Learning Organization

According to the management scholar Peter Senge, who popularized the concept of the learning organization, learning organizations are places “where people continually expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective aspiration is set free, and where people are continually learning to see the whole together” (Senge 1990, 7). Accordingly, at the heart of the idea of a learning organization is the insight that there is enormous human potential that can unfold and act in effective and fulfilling ways within social institutions such as businesses, government departments, schools, and charities. Leaders and the relationship between leaders and followers can help unlock this underdeveloped and underemployed potential and hence contribute to developing organizational learning practices.

Antecedents of the concept of the learning organization were discussed as far back as the 1920s, but the learning organization's recent relevance as a topic for consideration did not emerge until the late 1980s, when a combinations of ideas, theories, and practices were gathered under the name “learning organization.” Learning in organizations has become increasingly vital in today's complex, uncertain, and dynamic business environment. The increasing competitive challenges imposed by the global economy and by technological changes in [Page 882]products and services force corporations and their members to learn in order to increase knowledge sharing and communication, which in turn leads to increased flexibility, innovativeness, and effectiveness. Accordingly, the notion of organizational learning has gained academic and practice-oriented currency since the 1980s as a preferred model for development and to manage change. It can be seen as a cornerstone of successful economies and societies in the twenty-first century.