Learning organisations: empirically investigating metaphors
| Date | 01 December 2001 |
| Published date | 01 December 2001 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/14691930110409697 |
| Pages | 410-422 |
| Author | Alexia Lennon,Andrew Wollin |
| Subject Matter | Accounting & finance,HR & organizational behaviour,Information & knowledge management |
JIC
2,4
410
Journal of Intellectual Capital,
Vol. 2 No. 4, 2001, pp. 410-422.
#MCB University Press, 1469-1930
Learning organisations:
empirically investigating
metaphors
Alexia Lennon and Andrew Wollin
School of Management, University of Queensland, Brisbane,
Queensland, Australia
Keywords Organizational learning, Metaphors, Family life, Case studies, Intellectual capital
Abstract When organisations succeed in developing and nurturing their organisational
learning they create a form of intellectual capital that is difficult for competitors to imitate. Since
learning enhances organisational ability to adapt and respond rapidly, it conveys competitive
advantage on the organisation. Learning organisations are a special form of organisation where
enhancing learning is a strategy to increase intellectual capital. Developing learning organisations
has become an imperative for many managers, since an organisation's learning methods and
rate may be the only source of sustainable competitive advantage. However, learning organisation
theory tends to be prescriptive and rhetorical, with empirical research still relatively new. This
paper contributes to the literature by reporting case-study research in progress based on four
Australian organisations. In the organisations studied, use of the learning organisation metaphor
was coupled with an emergent metaphor: organisation as ``family''. By employing structure
mapping of metaphor within analytical induction, both established methods but not combined
before, we show how theory might be developed from metaphor.
In a turbulent environment, where the future is less predictable (de Geus, 1988),
and technological changes are rapid (Dodgson, 1993), organisational learning
and the learning organisation (Senge, 1990; Peddler et al., 1992; Easterby-Smith
et al., 1998) are increasingly perceived as sources of competitive advantage and
intellectual capital (Appelbaum and Goransson, 1997; Kanter, 1989; Senge,
1990). Since an organisation's learning, as a source of intellectual capital,
depends on a number of organisational conditions such as climate, culture,
structure, methods of innovation and knowledge exchange (Nonaka, 1991) and
so forth, it is more difficult to duplicate or imitate than other organisational
resources such as technology. Some authors have claimed that learning may
even be the only sustainable competitive advantage (Stata, 1989; de Geus, 1988)
since it is not readily imitable and creates organisational ability to respond and
change rapidly.
Becoming a learning organisation is seen by some managers as a strategy to
create intellectual capital and competitive advantage (Garvin, 1994) by placing
learning at the centre of the organisation's efforts. By focussing on improving
the organisation's learning, organisational effectiveness and adaptation is
enhanced (Edmondson and Moingeon, 1998). Further, organisations that can
identify and foster their organisational learning enhance their intellectual
capital in the form of knowledge and know-how about their organisation's
learning, that is, how it learns, how it learns how to learn and how it encourages
or inhibits its own learning.
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