Strategic Organizational Learning:
How Organizations Leverage Learning to Meet Strategic Challenges
(Forthcoming 2007, Butterworth-Heinemann)
By Martha A. Gephart and Victoria J. Marsick
Strategic organizational learning has become increasingly important in organizations that seek to leverage performance in support of strategy development/execution. Organizations must develop core capabilities that enable them to seek and use knowledge about changing environments to become more competitive/effective, to shift direction rapidly, and to proactively shape future environments. Knowledge is often distributed across global and/or decentralized operations, and resides both within the organization and its customers/suppliers/stakeholders. Internal alignment is needed to meet goals, but over-alignment can impede innovation and change.
Because strategic organizational learning often requires whole system learning and change, there is no one best or right way to leverage such learning. This leads to confusion about what strategic organizational learning means and how it can best be brought about. Different practices may lead to the same outcome and similar practices may lead to different outcomes. The underlying dynamics of such learning are key to success—not the simple adoption of one or other practice. These dynamics are the focus of this book.
In this book, we define and illustrate strategic organizational learning. We provide examples of how it has unfolded in different organizations. We also present Strategic Leverage Through Learning©, a model of strategic organizational learning and performance that includes supports for, and barriers to, successfully leveraging learning and performance to meet strategic goals. We present examples of how this model, and assessment instruments based on it, have been used. From these examples, we identify critical success factors for effective use of the model to leverage strategic learning.
The book will include examples from different organizations and settings—some from in-depth cases showcased in the first part of the book and others from cross-case analyses of mechanisms that leverage learning, including knowledge networks and communities of practice, executive education, and action learning. The book will showcase successes, problems and dilemmas as organizations try to leverage organizational learning to meet strategic challenges.
The book grew out of a study conducted in 2001-2002 entitled Strategic Organizational Learning: How Innovative Companies Use Learning to Address Business Challenges.