The Oxford Handbook of the Learning Organization

Description

The concept of the 'learning organization' is one of the most popular management ideas of the last few decades. Since it was conceived as an idea in its own right, it has been given various definitions and meanings, such that we are still faced with the question as to whether any unified understanding of what the learning organization really is can be established. This Handbook offers extensive reviews of both new and traditional perspectives on the concept and provides suggestions for how the learning organization can best be defined, practiced, studied, and developed in future research. With contributions from long-standing scholars in the field as well as those new to the area, this book aims to bridge the gap between traditional and more critical perspectives, and in doing so find alternative features and angles to take the idea forward.

In addition to elaborating on and developing older definitions of the learning organization and suggesting updated and even new definitions, the chapters also provide focused explorations on pertinent aspects of the learning organization such as ambidexterity, gender inclusivity, and systems thinking. They also survey organizations that have made efforts towards becoming learning organizations, how the learning organization can best be measured and studied, and the universality of the idea itself.

Some of the questions raised in this book are answered, or at least given tentative answers, while other questions are left open. In this way, the book has the ambition to take the learning organization an important step further, whilst having no intentions to take any final step; instead, the intention is that others will endeavour to continue where this book stops.

About the Author

Contributors:

Table of contents

Part I: Introduction
1. Background and Introduction to the Learning Organization, Anders Ortenblad
2. The Topicality of the Learning Organization: Is the Concept Still Relevant Today?, Siu Loon Hoe
Part II: Definitions and Meanings of the 'Learning Organization'
3. Senge's Learning Organization: Development of the Learning Organization Model, Hong T.M. Bui
4. Conceptualizing an Organization That Learns, Karen E. Watkins and Victoria J. Marsick
5. Garvin's Learning Organization: A Process Perspective on Learning for Implementation, Improvement, and Innovation, Patrick J. Healy
6. Learning Company: The Learning Organization According to Pedler, Burgoyne, and Boydell, Mike Pedler, Tom Boydell, and John Burgoyne
7. Building Learning Organizations with Action Learning, Michael J. Marquardt
8. Personal Paradoxes in Learning to Design 'The Learning Organization', Bob Garratt
9. On Definitions of the Learning Organization: Toward a New Definition of Learning Organization, Hong T.M. Bui
Part III: Aspects of the Learning Organization
10. Learning in the Learning Organization: Concepts and Antecedents, Max Visser and Paul Tosey
11. Ambidextrous Learning Organizations, Alice Lam
12. How the Learning Organization Learns and its Culture Coevolves, Peter Hawkins
13. A Mighty Step: Critical Systemic Interpretation of the Learning Organization, Robert L. Flood and Hanne Finnestrand
14. From Learning Organizations to Learning Cultures and More: Evolutions in Theory, Changes in Practice, Continuity of Purpose, Anthony DiBella
15. Stakeholders and the Learning Organization, William D. Schneper, David Wernick, and Mary Ann Von Glinow
16. What is Needed to Create Gender Inclusive Learning Organizations, Amanda Brazil
Part IV: Practicing the Learning Organization
17. Interventions to Create a Learning Organization, Victoria J. Marsick and Karen E. Watkins
18. Glimpses of Organizations in the Act of Learning, Nancy M. Dixon
19. Pegasus or Clever White Horse? In Pursuit of Real Learning Organizations, Laurie Field
Part V: Studying the Learning Organization
20. The Learning Organization Survey: Validation of an Instrument to Augment Research on Organizational Learning, Amy C. Edmondson, Francesca Gino, and Patrick J. Healy
21. Measurement of the Learning Organization Construct: A Critical Perspective and Future Directions for Research, Swee Chua Goh
22. Learning Organization and Organizational Performance, Kyoungshin Kim and Zhenqiu (Laura) Lu
23. How Best to Study the Learning Organization, Nhien Nguyen, Jens Ording Hansen, and Are Jensen
Part VI: The Universality of the Learning Organization
24. The Potential To Nurture Small Businesses To Learning Organization Form, Peter Wyer and Shaun Bowman
25. Contextualizing The Learning Organization: Towards Differentiated Standards, Anders Ortenblad
Part VII: New and Alternative Perspectives on The Learning Organization
26. Becoming a Learning Organization: A Process-Philosophical Perspective, Robert Chia
27. The Learning Organization as a Practice of Becoming Human, Helen D. Armstrong
28. The Empire Strikes Back: How Learning Organization Scholars can Learn from the Critiques, Jacky Hong and Carry K.Y. Mak
29. An Antenarrative Amendment to Learning Organization: Theories to Avert Sixth Extinction, David M. Boje and Grace Ann Rosile
30. The Learning Organization: A Critical Analysis and Future Directions, Kenneth Molbjerg Jorgensen, Shih-wei Hsu, and Lone Hersted
Part VIII: The Learning Organization in the Future
31. The Future of the Learning Organization, Tom Boydell, Mike Pedler, and John Burgoyne
32. Suggestions for Future Research on the Learning Organization, Anders Ortenblad