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Jennifer Rowley: Librarian at the School of Management and Social Sciences, Edge Hill University College, Ormskirk, Lancashire, UK
What is a learning organisation?
Pedler et al. (1988) proposed the following definition of a learning company:"
An organization which facilitates the learning of all its members and continuously transforms itself."
This definition has two important elements: individual learning; and organizational learning and transformation.
A learning organization concerns itself with individual learning, but this alone is not sufficient. Individual learning must be harnessed to create organizational learning. Pedler et al. (1988) elaborate further on the concept of a learning organization:"
A learning organization is one which:
- has a climate in which individual members are encouraged to learn and to develop their full potential;
- extends this learning culture to include customers, suppliers and other significant stakeholders;
- makes human resource development strategy central to business policy;
- is in a continuous process of organizational transformation."
The purpose of organizational transformation is to enable the organization to search for new ideas, new problems and new opportunities for learning from which competitive advantage can be culled in an increasingly competitive world. The world is changing, markets are changing, and political and legal contexts shift. In addition, information technology increases the speed of communication which has an impact on the ability of organizations to monitor and respond to their customer's requirements. Organizations and their employees must know how to change. According to Salaman and Butler (1994):"
...in order to change appropriately they must be able to analyse themselves, their processes, structures and their environments, be able to identify preferred and appropriate responses, and be able to implement them."
In other words, organizations must be able to learn and to learn from their learning. Without this ability organizations will not be able to exercise appropriate choice in respect of structure, process, culture, product, and sooner or later they will fail.
Most libraries face a particular challenge in this respect since they are subject to the twin demands of public service and marketplace economics. Both political and business agendas shape the environment in which information providers operate. The relationship between economy, culture and values is reciprocal for most library services. Effective library and information services contribute to the regional and national...