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Mark Easterby-Smith1,2
The paper argues against attempts to create a single framework for understanding organizational learning. Relevant literature is reviewed from six disciplinary perspectives: psychology and OD; management science; sociology and organizational theory; strategy; production management; and cultural anthropology. It is argued that each discipline provides distinct contributions and conceptions of problems. Furthermore, a basic distinction between organizational learning and the new idea of the learning organization is noted. Whereas the former is discipline based and analytic, the latter is multidisciplinary and emphasizes action and the creation of an "ideal-type" of organization. Due to the diversity of purpose and perspective, it is suggested that it is better to consider organizational learning as a multidisciplinary field containing complementary contributions and research agendas.
KEY WORDS: organizational learning; learning organizations; knowledge creation.
INTRODUCTION
The literature on organizational learning has grown very rapidly in the last 5 years. For example, a bibliographic review by Crossan and Guatto (1996) shows that as many academic papers on the subject were published in 1993 as in the whole decade of the 1980s. In parallel with this growth authors frequently comment on the degree of fragmentation in the field, and have called for the development of a comprehensive theory of organizational learning (Shrivastava, 1983; Huber, 1991; Nicolini & Meznar, 1995).
In this paper, I argue that the creation of a comprehensive theory is an unrealistic aspiration, for three reasons. First, the bulk of the literature on organizational learning can best be understood from a limited number of disciplinary perspectives, and each of these has a distinct ontological view and consequently a bounded understanding of its dynamics and problematics. Second, I argue that there is a new tradition of literature on the learning organization which is largely distinct from literature on organizational learning. This new thread of literature, which is best characterized by Senge (1990) in the U.S. and by Pedler et al. (1989) in the U.K., contrasts with the established tradition in several ways. It has an action orientation, and is geared toward creating an ideal type, an organization in which learning is maximized. On the other hand, the literature on organizational learning is analytic and concentrates on understanding learning processes within organizational settings, without necesarily trying to change those...