Project Action Learning (PAL) Guidebook: Practical Learning in Organizations

This book presents the fundamental concepts of organizational learning (OL) and related topics. In addition, it discusses various factors that influence the success of, and readiness to adopt, OL. 

In the modern competitive market, companies are looking for ways to excel by focusing more on innovation and knowledge discovery. In response, the book presents a ready-to-use tool for driving OL, called Project Action Learning (PAL). The PAL framework helps teams effectively work on, and learn from, meaningful projects. In this regard, equal emphasis is placed on achieving the project outcome and the participants’ learning objectives. Moreover, the book offers a step-by-step guidebook on how PAL-driven OL can be achieved, making it a valuable asset for educators and practitioners alike. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Springer
• Release date: Aug 20, 2019
• ISBN: 9783030239978

Book preview

Part IFundamentals of Organizational Learning and Learning Organizations

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020

K. M. Law, K. B. Chuah (eds.)Project Action Learning (PAL) Guidebook: Practical Learning in Organizationshttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-23997-8_1

1. What Is Organizational Learning?

Kong Bieng Chuah¹   and Kris M. Y. Law²  

(1)

Department of System Engineering and Engineering Management, City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong

(2)

School of Engineering, Deakin University, Geelong, Australia

Kong Bieng Chuah

Email: [e-mail]

Kris M. Y. Law (Corresponding author)

Email: [e-mail]

Abstract

Organizational learning (OL) is an expansive and diverse field with influences that involves sociology, psychology, philosophy, business management, and many others disciplines. While there is no one definition to this concept, the concept of organizational learning is commonly described a process of developing, retaining, and transferring knowledge within an organization. This chapter provides an overview on the various notions of organizational learning, from the different theoretical perspectives. The association of OL and knowledge management (KM) is also discussed.

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Dr. Kong Bieng Chuah

is Associate Professor of Systems Engineering and Engineering Department, City University of Hong Kong. He is a core faculty member of the Engineering Doctorate, M.Sc. Engineering Management and B.Eng. Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management programmes. His current teaching and research focus on project management and project based organizational learning. He is a consultant in project management and organizational learning and conducts project management courses and workshops for industries. In his earlier years, Dr. Chuah was a mechanical engineer with expertise in engineering metrology and surface roughness characterisation. He advised on engineering measurement problems and calibration set-ups.

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Dr. Kris M. Y. Law

is currently the Associate Professor in Engineering Management and Education, in the School of Engineering, Deakin University, Australia. She also holds a Docentship (adjunct professorship) in the Department of Industrial Engineering and Management, Oulu University in Finland.

Dr. Law obtained her Ph.D. in Organization Learning and MPhil in Machining Processes as well a first degree in Industrial Engineering, at the City University of Hong Kong. She undertook a post-doctoral research scholarship in the National Taiwan University on a regional high-tech industry study and took up a visiting researcher position at the Graduate Institute of Industrial Engineering, National Taiwan University (2009–2011).

Her expertise lies in Organizational Learning and Development (OLD), Technological Innovation and Entrepreneurship (TIE), Engineering Education, and Smart Industrial Initiatives (SII). She has been invited as a visiting scholar in different countries, such as Taiwan, Thailand and Europe (Finland and Slovenia), and has been active as a professional OL consultant promoting project-based action learning (PAL) in high-tech organizations.

Her publications including books, book chapters and journal articles (SCI and SSCI indexed).

1.1 Organizational Learning as a Developmental Strategy

Business conditions of the nowadays market, are demanding due to the ever-challenging market competition and fast pace of technological advancement. The concept of OL and LO has been accepted by organizations keen on developing and creating an environment to support learning, especially the knowledge-oriented organizations (Lynn et al. 2000). Be it an individual or an organization, the ability to make good use of knowledge comes with sufficient level of understanding and experience. Such understanding and experience can only be brought about by a conscious process of learning and application. It is not surprising that many managers, entrepreneurs as well as researchers in the West have been paying increasing attention to the concept and importance of Organizational Learning (OL) and Learning Organization (LO).

Since the late 1980s, the concepts of organizational learning (OL) and learning organization (LO) has prospered and have been defined as the process of acquiring, distributing, integrating, and creating information and knowledge within an organization. Organizational development involves attitudes and mindset changes and the purpose of organizational learning is to adapt to changing environments, adjusting due to uncertain conditions, and improving efficiency.

Organization is a place where individuals gather, where a project team or hybrid project-team structure is usually adopted in an LO. The project-based structure is adopted by the whole company or specifically applied to certain units or groups within the organization, where team concept and team performance are highly valued and relied upon.

Team learning has been gaining importance as an OL approach, it has been well documented and extensively studied (Flood et al. 2001; Katzenbach and Smith 1993; Meyer 1994; Senge 1990; Teare et al. 2002; Poell and Van der Krogt 2003). Senge (1990) explained that organization or team performance improvement is a result of collective intelligence of an organization or a team, which exceeds the sum of intelligence of individuals.

1.2 Notions of Organizational Learning and Learning Organization

The origin of the concentrated study of organizational learning can be back to the late 1970s, when researchers studied OL from a psychological perspective. Key advances in this field include:

Cyert and March (1963) described the adaptation and routines of organizational learning;

Argyris (1978) developed the concepts of single-loop and double-loop learning;

Dutton and Thomas (1984) defined learning curves in organizations.

The study of OL, thereafter, has focused on different fields, including: collectivity of individual learning; processes or systems; culture or metaphor; knowledge management; continuous improvement. Since the late 80s in the 20th century, the concept of OL and LO has prospered and has been used in various fields, such as:

Organizational learning involves the process of acquiring, distributing, integrating, and creating information and knowledge within an organization (Dixon 1992).

Organizational learning involves attitudes and mindset changes (Smith 1999).

Organizational learning is to adapt to changing environments, adjusting under uncertain conditions, and improving efficiency successfully (Dodgson 1993).

Current literature on OL have different focuses, namely, learning motivation, collective or team learning; learning process or system; learning culture; knowledge management, organizational development and continuous improvement (Wang and Ahmed 2003). Besides the different focus areas, OL is also described as process-focusing where learning is an innate, ongoing process in organizations (Pedler and Aspinwall 1998; Law and Chuah 2015).

The bodies of knowledge involved in the scope of OL are of various perspectives (Fig. 1.1). These areas are raised from a series of ‘central’ What and How questions:

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Fig. 1.1

The body of knowledge in OL

1.

WHAT is OL?

2.

WHAT is OL process?

3.

WHAT are the factors influencing?

4.

HOW can OL be adopted or implemented?

To respond to the above central questions, various focuses in OL study are identified:

the cores constituting the definition of OL:

a.

the levels of learning

b.

levels of knowledge and the knowledge process

the processes of OL

the influencing factors

the learning approaches and facilitations.

1.2.1 Perspectives of Organizational Learning

Much about OL has been studied and written, during the last three decades, on specific subjects such as system dynamics (Senge 1990), action-based learning (Argyris and Schon 1978, 1996; Smith and O’Neil 2003) group process, personal creative process, and collective decision and action (Issacs 1993).

Some researchers believed that OL is a natural tendency of an organization fighting to survive (Kim 1993). Other thought that it is not only a form of learning or just a prescribed set of processes in the theory of levels of learning in organizations, but rather a philosophy of organizational development (Argyris and Schon 1996).

Over the years, some theories of OL became conceptually more complex and others more specialized. Like,

Senge (1990), who considers OL from a system perspective,

Nonaka (1994) focuses on the interchange of knowledge in organizations.

On the other hand, some authors prescribe OL as existing processes involving activities and means that organizations use to organize knowledge with the expectation of a higher level of its usage that lead to greater competitiveness (Fulmer et al. 1998; Pemberton et al. 2001).

For these authors, OL is a process by which individuals accumulate and extend knowledge based on their past experiences and their perceptions, share, and propagate it in ways that help an organization to develop (Roth and Kleiner 1998; Lynn et al. 2000; Garratt 1999; Atul and Glen 2001; Örtenblad 2004).

1.2.2 Multi-disciplinary Approach of Organizational Learning

There is a wide range of beliefs of thinking about what OL is, how it occurs, and how it is applied and how it influences organization development. Organizational learning is an expansive and diverse field with influences on sociology, psychology, philosophy, business management, and many others disciplines. There is no overarching framework, which cohesively pulls together all theoretical advances into a unified theory. A multi-disciplinary approach is therefore an appropriate way to study the complexity of OL.

Organizational learning (OL) is described as a conscious organizational goal driven process, with individuals as the learning agents for the organization. A predominant view of OL is the ‘double loop’ learning concept, which has been shaped by several advances in social sciences and system theories (Argyris and Schon 1978). The essential feature of this primary learning approach was the notion of envisioning. Great emphasis was put on describing the human process of action learning through experience via various feedback mechanisms interacting with everyone’s sets of beliefs.

The organizational learning theory is commonly described a process of developing, retaining, and transferring knowledge within an organization. One the most influential concepts in the organizational learning theory is the notion that we learn from our mistakes. This idea was developed by Chris Argyris and Donald Schon, who suggested that learning takes place through the process of detecting and correcting errors. From this perspective, organizational learning occurs as a result of experience and an organization is said to have learned from an experience when there is a change in the organization’s behaviour or performance.

The robust use of ideas emanated from system thinking, was clearly expounded in Senge’s five disciplines (Senge 1990). Senge proposed five core disciplines for LO, for which he claimed the five disciplines represents a lifelong body of study and practice for individuals and teams in organizations (Senge 1992).

1.

Personal Mastery

This discipline of aspiration involves formulating a coherent picture of the results people most desire to gain as individuals (their personal vision), alongside a realistic assessment of the current state of their lives today (their current reality). Learning to cultivate the tension between vision and reality (represented in this icon by the rubber band) can expand people’s capacity to make better choices, and to achieve more of the results that they have chosen.

2.

Mental Models

This discipline of reflection and inquiry skills is focused around developing awareness of the attitudes and perceptions that influence thought and interaction. By continually reflecting upon, talking about, and reconsidering these internal pictures of the world, people can gain more capability in governing their actions and