1) What is your opinion on MARLON'S ANSWER to the QUESTIONS below?
MARLON'S ANSWER:
Organization is basically a piece of land having some architectural building with the relevant infrastructure. They are the manpower and resources who run the organization to accomplish the specific mission and vision. The word organization unifies the whole organizational components and serves as a representative of organizational outputs and inputs. Therefore, organization learning is actually defined as the learning capability of the pillars of an organization that consolidates management, employees, and entrepreneurs. The learning environment in an organization is maintained when the resources are at the forefront to accept challenges and learn from the previous experiences. They don't work for the sake of meeting their JD rather they work to come up with unique and innovative methods and solutions. The organization whose employees' skills grow with economic prosperity serves as a paradigm of organizational learning. People contemplate the "pictures of issues as threats or as opportunities" serve as the foundation for evaluating the organizational learning (Fiol, 1994).
There exists a slight dichotomy between organization learning and learning organization. 'Learning Organization' actually reflects an idea of how an organization should learn? The answer to this question comprises of learning methodologies and consultant's opinions and recommendations. However, 'Organizational Learning' deals with the question "how does an organization learn?" (Tsang, 1997) how much of the implemented methodologies resulted in organizational learning.
Yes, we do anthropomorphize the organizations when we say they learn. Organization serves as the representative of business products and services that are introduced in the market. We never say 99,000 employees working in Microsoft (Statista, 2015) brought the useful operating systems rather we say Microsoft introduced and incorporate advancements in the operating systems that depict the learning power and growth of the overall organization.
References
Fiol, C. (1994). Consensus, Diversity, and Learning in Organizations. Organization
Science, 5(3), 403-420. https://dx.doi.org/10.1287/orsc.5.3.403
Statista,. (2015). Microsoft number of employees 2005-2015 | Statistic. Retrieved from
https://www.statista.com/statistics/273475/number-of-employees-at-the-microsoft-corporation-since-2005/
Tsang, E. (1997). Organizational Learning and the Learning Organization: A Dichotomy
Between Descriptive and Prescriptive Research. Human Relations, 50(1), 73-89.
https://dx.doi.org/10.1177/001872679705000104
QUESTIONS: We have studied the relationship between Feedback Loops and Organizational Learning (OL).
A) Please provide a definition of "organizational learning."There are many, many, differing definitions of OL - and many opinions on precisely how organizations learn (or if they can even learn at all). Some notable theorists include Chris Argyris, Peter Senge, Bente Elkjaer, James G. March, Herbert A. Simon, Mark Easterbay-Smith, and Fiol & Lyles, among innumerable others.
B) Is there a difference between the notion of "Organizational Learning" (OL) and that of the "Learning Organization" (LO)? Are we anthropomorphizing (great word!) organizations when we say that they "learn"?
2) What is your opinion on KOBIE'S ANSWER to the QUESTIONS above?
KOBIE'S ANSWER:
Organizational learning is a concept that involves collective and interactive learning from organizational members that support the success of the company. Typically, organizational learning takes place in workshops or group training sessions in which new ideas and processes regarding the way in which business is conducted are introduced to organizational members.
Conversely a learning organization is one that requires members of the organization to learn to support the success of the company. This learning can be individual or collective, can occur within or without the company, or this learning can come from archives stored by the company.
There is a distinct difference between the two types of learning. That difference is based on synergy and community effort. In organizational learning all members give input on the situation or are exposed to the new technique being introduced regardless of their formal education or position at the company. This type of learning empowers company members to give their personal best to restructure, recreate, and refine the company's success.
Learning organizations are powerful as well, but in a individualistic type manner. These organizations rely on single groups or individuals to bring success to the company. These groups or individuals devise the plan for the change and push it down to the rest of the company to enact.