Organizational Learning Based Upon Individual Learning Theory

Literature on organizational learning was first coined as theories of organizational behavior within the field of management science (Cyert and March, 1963; March and Simon, 1958). These early contributions to the emerging field of organizational learning dealt with information processing and decision making in organizations. The purpose was to help organizations learn to adapt to changes in the environment and to provide prescriptive managerial techniques. About thirty years later, with the publication of Senge’s book, the counterpart of organizational learning, the Learning Organization, appeared as yet another way to create organizational learning (Senge, 1990). Judging from the many books and guidelines that have been published on how to develop a Learning Organization and pave the way for organizational learning, the Learning Organization and organizational learning have proved to be powerful models for organizational development (Argyris and Schön, 1996; Pedler and Aspinwall, 1998; Senge et al., 1999).

The learning theory in much of the literature on organizational learning and the Learning Organization is inspired by an individual-oriented psychological field. Enhancing information processing and decision making in organizations are seen as something that is done by individuals, and processes that can be enhanced by individuals’ learning. Individuals’ learning outcome can then, by way of individuals’ acting on behalf of an organization, be crystallized in organizational routines and values and become organizational learning. The idea is that individuals hold a mental model in their mind, which is an abstract representation of their actions. It is that mental model, which can be enhanced in order for individuals, and subsequently organizations, to enhance information processing and lead to better decision making in organizations.

Thus, learning is, according to individual learning theory, identical to the enhancement of individuals’ mental models, and happens when individuals acquire information and knowledge, which subsequently can guide their individual—and, thus, the organizational—behavior. The focus on mental modeling as the essence of learning in individual learning theory is the reason for naming individual learning theory ‘cognitive learning theory.’ Similarly, mental models may also be termed ‘cognitive structures.’ It is a focus on learning, which is directed towards what goes on in the minds of people.

A cognitive learning theory gives privilege to abstract, general, verbal, and conceptualized knowledge over and above the learning that derives from body and actions (Lave, 1988; Nicolini and Meznar, 1995). An example is when Senge talks about the importance of learning to think of organizations as systems, which is to learn ‘systems thinking’ in order to develop Learning Organizations (Senge, 1990). This is an understanding of organizational learning, which first coins the organization as an abstract entity, a ‘system,’ and then the organizational members should learn to relate to the system by thinking, in order to behave in adequate ways.

A system based understanding of organizations is composed of a predetermined set of elements that each has a different function in the rational constitution of the organization connecting to what we denote a functionalistic approach. For example, Leavitt (1965) presents five central elements in a system understanding of organizations that include social structure, participants or actors, goals, technologies, and the environment. In the understanding of organizations as systems, the focal point for organizational learning is to acquire explicit and abstract knowledge and integrate the acquired knowledge in organizational activities and routines. The knowledge acquiring process is done by the organizational members—who are viewed as given to the organization—on behalf of the organization and the goal is to optimize the organizational outputs. Thus, the basic maxim is to be knowledgeable about the system and for individual members of the system to be able to think of the organization as just that, a system (DiBella, Nevis, and Gould, 1996; Huber, 1991).

Organizational learning understood in light of individual learning theory is actually individual learning in organizations, which creates the problem of transferring individual learning outcome to that of the organization. The individual–organization split-up has been one of the major problems in the organizational learning literature that rests upon individual learning theory (Argyris and Schön, 1996; Mumford, 1991). One answer provided has been to view individuals as acting on behalf of the organization (Argyris and Schön, 1996; Senge, 1990). This view of the relation between individual and organization creates a conceptual separation between individuals and an organization. To use a metaphor, it is a relation resembling that between soup and bowl, the soup does not shape the bowl, and the bowl does not alter the substance of the soup. Thus, individual and organization, soup and bowl, ‘can be analytically separated and studied on their own without doing violence to the complexity of the situation’ (R. P. McDermott, 1993: 282).

In sum, in organizational learning literature viewed from the outpost of individual learning theory, learning is for individuals to become knowledgeable for the benefit of the enterprise. Learning comes about through individuals’ work with their cognitive structures and it is possible to analytically separate individuals and enterprise in an organization understood as a system. The acknowledged problem in organizational learning based upon individual learning theory is the individual–organization dissociation, that is, how to make individual learning outcome organizational.

Organizational learning that rests upon individual learning theory separates epistemology, to come to know about the world, from ontology, to act in and become part of the world. It is a split between learning and socialization, which indicates a possibility for individuals’ learning of particular content for the purpose of changing a system. The question is, however, on the one hand, is it possible to change systems through individual learning? And, on the other hand, is it possible to make this separation between learning something and being socialized into an enterprise? In the next section, social learning theories in organizational learning are explored. Neither of these comes without problems, because social learning theory has been formulated as a negation of individual learning theory in the organizational learning literature.