The Learning Organization

Many companies, recognizing the strategic importance of learning, have strived to become learning organizations. A learning organization is a company that has an enhanced capacity to learn, adapt, and change. Training processes are carefully scrutinized and aligned with company goals. In a learning organization, training is seen as one part of a system designed to create human capital.

The essential features of a learning organization appear include the following. Note that the learning organization emphasizes that learning occurs not only at the individual employee level (as we traditionally think of learning), but also at the group and organizational levels. The learning organization emphasizes knowledge management.

A single training event or program is not likely to give a company a competitive advantage because explicit knowledge is well known and programs designed to teach it can be easily developed and imitated. However, tacit knowledge developed through experience and shared through interactions between employees is impossible to imitate and can provide companies with a competitive advantage.