An organization's capacity for accumulating knowledge from its own experiences, disseminating that knowledge to members throughout the organization (and not to a single individual or group within it), reflecting on it and using it as a basis on which to build planning and programming activities, to adapt and to cope with change. A learning organization is one that facilitates the learning of all its members and continuously transforms itself.
the intentional use of learning processes at the individual, group and system level to continuously transform the organization in a direction that is increasingly satisfying to its stakeholders. The concept implies the following elements: an expectation that increased knowledge will improve action, in that there is a causal relationship between the quality of knowledge employees have and the effectiveness of the organization (i.e. more information, more accurate information, and more widely shared information); an acknowledgement of the pivotal relationship between the organization and the environment; the idea of solidarity, as in collective or shared thinking. These shared understandings may need to be uncovered, corrected or expanded to facilitate effective organizational action; and a proactive stance in terms of the organization changing itself. Through learning the organization is able to self-correct in response to environmental change or transform itself in anticipation of a desired future. (Dixon, N (1994)
The process of acquiring, interpreting, integrating and institutionalizing knowledge that takes place at the individual, group and organizational levels. Individuals come up with innovative ideas which are shared in a group setting. Common meaning is developed, eventually becoming institutionalized as organizational artifacts.
Working and learning become increasingly collaborative activities based on the limitations of the individual human mind. Individual learning needs to be complemented by organizational learning. DODEs can support organizational learning by their function as organizational and artifact memories.
How an organization uses its collective ability to make sense of and respond to its surroundings. It includes individual learning as employees interact with the external environment or experiment to create new information or knowledge, the integration of new information or knowledge, the relation and collective interpretation of all available information, and action based on the interpretation. Organizational learning is more than the sum of the learning of all employees ("A Practical Model for Organizational Learning," by Nancy Dixon, Issues and Observations, Center for Creative Leadership, 1995).
Organizational learning is an area of knowledge within organizational theory that studies models and theories about the way an organization learns and adapts.