To come of age: The antecedents of organizational learning

The twin ideas of organizational learning and the learning organization hav e recently fired the imagination of many academics, consultants and practis ing managers. There is, however, a pressing need for empirical research to examine the origins and development of these closely related concepts. The qualitative research underpinning this paper was conducted over a three-yea r period (1994-97) and involved detailed examination of organizational lear ning aspirations and practices within the UK operations of five major manuf acturing companies. Sixty-six interviewees were classified into three group s - strategy, human resources, and research and development - and the data gathered were analysed using the conceptually clustered matrix technique. T his led to the identification of a set of six antecedents which together ex plain the rise to prominence of organizational learning. These six antecede nts are: the shift in the relative importance of factors of production away from capital towards labour, particularly intellectual labour; the ever mo re rapid pace of change in the business environment; widespread acceptance of knowledge as a prime source of competitive advantage; the greater demand s being placed on all businesses by customers; increasing dissatisfaction, among managers and employees, with the traditional, command-and-control, ma nagement paradigm; and the intensely competitive nature of global business. A model is unfolded which explains the ready acceptance and rise to promin ence of the organizational learning phenomenon. A valuable feature of the m odel is that it demonstrates the interplay of thoughts and feelings between management practitioners and theorists.