focusing on ways, like human resources strategies and capacity building programs, which promote learning in organizations (Marsick and Gephart, 2003) and developmental practice (Egan et al., 2004). Motivation in learning is described as the desire to use the knowledge and skills mastered in associated learning activities from the job. The importance of motivation to knowledge transfer and OL has been advocated by researchers (Egan et al., 2004). 3.2.3 Internal forces. The conguration of effective organizations can be captured by the interplay of the basic forces in an organization. These basic forces are, including cooperation, competition, innovation, direction, efciency, prociency and conict, introduced by Mintzberg (1991) as the building blocks of an effective organization. Jashapara (2003) further adapted the system of forces for the study on the learning focus of a competitive learning organization. Internal forces of competition and cooperation also have an effect on organizational learning (Jashapara, 2003). 3.3 Learning and outcome Driven by driving factors and facilitated by enablers, learning is assumed to take place within the organization. The learning process itself, which is vital to the learning effectiveness and performance, is inuenced by various enabling factors such as organizational culture, individuals attitude and motivation, and interactions among individuals. A facilitative learning framework is thus required to take the individuals through systematic stages of project and action learning, while providing them guidance and facilitation. The implementation of such a learning framework is an evolutionary process of creating a

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supportive learning environment through team-based, predened and practical project undertakings (Law, 2007). 3.3.1 Team learning in learning organizations. The concept of OL and LO has been accepted by the high-tech manufacturing organizations. Such organizations usually adopt a project team or a hybrid-project-team structure. The project-based structure is adopted by the whole company or specically applied to certain units or groups within the organization. In these organizations, team concept and team performance are highly valued and relied upon. Not surprisingly, team learning has been proved to be gaining importance as an OL strategy (Chan et al., 2003) and extensively studied (Katzenbach and Smith, 1993; Senge, 1990). 3.3.2 Action learning and OL. Action learning has been proposed as one of the effective approaches to organizational development (Clarke et al., 2006). It was rst elaborated by Revans (1971) as a type of learning that comes from concrete problem solving experience and critical reection within a social environment, by encompassing a wide variety of management learning methods and activities, like action learning and experiential learning, of action and reection with proper facilitation. Learning does not take place solely within groups in an organization. Emphasizing the importance of the empowerment of individuals to take action, action learning therefore fosters OL within organizations at both individual and organizational levels. In this way, we believe the goal-driven action learning through project teams can be applied as the learning approach in an organization gearing itself to becoming an LO. 3.3.3 Outcome. Effective teams normally are those that have clear, worthwhile, and challenging missions to which all members are committed. Performance advancement and individual mindsets changed are expected. Effective learning framework and facilitation are critical to the learning as well the behavioural change process. Teams should always be purpose-driven and autonomous teams have higher level of motivation and commitment (Houghton et al., 2003). The learning culture promoted permeates the organization once a signicant number of individuals have gone through this change in their learning behaviour and mindset. Such intervention would subsequently affect the efcacy beliefs and thus the performance.

4. Example of OL cases
The importance of leadership in the OL process has been addressed in a number of case studies carried out previously. These real cases include the Rover (Marquardt, 1996), Toyota (Dyer and Nobeoka, 2000) and Canon (Nonaka, 1991). According to Marquardt (1996), it is preferable to begin building an LO at the very top, so as to get the top leadership committed. Looking at the Rover case, it turned out the annual $100 million losses into large prots in early 1990s by deciding to be an LO with a focus on total quality culture. With an urgency to turn huge amount of annual losses to prots (the annual $100 million losses), the top management of the company is committed to building itself as an LO. Apart from the top management commitment, vision of an LO is also a must to initiate the OL process. Without a vision, the effort can dissolve into a list of confusing and incompatible tasks! To assure the successful transformation to an LO, an organization is required to get itself ready by making sure there exists sufcient enablers such as supportive learning culture and individuals at high level of learning motivation, that support the OL process. At Rover in

The importance of motivation to knowledge transfer and OL has been advocated by researchers.

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the 1990s, various management initiatives were carried out to build a proper learning culture within the organization. This has not only promoted the climate of learning at both organizational and individual learning, but also allowed the practice of team work and experiential learning. The case of Toyota (Dyer and Nobeoka, 2000) has demonstrated how crucial a facilitative learning framework is for the OL process. The knowledge sharing network built within Toyota served as an effective facilitative OL vehicle between Toyota and its suppliers. Suppliers were found to learn more quickly after participating in its knowledge-sharing network. The network has successfully motivated its members to participate and openly share valuable knowledge, by providing an effective learning infrastructure for learning at collective level and inter-team levels. The Canon case (Nonaka, 1991) has also reinforced our emphasis on the adoption of team learning. With the commitment to continuous development, Canon-Japan adopted a product-development team approach to drive the knowledge process. A team is divided into competing groups that develop different approaches or solutions to solve the same project. Similar to the FIF, the implementation of learning teams encourages learning at team level and learning from projects. Though the features and boundary of a facilitative learning framework within each LO may vary, but the Toyota and Canon cases conrm the notion of a well-dened facilitative learning infrastructure is needed as an OL vehicle.

5. Managerial implications
To implement organizational learning in an organization, it is of utmost importance that top management should initiate and drive the process. Supportive enablers and individuals who form the organization also determine the success of OL while facilitation by an effective learning framework is of the equal importance to maintain. With the Successful OL (SOL) model developed, we can see that there is a necessity for top management to drive and to get commitments from all levels of organization. Clear commitment and drive from the top is essential but on its own not enough, while individual and organizations culture affects the learning process. We proposed the implementation of a facilitative learning framework which serves as the vehicle to drive the OL process. Ideally, this framework is a mix of project-based learning and action learning conducted among selected learning teams, with specially designed learning modes/mechanisms. This provides a structured setting for the different team-based learning activities. Each participant is a member of a learning team with a pre-dened and sanctioned-performance goal, team and individual learning objectives. Empowerment experienced by individuals transcending the minds normal operations, enables autonomy and creativity. Learning routines of the current structure are propelled into the new conditions with new ndings are derived from shared vision and concerned goals. Individuals are at the heart of OL. Building up a process-oriented culture in an organization can positively alter individuals mindset on job values, the emphasis on process of project and action learning in a facilitative OL framework is a way of instilling this. This also helps to bring about the change in individual values and learning motivation. Therefore, outcomes such as mindset and habit changes can be expected. Proper driving and enabling forces kick the OL process start. The renowned OL cases discussed in Section 3.5 suggests that learning at team level within appropriate learning framework plays a central role because it provides a well-dened, shared context where individuals can interact with each other and engage in the various project actions. The learners create new points of view through the various learning activities. Eventually, they integrate their diverse individual perspectives into a new collective perspective while new forms of behaviours may be seen. We see a couple of important directions for future research. Future research might further justify the proposed OL model (SOL) by taking more real cases to answer: How critical are

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 Effective learning framework and facilitation are critical to the learning as well as to the behavioural change process.

the leadership and vision of top management during the driving stage? How the enablers of OL process vary among different Learning Organizations? What are the critical features of the Facilitative Learning Framework (FIF) to facilitate the learning process? And, how the learning can be measured and sustained?

6. Conclusions
This paper proposes a model (SOL) describing OL as a series of repeated processes, i.e. Driving-Enabling-Learning-Outcome. The OL process is envisaged to start with the vision of the management and subsequent intervention through the initiation and propagation of repeated or recurring learning activities within an organization. We have a rst step in the investigation of how OL process can be initiated and supported. The study so far has been founded on selected literature readings and a few cases conned to the large organizations. Future works will be carried out by taking multiple real case studies to further prove the universality of the proposed SOL model. The selection of the additional sub-level factors to be investigated in future work could be more systematically derived from a more extensive review of literature and case studies based on a wider coverage.

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Further reading
Law, K.M.Y. and Chuah, K.B. (2004), Project based action learning as learning approach in learning organization: the theory and framework, Journal of Team Performance Management, Vol. 10 No. 7.

Corresponding author
Angappa Gunasekaran can be contacted at: agunasekaran@umassd.edu

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