Limits of the Learning Organization: A Critical Look.

Abstract

The development of the may be traced to three converging trends: the tradition of organizational development; economic shifts to globalization, deregulation, and information-based industry; and total quality management. Learning organizations are generally characterized as follows: organizations that create continuous learning opportunities, promote inquiry and dialogue, encourage collaboration and team learning, establish systems to capture and share learning, empower people toward collective vision, and connect with the organizational environment. Empirical research documenting the implementation of learning organization concepts in Canada remains sparse. Despite the rhetoric regarding the potential benefits of learning organizations, several problems and paradoxes of learning organizations have been identified: the potential collision of continuous learning through exploratory experimentation and innovation with organizational norms of productivity, accountability, and results-based measurement. The following are among the actions that adult educators might take to become part of the learning organization vision: ask critical questions about the basic assumptions of the learning organization concept; teach learning theory to business and other sectors; help clarify the links between organizational and individual learning; produce/analyze empirical documentation of learning organizations; and rethink the adult educator's ethical role in workplace learning. (Contains 56 references.) (MN) *********************************************************************** * Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. *********************************************************************** Limits of the Learning Organization: A Critical Look

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