Learning Mechanisms are Responsible for Organizational Myopia - Coursework Example

Learning Mechanisms are Responsible for Organisational Myopia By (Module and number) Learning Mechanisms are Responsible for Organisational Myopia Organizations have always been a focus of studies as groups of people run the corporate world and the world economy. For the complex societal system to work, the organizations that move must improve and do their best to increase their productivity. In that case, it is important for their staffs to continuously study and learn. Learning can be gained in various ways, but many people believed that it is at its best when done through experience. That does not guarantee to be the only way to learn though. The ways of learning or the methods used to study and acquire skills are called learning mechanisms (Alishahi 2010, p. 27). It came from the two words wherein learning pertains to the increase of understanding regarding the surroundings while mechanisms are the ways or methods done. Once combined, a concept is formed about the certain behaviours and events are required to cater the deeper understanding of people (Oeijord 2003, p. 31). The organizations are then interested with that concept. As organizations are interested with learning, the paper would focus on that concept while providing the reasons and challenges on achieving that by groups as their ways of learning may lead to an organizational myopia. The discussion will flow from the definition of organizational learning going to the organizational myopia and learning mechanisms as its leading cause. Organizational learning then can be defined in various ways. For starters, organizational learning is all about acquiring the needed improvements of the staffs and the managers alike to boost the overall productivity of the group specifically the companies (Argote 1999). The organizations then must achieve its goals fully or at least improve themselves as to show that the bodies are learning. It can then be compared to individual learning but not fully. Individual learning is about the acquisition of abilities and knowledge while sharpening the skills of each person through various methods (Jonassen and Grabowski 1993, p. 3). Therefore it is partially involved in organizational learning but that is not enough for the learning of a group. Since organizations are constructed and patterned after an individual person, those have their own way of learning or cognitive abilities. They can show changes in behaviour by storing information, retrieving information and deep understanding (Bates 2011, p. 91). Those must be applied together with actions that are different from the past ones to get different results. It may be easy to say about how organizational learning works, but it has some difficulties, challenges and limitations. Various constructs must be analyzed with regards to organizational learning: “knowledge acquisition, information distribution, information interpretation, and organizational memory,” (Huber 1991, quoted in King 2009, p. 308). Knowledge acquisition then is done by conducting the whole process of obtaining information from other people and from the experts to create a big body of systemic knowledge (Kendal and Creen 2007, p. 89). In that process, knowledge is gathered and organized for the use of the organizations to improve its efficiency. After building the knowledge system, information distribution follows. It is the creation of programs on effective ways of sending and disseminating the information across the departments of the organizations (Letavec et. al. 2008, p. 100). The third step is information interpretation which involves the analysis and understanding of the delivered information within the scope of knowledge system (Santmire 2009, p. 66). The last stage then is organizational memory. It pertains to the documents of the organization and the reason for persistence of the organization to achieve its goals (Landoli and Zollo 2008, p. 57). Those for stages then are contained in organizational learning. The knowledge acquisition which is the first step in the process of organizational learning have various process under it that makes it effective as a major step. The acquisition then starts with the knowledge gathering at the start or pioneering stage of the organization. It is followed by experiential learning of the members of the group. The people there rely on learning by doing. The third part is through observation especially from the performance of top-notch organizations. It is then followed by gathering and obtaining sources of knowledge that the organization does not own yet. The whole acquisition then finishes with the internal and external search for knowledge especially the working environment and the productivity of the organization. Three of those sub processes in the acquisition of knowledge have studies already but they lack formality and synthesis (Huber 1991). As said that there were already numerous studies regarding the acquisition of knowledge and those researches showed how important gathering of information is. Various studies focused on the declarative and methodical approaches of knowledge acquisition, but not much focus is given to the connections especially human relationship as a major factor in obtaining information. A model is then proposed by a study made by Borgatti and Cross (2003) with regards to social network and its importance to knowledge acquisition and decision-making. The model is a formal one which considers the importance of the knowledge of other people, identifying what those people have in their minds, understanding the importance of timing in obtaining the information from the minds of those people and consider the economic factor or the cost of gaining the knowledge from those people. Borgatti and Cross (2003) then inferred that those considered factors affect the extent of looking for information and knowledge. The results showed how those factors truly control the ability to seek information and that the study was able to confirm that through two sites where the study were conducted. When it comes to the whole of organizational learning, there are some important limitations. Sometimes limitations are then overseen by people as they are in the state of confusion when it comes to experiential learning and the proper balance between the new knowledge development and the use of current abilities available to the organization. To cope up, the organizations usually simplify and specialize for the sake of managing the goals of learning. The same practices cause myopia in organizations like taking the time, space and failures for granted. In that case, being smart might help as those little imperfections require smaller expectations instead of being too high (Levinthal and March 1993). With those findings regarding organizational learning, it would help the group if the members learn through a balanced fashion and method and forget about too many expectations. Also connecting with other people is an additional advantage for the improvement in the learning in organizations and having a model to specifically study the importance of human relationship to knowledge acquisition. Having formal and integrative studies on organizational will also help to lessen the occurrences of organizational myopia. Bibliography Alishahi, A. (2011) Computational modeling of human language acquisition. USA, Morgan and Claypool. Argote, L. (1999) Organizational learning: creating, retaining, and transferring knowledge. USA, Khuwer Academic Publishers. Bates, M. (2011) Understanding information retrieval systems: management, types, and standards. USA, CBC Press. Borgatti S. and Cross R. (1993) A relational view of information seeking and learning in social networks. Management Science [Internet]. April, 49 (4), pp. 432-445. Available from: < http://linkscenter.org/papers/relational%20view%20Brogatti%20Cross%202003.pdf> [Accessed 1 April 2012]. Deijord, N. (2003) Why gould was wrong. USA, iUniverse. Huber, G.P. (1991) Organizational learning: the contributing processes and the literatures. Organizational Science [Internet]. March, 2 (1), pp. 88-115. Available from http://mgmt.iisc.ernet.in/~piyer/Knowledge_Management/Organizational%20Learning%20Contributing%20Processes%202%201%20Organization%20Science%201991.pdf> [Accessed 1 April 2012]. Jonnasen, D. and Grabowski, B. (1993) Handbook of individual differences, learning, and instruction. USA, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Kendal, S. and Creen, M. (2007) An introduction to knowledge engineering. London, Springer-Verlag. King, W. (2009) Knowledge management and organizational learning. USA, Springer. Landoli, L. and Zollo, G. (2008) Organizational cognition and learning: building systems for the learning organization. USA, Information Science Publishing. Letavec, C., Rollins, S. and Altwies, D. (2008) Program management professional (PgMP): a certification study guide with best practices for maximizing business results. USA, J. Ross Publishing. Levinthal D.A. and March J.G. (1993) The myopia of learning. Strategic Management Journal [Internet]. December, 93 (14), pp. 95-112. Available from: < http://web.ku.edu/~jleemgt/MGMT%20916/PDF/Levinthal1993SMJ.pdf> [Accessed 1 April 2012]. Santmire, M. (2009) Implementing tertiary-positive behavior supports in alternative schools for students with emotional and behavioral disorders. USA, ProQuest. Read More